The Price of Everything
HBO Documentary | Release Date: October 19, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
CineVueMaximilian Von ThunNov 28, 2018
Nathaniel Kahn’s The Price of Everything certainly doesn’t hold back in its skewering of a contemporary art world defined far more by financial gain and status seeking than a genuine love of beauty. Read full review
100
CineVueMaximilian Von ThunNov 28, 2018
Nathaniel Kahn’s The Price of Everything certainly doesn’t hold back in its skewering of a contemporary art world defined far more by financial gain and status seeking than a genuine love of beauty. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubAllison ShoemakerOct 17, 2018
The master stroke of The Price Of Everything is that it asks the viewer, in Cappellazzo’s words, to see the intricacies of the art world and the way those two seemingly oppositional forces — the financial side and the creative side — are inextricably intertwined. Read full review
90
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 29, 2018
While Kahn offers no overt criticism, it’s hard not to question the sustainability of an art market that has evolved into a kind of prestige car park for vast quantities of money. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanOct 9, 2018
The Price of Everything exalts in the spirt of art over commerce, yet what’s thrilling about the film — and what echoes in your mind after it’s over — is that it captures all the ways those two forces can’t be separated. Read full review
80
Screen DailyAllan HunterNov 15, 2018
The wide ranging perspectives of painters, collectors, dealers and gallery owners makes for a thought-provoking and unexpectedly moving film. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarolina A. MirandaOct 25, 2018
Kahn is a quiet filmmaker, and he gently prods his sources to go beyond the typical art world hyperbole of “gorgeous” and “wonderful.” And in a cool, clear-eyed way, he reveals how the $400-million sausage is made, how capitalism has turned art from idea into inventory. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorNov 23, 2018
For all its successful debunking of the market, there isn’t enough of this prickly love in The Price of Everything. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonNov 6, 2018
Kahn surveys artists, dealers, auctioneers, and gallery operators to provide a synopsis of the New York art world, and is at its most interesting when profiling artists who represent differing attitudes toward the way money affects their work. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenOct 19, 2018
The film understands that money is a defining element of art-making, whether or not we wish to admit it. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 14, 2018
Nathaniel Kahn’s collected interviews with artists, hype-driven dealers, well-heeled collectors and art historians and visits to Sotheby’s and the Frieze Art Fair and elsewhere give us the scale of the business, the birth of competitive modern art collecting and a sense of the recent history of this winner-take-all playground of the richest of the rich. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 16, 2018
While this colorful and inquisitive cinematic essay on the state of the art world is occasionally skeptical and consistently thoughtful, cynicism isn’t really on its agenda. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeOct 9, 2018
More conversational than journalistic in spirit, it avoids hard statistics (and the reasons those stats can be hard to come by) in favor of well-informed impressions and anecdotes. Though not the first doc to note the insanity surrounding this subject, it is easily accessible to non-insiders and holds interest even for those who follow art closely. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyOct 26, 2018
The documentary has its memorable moments. Period footage of the now-legendary 1973 auction of contemporary art by the collector Robert Scull is riveting. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyOct 19, 2018
Unlike Kahn’s acclaimed and much tidier 2003 documentary “My Architect,” The Price of Everything has a meandering nature and explores one too many avenues in building a thesis, while losing the viewer in the midst at times. Read full review
60
The GuardianLeslie FelperinNov 29, 2018
There’s something so fluid, almost nebulous, about its construction that a chasm starts to open up where you would expect to find some kind of unifying thesis. Read full review
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