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.
Tarnation

Universal acclaim
Based on 32 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 33 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary | Drama
Written by: Jonathan Caouette
Directed by: Jonathan Caouette
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 6, 2004
DVD: May 17, 2005
Running Time: 88 minutes, B/W / Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Jonathan Caouette, Michael Cox, Adolph Davis, Rosemary Davis, Renee Leblanc, and David Sanin Paz
Jonathan Caouette's film reimagines the whole idea of what a documentary can be. He weaves a psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of 80s pop culture and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family torn apart by dysfunction and reunited through the power of love. (Wellspring Media)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site Film Forum Profile
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...
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Caouette has used art, wit and a huge heart to forge his experiences into an unqualified masterpiece.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Harrowing, extremely disturbing at times, but brought to the screen in dazzling pop-art images that make the movie's grim content very much worth watching.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
A collage of pain that breaks over you like a wave. Every second you can feel the cost to Caouette of what he's showing: The sounds and the images are like a pipeline from his unconscious to the screen.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Meredith Brody
It's something of a masterpiece: a confessional experimental documentary with echoes, both conscious and unconscious, of filmmakers from Andy Warhol to John Cassavetes, Stan Brakhage to David Lynch.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is a remarkable film, immediate, urgent, angry, poetic and stubbornly hopeful.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Painfully beautiful autobiographical kaleidoscope.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Caouette lifts his story clear out of the victimized whine that bogs down so many confessional memoirs and offers the viewer instead an intimate look inside his ravaged yet loving head, at once street-smart and haloed by the naiveté of a young saint.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Certainly one of the strangest and most interesting movies of the year, and I suspect that in years to come a number of other strange and interesting movies will show traces of its influence.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
Layering soundtrack and visuals in an intricate collage of rich emotional texture, he (Jonathan Caouette) displays an exhilarating talent.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
It is incomplete, contradictory, as multifaceted (and as brilliant) as a diamond.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
You may not want to hang with the haunted Caouettes, but the movie is so compelling, it doesn't give you a choice.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Sometimes people grow up sane despite the best efforts of society to drive them mad. This is the case for filmmaker Jonathan Caouette.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The movie is such an intense, disturbing and exhilarating experience, even five more minutes might have felt like too much.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The result is a film that defies description. I'd call it some kind of miracle.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Tarnation represents a breakthrough in the possibilities of the personal film as a mix of poetry and journalism. It's also harrowing as hell.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Watching Jonathan Caouette's amazing autobiographical documentary Tarnation is like descending into a pop-music, underground-movie hell and heaven, the shattered and shattering landscape of a living body and mind.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
By all odds, Tarnation should have been an unwatchable, masochistic morass, but Caouette's love for the broken Renee--which is the true subject of the film--is awe-inspiring.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Caouette's shattering Tarnation represents a landmark in personal filmmaking: It finally realizes the digital dream of a raw, unsanctioned glimpse into the soul.
Read Full Review >Empire David Parkinson
For all the courage and ingenuity of this extraordinary film, it's clear that Caouette has actually resolved few issues and that his life is still very much a work in progress.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Melissa Levine
In this case, the subject and director are one and the same, and the result is a degree of intimacy--really of rawness--rarely achieved in film.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
An impassioned documentary about a damaged American family, includes moments that seem to cross the line of what is emotionally acceptable to show onscreen.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Caouette's fractured history is imbued with heart-crushing sincerity.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
One of those documentaries about a family train wreck that makes you wonder how people consented to have their tawdry laundry washed so publicly.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
Getting so close to real-life mental illness, via footage that spans many years, renders Tarnation a uniquely potent experience.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Caouette has opened up a case history vividly, but he has left us without any conclusions, not even with much enlightening empathy. Something more than truth--dare one say "mere truth"?--is needed.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The movie is a daunting blend of head trip, cinéma vérité, music video, and auto-therapy.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
A bold, painful memoir that finds an innovative middle-ground between conventional documentary and a homemade, home-movie collage.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
I reckon that for everyone who's enthralled by the film there will be others who wish they'd heard about it rather than seen it.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 33 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
SEBASTIAN gave it a10:
What would you feel if you have the possibilitie of watch your life on TV?. This film is astonishing
Shauna T. gave it a7:
This film has some good moments, but it is unfocused. there are long surreal clips that occur simultaneously and often nonsensically. it is not nearly a masterpiece, its too much of a mess. maybe its a critic's film, because i love unique and intelligent films and i was not turned off by the depressing subject matter, but i found this film to be amateur-ish and badly edited. some material was very irrelevant and self-indulgent.
Scarlet gave it a10:
It was one of the best documenterys I've seen in a while plus it got my grade in school out of the trash can.
Michael L. gave it a5:
This film started so strongly; I was mesmerized by the visuals, the Low soundtrack, the edginess--yet compassion it contained in those first 15 minutes. Then it soared downhill. A real shame--because this should have been a masterpiece judging from the promise of the opening. Instead, it becomes Caouette's song of himself--a music video walking on the wild side. All the fancy effects, groovy camerawork and nifty music can't make up for narrative that disappears. Characters appear and disappear so quickly, one has no chance of making a connection. Except Caouette himself--and his obvious need for validation. That, perhaps is the final impression of this film. It feels insincere exploitive in the end.
frank T gave it a4:
Solipsistic bore. mean-spirited in the cornering of the granparents on film. as if they're equipped to deal with his on camera accusatory questions. another failed actor who turns the camera on himself (see Super-Size me for the other one.)
Carl M. gave it a10:
Very probably one of the best movies I have ever watched. If its really a documentary it is the best documentary ever, if it is fiction it will still be a movie so strong and heartbreaking that it will change your life - and how many movies actually have the power to influence other peoples lifes so much? Strangely enough, I somehow don't really look forward to any more movies from Jonathan, I simply hope this masterpiece will give Jonathan the peace of mind he deserves.
Holly H. gave it a10:
Best doc ever!!!!
