Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's hypnotic look at Montana mountaintop shepherding is Wiseman-esque in its observant, non-intrusive style.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 13, 2020

Though the tale of these wry, hard-bitten lives is told with neither music nor a narrating voice, the final effect is not to numb or confound the viewer but, rather, to cast a spell.

| May 26, 2020

Sweetgrass' strength comes in its collection of indelible images.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 12, 2019

Its simple, unassuming beauty makes for a quietly engrossing ode the the shimmering mystique of the west.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 5, 2019

Strange to relate that one of the year's most striking cinematic experiences so far is a documentary starring 3,000 sheep.

| Jul 6, 2018

Whatever one decides, [director Lucien] Castaing-Taylor deserves a great deal of respect for documenting a dying tradition.

| Mar 8, 2018

[The directors] portray something indelible by capturing the rancher's old-hand ways.

| Sep 24, 2014

The talk is sheep. And normally, I'd say baa humbug to sitting down with lambs for 90 minutes. But any apprehension. abates under the power of a documentary that's as beautiful as it is informative.

| Original Score: B+ | May 25, 2013

As it progresses it begins to strike a subtly elegiac, unsentimental tone...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 13, 2011

Unadorned by narrative or score, it's an unsentimental portrayal of a fading way of life and the peaceful creatures under its charge.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 28, 2011

A tenaciously observed and a quietly absorbing ethnography about a pair of shepherds leading some 3,000 sheep on a 150-mile journey up into Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains for summer pasture.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 26, 2011

The images, including sheep on the move up near vertical hills, are remarkable, the landscape spectacular, the unsentimental account of back-breaking, backside-aching work impressive.

| Apr 23, 2011

If Avatar was last year's best-looking film, 2011's award may well go to a documentary shot for small change concerning sheep. No, really.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 22, 2011

This beautiful and hypnotic documentary shows the agony and the ecstasy of herding sheep up into Montana's Beartooth mountains for the summer pasture.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2011

It would be foolish not to experience this film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2011

I have no doubt that, come the end of the year, Sweetgrass will be on the "10 Best" lists. It is that memorable for pictorial, cultural and even moral reasons.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2011

Sweetgrass is probably the definition of niche, but one dedicated to some of the highest ideals of film: it brings us information from a place we've never been, and with a rapturous innocence.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 20, 2011

The movie is decidedly no frills, and it both lives and dies by this strict adherence to its protocol.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 2, 2011

A documentary of uncommon elegance and abstract expression... What always impresses about the movie is its here-and-nowness.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Jan 16, 2011

Sweetgrass is a film of record about the American West. It documents, pays tribute to a fast-fading way of life. You want 'True Grit?' This is it!

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 16, 2010