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34
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60
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46
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78
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69
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47
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67
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86
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30
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45
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96
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88
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71
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67
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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86
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45
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80
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28
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58
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72
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89
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64
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81
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63
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73
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xx
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74
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94
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29
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16
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75
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83
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61
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70
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46
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66
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80
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59
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67
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34
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73
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xx
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54
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68
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44
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35
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77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
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76
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79
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40
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77
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89
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69
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64
Where is Where?
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74
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69
World's Greatest Dad
70
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69
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Lost In La Mancha

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 2 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Keith Fulton
Louis Pepe
Directed by:
Keith Fulton
Louis Pepe
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 31, 2003
DVD: June 24, 2003
Running Time: 93 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / UK
Summary
RATING: R for language
Starring Jeff Bridges (narrator), Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort, René Cleitman, Benjamín Fernández, and Vanessa Paradis
Lost In La Mancha may be the first 'un-making of' documentary; the story of a film that does not exist. Instead of a sanitized glimpse behind the scenes, this film offers a unique, in-depth look at the harsher realities of filmmaking. With drama that ranges from personal conflicts to epic storms, this is a record of a film disintegrating. (Quixote Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Brothers of the Head
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Newsweek David Ansen
An excruciatingly entertaining portrait of the filmmaking process that no Hollywood studio would ever allow to be shown. But Gilliam, bless his impish, obsessive heart, is anything but a Hollywood type.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This is a sad and funny true-life tale that speaks volumes about the difficulties of independent filmmaking.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Watching it is like being trapped in one of those nightmares where you need to get somewhere, fast, and you're distracted and delayed at every turn. Only in this case, the nightmare is happening to someone else, and it's costing an awful lot of money.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Records an accident while it's happening, revealing a situation that makes you laugh again and again while weeping, metaphorically at least, for the sheer frustration of it all.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
An ideal film for movie buffs, who are bound to delight in each new misfortune even as they sympathize with the documentarians' sometimes inflated vision of a tortured genius at work.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This documentary could have been a simple downer. Instead, it's a giddy, manic-depressive roller coaster - because it brings us eye to eye with Gilliam.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Nothing more than a modest, streamlined ''making of...'' diary about a movie that never got made -- it's ''Project Greenlight'' with bigger stars and bigger disasters.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Too bad for Gilliam and everyone involved, but in the departments of spectacle and schadenfreude, great fun for us.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about a movie that never got made, is more involving -- and heartbreaking -- than many movies that do get made.
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
At once bitterly funny and devastating, Lost In La Mancha sides with Gilliam in form and spirit, piecing together the train wreck with snaky humor and interludes that cleverly mimic his Monty Python collage animations.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The documentary is fascinating, but hardly enjoyable. It's like watching ants eat an elephant.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Like rubbernecking motorists, we can't help but watch with lurid fascination.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
After watching the fascinating and compelling new documentary Lost in La Mancha, you may forever wonder how it is that movies are made at all.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
There's no shortage of disaster stories in the history of film production, but none have been recorded with such frankness, immediacy and aching sense of disappointment.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
It will fascinate and possibly even delight cinephiles. Who does not enjoy gawking at accidents, particularly those in which there are no fatalities and the sad story unfolds in almost slow-motion clarity?
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
The equation of Gilliam with Quixote is so obvious to everyone involved that Fulton and Pepe can hardly be blamed for adopting it.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
A fascinating record of how the movie fell apart, piece by piece, with everything short of a natural disaster conspiring against the filmmaker.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Lost in La Mancha, which started life as one of those documentaries you get free on a DVD, ended as the record of swift and devastating disaster.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
When Gilliam is finally forced to admit defeat, it is nothing short of heartbreaking - for audiences, too, as the few shots that made it into the can hold such promise.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It is an honest, dumbstruck, not particularly deep demonstration of how insanely difficult it is to make a movie, any movie, no matter how blithe the end result may appear on screen.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Lost in La Mancha basically catches "Don Quixote" in free fall It's our loss nonetheless. Gilliam is one of the great film fantasists of our age, and one expects he would have done Cervantes proud.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Captures one of the wildest, most heartbreaking episodes in Gilliam's career.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Fulton and Pepe have created an extraordinary document. Hilarious and heartbreaking.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
You can interpret Lost in La Mancha as a sort of triumph of the creative spirit. Gilliam's darkest gallows humor always comes with a smile.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
In the end, it's not much fun to watch a brave artist getting his dream kicked out of him.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Throughout, the documentary is fun and engaging, even whimsical when using (to good effect) illustrations and Gilliams own storyboards.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Privy to virtually all phases of the debacle, the filmmakers have created the behind-the-camera equivalent of a slo-mo crash test.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Gilliam himself is a joy to behold. His wit stays sharp even as his fortunes dull, and the conditions that conspire against him only prove the mettle in our man of La Mancha.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
You can't help feeling that what this enterprise required was Louis B. Mayer, or, though one has no wish to be cruel, Harry Cohn. [3 February 2003, p.98]
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The film should be required viewing for all aspiring filmmakers, but the story's road-accident appeal is universal.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
The movie neither inspires us to pine for what might've been nor makes Gilliam-style filmmaking seem like a noble pursuit.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
So this is not, as vaunted, a documentary about a film destroyed by temperaments and tizzies. It is the account of a medical catastrophe that could have spoiled the opening of a supermarket.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it a 7:
Poor Jean Rochefort, who comes off looking like a villian, because you get so involved with Terry Gilliam's infectious mania, but the old man can't sit on the damn horse. But you'll have your lingering doubts about the legitimacy of Rochefort's ailments. Maybe he was insecure about his English-speaking abilities. But, then again, the rain, rain playing the part of a monsoon in a place that looks third world-ishly desert-like, you start to wonder about curses. "Lost in La Mancha", of course, should've been part of the bonus features of a killer DVD, but instead finds an inappropriate life on the big screen, since, essentially, we're watching a featurette.
