Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The![]()
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The![]()
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
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
Rate this movie >
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.
