...a stunning work...

| Jul 8, 2020

The lack of something unifying everything together thematically holds National Gallery back from becoming something truly excellent.

| Original Score: 7.5/10 | Jun 8, 2019

There is no explanation for this documentary, no obvious goals, nor a narrator to guide us. We just watch and listen. Also, National Gallery is Wiseman's most beautiful documentary since La Danse,

| Aug 28, 2018

Some of the film's most fascinating moments pay tribute to the gallery's technical prowess and craftsmanship.

| Aug 27, 2018

Wiseman's fly-on-the-wall style is the perfect formal approach to cut through the surface of pretence that dominates any kind of major institution's vision of itself, and it is this fascination with institutions that has marked Wiseman's lengthy career.

| Aug 25, 2018

Wiseman does what he does best: creates a holistic sense of a place as an organic habitat rather than a mere organization.

| Sep 30, 2017

As National Gallery/ will show, paintings can communicate many things to many different people, and this latest institution makes for a unique look at the role of art in public life.

| Original Score: B | Jun 6, 2016

National Gallery is a snooty version of those BBC fly-on-the -wall series such as Airport.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 22, 2015

The film upholds the belief that the commonalities of self-expression, storytelling, and insightful observation reverberate through time.

| Aug 3, 2015

To say Frederick Wiseman makes observational documentaries is like saying Alfred Hitchcock made thrillers -- accurate, but not the heart of the matter.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 6, 2015

At three hours, the result is long, but perhaps less exhausting than a visit to the actual gallery, because of how thoroughly the mind is engaged even as the senses are saturated.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 5, 2015

We're used to documentaries having a pedagogical or activist itinerary, but Wiseman's have become fastidiously unpedantic -- his simple Terence-like interest in what other human beings do and how they do it is more than enough.

| Feb 4, 2015

This is a love letter to the National Gallery which beguiles like a visual tone poem.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 16, 2015

The first of many pleasant surprises in National Gallery... is the unobstructed view afforded to paintings that now seem almost unrecognisable without a pair of gangly, backpacked foreign exchange students locking lips in front of them.

| Jan 9, 2015

The trick with this kind of subtle, fly-on-the-wall film-making is gradually to change our preconceptions about the subject.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2015

Frederick Wiseman's fascinating and uplifting documentary takes us into the heart of London's National Gallery, showing us everything from the painstaking work of frame-makers to heated boardroom meetings and even dance performances.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2015

An intriguing and valuable record.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2015

A mesmerising look at the great gallery at work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2015

One of cinema's Old Masters returns with this poetic and profound dissection of art and storytelling.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 8, 2015

The more you know, the more you want to stampede to the museum to see these works in person.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 5, 2015