Cave of Forgotten Dreams
IFC Films | Release Date: April 29, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierApr 29, 2011
Director Werner Herzog's latest cinematic mind trip blows you away with its beauty. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 29, 2011
These paintings speak to us; they both compress and elongate time. In Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog is reaching for ways to comprehend what he imagines to be the emblems of the birth of the modern soul. Read full review
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirApr 29, 2011
My first thought was: It's a temple, a church, a cathedral -- maybe the first one ever built -- and the better-known ones in Rome and Jerusalem and Istanbul are just later versions of the same thing. Read full review
100
SlateDana StevensApr 29, 2011
If you're interested in the history of the human race-if you're a member of the human race-you owe it to yourself to see this movie. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 28, 2011
The 3-D is sometimes less than transporting, and the chanting voices in the composer Ernst Reijseger's new-agey score tended to remind me of my last spa massage. Yet what a small price to pay for such time traveling! Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 28, 2011
It's a privilege and a pleasure to be present in a sacred space where the human and the mystical effortlessly intertwine, and we are in Werner Herzog's debt for that great gift. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 28, 2011
The cave exists to provoke awe in mere mortals. The camera pauses at one point to take in a stalagmite reaching up to touch, nearly, a stalactite and the inevitable association is with Michelangelo's Adam and the hand of God. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnApr 29, 2011
Herzog naturally plays up the enigma at hand with epic grandeur, occasionally overdoing it but usually hitting the mark. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumApr 27, 2011
This truly intimate film invites viewers to commune as well and feel a profound living connection with fellow humans of 30,000 years ago. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMay 7, 2011
The eye must travel not merely through the earth's crust but backward in time, as well. Indeed, you could argue that Herzog has succeeded in making the world's first movie in 4-D. [2 May 2011, p. 88]
90
MovielineStephanie ZacharekApr 28, 2011
Cave of Forgotten Dreams is compelling, sometimes in a hypnotic, sleepy-bye way. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 28, 2011
Go underground with magic glasses on your nose and you won't regret it. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttApr 25, 2011
To call this movie fascinating is akin to calling the Grand Canyon large. Read full review
90
VarietyJustin ChangApr 25, 2011
Filtering the world's oldest paintings through the latest in cinematic technology, Werner Herzog delivers a one-of-a-kind art-history lesson in Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen ColeJul 7, 2011
It is our tour guide that makes Cave of Forgotten Dreams an often thrilling experience. His producer, Erik Nelson, has joked Herzog is the first filmmaker to use 3-D for good, instead of evil. There is no question that the technology enhances our visit, giving perspective and shape to the jagged Chauvet Cave – an open mouth the size of a football field. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreJun 5, 2011
If you're looking for a filmmaker to document, for all of humanity, "one of the greatest discoveries in the history of human culture," the great Werner Herzog is your guy. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 19, 2011
He (Herzog) emerged with a breathtaking tour of art that, in its formal sophistication, dynamism and rhythmic lines, looks as bold and new as Cezanne's work must have looked in the 1860s. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 6, 2011
Imagine an opulent movie palace that was 30,000 years old, with posters preserved on the curving walls and the bones of the Stone Age patrons peacefully sleeping in the fairy dust. That's essentially what archeologists found in a French canyon in 1994 and what Werner Herzog brings back to life in the extraordinary documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 5, 2011
And how can you not reflect about time, and change, and physical and spiritual being, when confronted with such a stunning visual record of human existence? Read full review
88
New York PostLou LumenickApr 29, 2011
As much a study of prehistoric art as archaeology, this documentary brings in experts to speculate about the mysterious artists who made these paintings, some quite elaborate and others intriguingly abstract. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 27, 2011
Spellbinding. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevyMay 6, 2011
It is, in a way, the first glimpse of the cinema, right there at the dawn of humankind. And it is utterly remarkable to see. Read full review
80
TimeRichard CorlissMay 2, 2011
An enthralled and mostly enthralling guided tour of what Herzog describes as "one of the greatest art discoveries in the history of human culture." Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderBen SachsApr 28, 2011
The paintings are extraordinary and the 3-D cinematography invites the viewer to get lost in every brushstroke. This is one of the few films to use the format for intellectual, even philosophical ends: the added depth parallels the deeper understanding of humanity that the paintings inspire. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinApr 25, 2011
Cave of Forgotten Dreams is sometimes frozen by Herzog's awe. But it's hard not to love him for always trying to look beyond the surface of things, to find a common chord in the landscape of dreams. Read full review
80
EmpireAdam SmithApr 25, 2011
A typically quixotic documentary in which great unknown artists from 35,000 years ago collaborate with one in 2011. Profound, mysterious and utterly absorbing. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMay 19, 2011
Definitely catch this movie in its 3-D iteration, as Herzog practically schools filmmakers in the technique's proper use. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoMay 5, 2011
Art history lessons don't get much better: Cave of Forgotten Dreams presents the world's oldest paintings captured by one of film's great visionaries. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisMay 5, 2011
Cinema's greatest caveman meets his ancestors. For us, it's a reassurance: The creative process is astonishingly old and its fruits still surprisingly fresh. Read full review
70
NPRJeannette CatsoulisApr 29, 2011
With its whispery conversations, sepulchral atmosphere and soothing play of light and shadow, Cave of Forgotten Dreams is probably best enjoyed in a chemically enhanced state of mind. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazineJohn P. McCarthyApr 25, 2011
With his (Herzog) idiosyncratic blend of serendipity, bluntness and mischievous irony, he's able to get at deep questions like no other documentarian. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasApr 28, 2011
In spite of some thoughtful-and occasionally just bizarre-rumination on what the marvels of Chaumet really signify, Cave Of Forgotten Dreams often feels as stifling as the place it explores, rather than the sensual odyssey its evocative title suggests. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 26, 2011
Cave of Forgotten Dreams feels stuck in a middling zone of too much conjecture and not enough scholarship. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJ. HobermanApr 26, 2011
For better or worse, the movie does for Chauvet what Baudrillard complained an on-site replica did for Lascaux-render the real thing false. Read full review
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