The movie star who embodied the ideals of a nation hungry for myth and then became one of the prime creators and promoters of that myth, Leni Riefenstahl is the most fascinating and weirdly engaging monster ever recorded on film.

| Feb 29, 2024

This documentary should prove as fascinating to armchair psychologists as it is to film enthusiasts.

| Apr 19, 2022

... it is her unforgettable and, for many, unforgivable achievements in behalf of Hitler that give the program its force.

| Dec 9, 2017

A riveting docu about the controversial filmmaker who made some great propaganda art for Hitler

| Original Score: B | Jul 25, 2011

Overlong examination of the life of an enigmatic, willful, disengenuous, fascinating, influential and enormously gifted filmmaker.

| Original Score: B | Mar 19, 2009

Fascinating documentary about controversial director Len Riefenstahl.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 27, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 13, 2007

A riveting and encyclopaedic biography of an extraordinary woman. But it also poses heavy questions. Can art ever be isolated from its political context? Are Riefenstahl's claims about her political innocence valid?

| Mar 14, 2007

Mueller's dialectical approach allows him to expose many half-truths (and a few outright lies) by adducing contrary evidence; by the film's end, Riefenstahl's apologia emerges clearly as an elaborate mythification of self and history.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 14, 2007

This is more often self-portrait than portrait; like Hitler in Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, she's presented as a fully formed deity without family background or ideology save a reverence for beauty and strength.

| Mar 14, 2007

Sometimes clunky but consistently fascinating.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 30, 2004

Riefenstahl masterfully dissects her own Triumph of the Will and forcefully denies that artists bear any special political responsibility.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 22, 2004

A wonderful, fascinating documentary on the infamous German director, possibly the greatest female filmmaker in history.

| Feb 27, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 22, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 26, 2002

... essential viewing ... to understand Riefenstahl or for anyone curious about how art and politics come out when on a collision course

| Original Score: A- | May 10, 2002

This complex existence is the subject of writer/director Ray Mueller's engrossing documentary.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 27, 2001

... really experience her energy and her drive for cinematic perfection.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000