Popular reviews

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  Review by k(arst)en ★★★★½ 17

  There’s a certain haziness to the films of Jim Jarmusch that I’ve come to expect from my limited experience with his work. That haziness is usually broken up with a sense of wit that grounds the film out of necessity for the narrative.

  But in Dead Man, a film widely regarded as his masterpiece, that haziness is never interrupted, if anything it subtly progresses into a state of tedium. It explores Western culture through a perspective somewhere between life and death, a perspective indescribable but clearly understood by Jarmusch.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 5

  Coming to terms with living in a world where everyone is already dead. If I had to pick a vibe to slowly, existentially deteriorate to over the course of a few days it would definitely be dreamy b&w Robby Müller western images and moody Neil Young electric guitar strumming.

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  Review by Dragonknight ★★★★ 4

  Film #54 of Project 90

  ”Stupid fucking white man.”

  Dead Man is the perfect example of a movie that takes a classic genre, turns it upside down and then gives you something charmingly fresh and ecstatic, Jim Jarmusch throws away all the rules of the Western genre, brings his own themes and his own style to the Wild West and gives us a unique and irreplaceable experience. His hero is not an icon of valor, he is not the most good looking man on planet, he is not the trying to prove anything to anyone, this is a just personal journey for Jarmusch’s hero, a life changing journey of self-discovery. This is where Dostoevsky meets John Ford.

  Dead Man is…

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  Review by Simone ★★½ 11

  I thought long and hard about this one, much more than I normally do about films I didn't enjoy… so I might be lying to myself. Dead Man is brimming with style and mystery, but the point of it all is so obfuscated that it ends up feeling quite empty. Even though I found very little to connect to, I'll gladly admit that it's wonderful to look at and it's extremely original. The creativity on display here cannot be overstated.

  Dead Man takes place in the western part of the United States during the late 1800's. It stars a young and slight Johnny Depp as a character named William Blake, not to be confused with the famous writer. After he…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½ 4

  Another Jarmusch pursuit of belonging in hyper-specific cultural authenticity and shared experience, this time with a white man getting a last look at the natural world as he goes west to die while "civilization" kills and eats its way there, intending to be reborn and already too late.

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  Review by tru ★★★★★

  “nobody, i don’t smoke.”

  beautiful brilliant poetic film. and that neil young score makes it all the much better.

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  Review by Ryne Walley ★★★★★

  "I'm not dead. Am I?"

  The effect of Dead Man is almost beyond words. Part existential nightmare, part surrealist elegy, Jim Jarmusch's all-star "Psychedelic Western" is a transcendent odyssey through a vanishing frontier littered with the veiled tombstones of forgotten souls and destined ends. The phantasmagorical singularity of the tale is boundless, as is its unkempt and pragmatic cruelty. A metaphysical myth both unexpectedly refined and unquestionably abrasive, one underscored by the thunderous, haunting orchestrations of Neil Young.

  A piece of pure poetry. Perplexing, yes, but wholly affecting and tremendously crafted.

  "That weapon will replace your tongue. You will learn to speak through it. And your poetry will now be written with blood."

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  Review by Brianna

  the ultimate cool guy film

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★★

  A vision of the West as a killing field, where the only true poetry of its wide vistas and supposed freedom is the apocalyptic chaos of Blake and where even that is subject to routine mockery by an indigenous man who understands white culture far better than actual whites.

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★ 44

  “Dead Man” plays less like a cinematic narrative, and more like a acid-fuelled jam session in monochrome. 

  Dang guys, I know this is high art from Jim Jarmusch; one of the most interesting American directors out there today. But it also seems like a movie that my ex-boyfriend would put on while he did peyote. 

  “Dead Man,” a 19th century Western about an accountant who embarks on a spiritual odyssey with the help of a Native American named Nobody, is a colossal act of ambition by Jarmusch. 

  With minimal dialogue, and an improvised score by Neil Young piped in over most of its runtime, “Dead Man” is a radical attempt to redefine the Western. The thing is - Jarmusch already…

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  Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★★ 3

  Every bit as good a revisionist western as they can get, but Dead Man also stands out for being one of the most immensely well-researched and detailed films ever made within the genre to the representation of Native American culture.

  While Jarmusch can go on about with subverting many tropes one would expect from the prototypical western film as he can in Dead Man, there's still something all the more delightful about how surreal his approach to the genre is. Yet with this being a film all about pondering the meaning of mortality in the form of a man's journey through the spiritual world after a near death experience, it can only get all the more disorienting from there -…

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★★

  Jarmusch elaborates on life and death through an anti-western masterpiece, containing nearly the allegorical degree of a symbolic Bergman magnum opus. Magnificent contribution for the development of modern cinema.

  96/100