If failure is the greatest teacher, then Peter Medak has earned his doctorate with The Ghost of Peter Sellers.

| Feb 7, 2024

...Films about film-making are often vain this works because it’s so painfully honest; to rephrase Billy Wilder, the film-makers start out wanting to make a great film, and by halfway, were delighted to think they’d have any kind of film at all.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 23, 2024

This documentary serves as a fascinating, extended therapy session for director Peter Medak, who recounts the troubled production of his film "Ghost in the Noonday Sun," a pirate comedy starring Peter Sellers.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Nov 27, 2020

Because the documentary omits that Ghost in the Noonday Sun was released (just not in cinemas, as [Peter] Medak had hoped) ... it's just another example of how Medak has a 'poor me' attitude that is unrelenting and ultimately very annoying.

| Jul 23, 2020

Here director Peter Medek pulls back the curtains on the behind the scenes of why his film with such a talent was a disaster. The short answer would be the man himself, Peter Sellers, and the fact that he was a first class ass.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 13, 2020

One hopes Medak found some sort of closure here. The whole enterprise does suggest some sort of expensive public therapy session for which we, the audience, have helped pay for. But you can't help but like Medak...

| Jul 13, 2020

A useful way to consider both the brilliance of Sellers and the damage he wrought, as well as demonstrating the ludicrous leeway granted to celebrities and the ways that obvious warning signs of possible mental illness often went unheeded.

| Jul 13, 2020

This is an extraordinary documentary. It's more of a personal memoir of a sort.

| Jul 9, 2020

It's a really interesting spin on that subgenre of documentary about films that never got made... Because it's being directed by the person who tried to make the original movie, it adds an interesting layer.

| Jul 9, 2020

Ghost Of Peter Sellers is replete with the magic it might have had. Whimsical and agonised, tragic and hilarious, it's a must-see warning for all would-be filmmakers and a poignant portrait of a moment in film history.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 29, 2020

The late comedian's impudent specter looms large, but this doc is more focused on Medak's self-reflection about a catastrophic professional failure that clearly still stings.

| Original Score: 3.25/5 | Jun 28, 2020

A documentary about the making of one of the worst movies of its time, and maybe all time.

| Jun 27, 2020

Especially for film buffs, it will certainly be fascinating, but also strangely moving in what it reveals about both Sellers and Medak.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 26, 2020

Medak opens old wounds to discuss the film that almost ruined his career 47 years ago and his wonderful relationship with Peter Sellers. Fascinating.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 25, 2020

Medak finds a way to offer some true sentiment and emotional insight into his tenuous relationship with Sellers.

| Jun 24, 2020

Movie junkies, rejoice. Director Peter Medak has made an instructive and nightmarishly funny documentary about how actor Peter Sellers drove him crazy and nearly trashed his career.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 23, 2020

In the grand tradition of "Jodoworsky's Dune" and "Lost in La Mancha," the lighthearted behind-the-scenes documentary recounts a tortuous production and the fascinating ways in which it went awry from every possible direction.

| Original Score: B | Jun 23, 2020

A documentary that deserves to be studied just as much as Kurosawa or Godard in film school. As a negative example, it examines a 1974 Peter Sellers comedy as a textbook example of what to avoid.

| Jun 23, 2020

The Ghost of Peter Sellers is an enthralling documentary that offers insights into the filmmaking experience and how a person's actions have ripple effects that last long after they have passed on.

| Jun 23, 2020

Anyone with an interest in crazy, outrageous making-of stories will lap this film up.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 23, 2020