F for Fake
Svensk Filmindustri (SF) | Release Date: September 27, 1975 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Slant MagazineJosh Vasquez
F for Fake is one of the more wistfully humorous of Welles’s wrestlings with reality. Roguishly comic yet profoundly bittersweet and edited in seizures with a deliberate, manic grace, the film represents the most flamboyant of its director’s magical acts, with Welles himself acting on screen as the narrator/conjuror, pulling the curtain back again and again, each time only to reveal another stage and another curtain in a series of dizzyingly self-reflexive meditations on fakery. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
A loving tribute to chicanery, deception, misdirection, scoundrels, sleight of hand, con artistry, dishonesty, and flimflammery in all its myriad guises. It is, in other words, a valentine to filmmaking in general, and its larger-than-life creator in particular. Read full review
100
CineVueChristopher Machell
F for Fake is a sometimes maddening, always brilliant disruption of the conventional documentary. Read full review
100
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
For all its nods, winks and witty asides, it’s a richly personal work, picking over the questions every creative artist must eventually ask: Am I ‘for real’? Does it matter? And what is all this work worth, anyway? Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleSpencer Parsons
A one-of-a-kind essay centered on art forgery and hoaxes that is built from spare parts, questionable coverage, obvious overdubbing, and outright bluff, 'F for Fake' is a masterwork most often hailed for its hijacking of documentary form to tease cinema's capacity for making truth out of bullshit Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
One of the most inventive and invigorating nonfiction features ever made. Read full review
100
The New YorkerRichard Brody
A masterwork of montage, a breathlessly frenzied collage of disparate sources that conjure the unholy tempest of a great man and a great mind at full gallop. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie Collin
Thirty-nine years on, it’s as vivacious as ever. Read full review
90
The New York TimesVincent Canby
A charming, witty meditation upon fakery, forgery, swindling and art, a movie that may itself be its own Exhibit A. Read full review
90
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
Orson Welles has reworked the docu material of Francois Reichenbach on noted art forger Elmyr De Houry, made for TV about 1968, into an intriguing, enjoyable look at illusion in general and his own, Clifford Irving’s and De Houry’s dealing with it in particular. Read full review
80
EmpireStaff (Not Credited)
Entertaining as hell. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw
F for Fake is a minor work in some ways, but there is fascination and poignancy in seeing Welles's elegant retreat into this hall of mirrors. Read full review
80
The DissolveKeith Phipps
The film plays like the work of a creator trying to grapple with the big issues before the clock runs out. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin Harley
The greatest trick he pulls is making you think he’s not genuine: beneath befuddling, bracing digressions on Picasso, Howard Hughes, biography, confidence tricks, growing beards and “girl-watching” lies a searching interrogation of ideas of authorship. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Alternately superficial and profound, the film also enlists the services of Oja Kodar, Welles's principal collaborator after the late 60s, as actor, erotic spectacle, and cowriter, and briefer appearances by many other Welles cohorts. Michel Legrand supplied the wonderful score. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Philip French
At times T for tedious and P for pretentious, the film remains essential viewing for admirers of the great cineaste and showman. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
F For Fake is minor Welles, the master idly tuning his instrument while the concert seems never to start again. But it's engaging and fun, and it's astonishing how easily Welles spins a movie out of next to nothing. Read full review
50
Washington PostGary Arnold
The result is a curios, unsatisfactory pastiche of documentary tidbits acquired from Reichenbach and speculative filler supplied by Welles himself, who appears prowling around in his Felliniesque hat and cape, performing a couple of magic tricks and mostly pontificating about himself, Hughes, Irving, de Hory and the nature of art and illusion in the editing room or a the dinner table. Read full review
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