The overall effect is bittersweet and profoundly inspiring: as with the mirrors she places in front of the tide in the film's first scene, she’s showing us it’s possible to face the inescapable with a twinkle in your eye.

| Original Score: 90/100 | Aug 12, 2023

Just about the most unusual and inventive biopic one could ever hope to see.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 6, 2020

For all its melancholy and its profound awareness of mortality, The Beaches of Agnès is one of the jolliest, more life-affirming self-portraits in recent cinema.

| Jul 6, 2018

A wonderful portrait of a full life - smart, touching, sometimes unabashedly silly...

| May 17, 2018

In The Beaches of Agnes, life and cinema share the same space."

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 4, 2017

This film is a great introduction to the work of an artist well worth discovering.

| Oct 7, 2016

Varda, free from fear and shame, turns her tale of a life lived in art into a work of art in its own right, and one of her best-a rapturous tribute to life itself.

| Apr 25, 2016

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Inventive look at Varda's life, films, photos and art.

| Jan 7, 2011

We should all be so lucky to have the chance to make movies about our own lives when we're much older; and as one of the lucky ones, Varda wastes no opportunity to provide a fun, humble, and shining entry.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Apr 1, 2010

The uplifting meandering piece on the likable eccentric filmmaker, Varda, is self-reflective, poignant and heartfelt.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 3, 2010

...[Varda proceeds] diagonally and discursively through her life and work while intermingling clips from her films, archival footage, and tongue-in-cheek reenactments...

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 30, 2010

As evidenced in The Beaches of Agnès, Varda is too venerable to be hip -- and too wholly alive to be venerated.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 28, 2010

The Beaches of Agnes is a work of delightful contradictions from a filmmaker who has always played by her own rules.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 18, 2009

You might not be able to write a book report on Varda after seeing her movie, but you do feel like you've spent a long, leisurely afternoon with her.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 11, 2009

Filmmakers don't usually do documentaries about themselves, but Agnes Varda's The Beaches of Agnes is good enough to start a trend.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 30, 2009

It's a unique, funny recollection of a life, through memories and moments.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 29, 2009

A puckish, moving and wonderfully eccentric tour through her life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 4, 2009

A deftly assembled, wry and touching self-portrait of Agnès Varda as both a filmmaker and an endearing, indomitable spirit.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 4, 2009