Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
Greenwich Entertainment | Release Date: March 24, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyOwen GleibermanMar 23, 2023
Every so often, you’ll see a portrait-of-the-artist documentary that’s so beautifully made, about a figure of such unique fascination, whose art is so perfectly showcased by the documentary format, that when it’s over you can’t believe the film hadn’t existed until now. It feels, in its way, essential. Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV is like that. Read full review
90
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganMar 23, 2023
There’s a great deal of charm and humour to Paik’s work, and to this film, but it’s anchored by his perceptiveness and ability to contemplate weighty themes – and, yes, to anticipate the future. Read full review
83
Original-CinJim SlotekMar 29, 2023
Amanda Kim’s admiring documentary Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, makes a case that Paik may not have merely been one of the most influential of the avant garde, he may have been one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century - period, one who invented a new visual canvas. Read full review
83
The Film StageJohn FinkMar 23, 2023
Ambitious, accessible, and comprehensive, Kim’s film is a thoroughly entertaining introduction to Paik, filled with the same joy and curiosity as his work. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeMay 21, 2023
This very enjoyable film explores his extensive body of work, much of it daringly ahead of its time; it was Paik who, long before the concept of the internet had taken root, first broached the idea of an electronic superhighway. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellMay 19, 2023
For most of his career, Paik was dismissed by critics and struggled financially, but as director Kim amply demonstrates, his work has had tremendous influence on both fine art and popular culture. Moon Is the Oldest TV is at once a celebration of that work and testament to its incalculable value. Read full review
80
Time OutHanna FlintMay 17, 2023
‘My problem is how to communicate better,’ Paik notes and this documentary might have dug a little deeper to communicate who this endearing man was beyond his artistic legacy. Still, it does an impressive job of showing why Nam June Paik was a brilliant artist who remains worth listening to Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 17, 2023
The overwhelming sense of vocation necessary for such a life is almost awe-inspiring, although Paik’s own jokey, opaque persona seems to exist as a rebuke to any reaction as bourgeois as that. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonMay 12, 2023
Ms. Kim strives to remain true to her subject’s sensibilities—her imagistic narrative amounts to energetic homage—and this includes not romanticizing his life. Read full review
80
The New York TimesNicolas RapoldMar 23, 2023
Paik is undeniable, creating despite lean times (and slowing after a 1996 stroke). Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsMar 24, 2023
More detailed critical or historical context might have enhanced director Amanda Kim’s already informative and loving portrait of Korean video artist Nam June Paik. But there’s so much in Kim’s movie—especially in actor Steven Yeun’s voiceover narration and talking head interviews with Paik’s colleagues and contemporaries—that this account of Paik’s working life still resonates. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMar 23, 2023
For anyone interested in the origins of what we now call video art, not to mention mass media and the internet, it’s essential viewing. Paik was a true visionary who foresaw the virtual world we now live in, and Kim’s film chronicles how he channeled that vision through madcap sculptures and installations that took technology to places it was never meant to go. Read full review
67
The PlaylistChristian GallichioMar 23, 2023
While Kim’s encyclopedic dive may not offer much revelatory information, it nevertheless acts as an insightful and streamlined primer into Paik and his work, allowing fellow artists and critics the time and space to speak about Paik and the radical shift towards video art. Read full review
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