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Nanook of the North

Nanook of the North

1922
Drama, Documentary
1h 18m
Documents one year in the life of Nanook, an Eskimo (Inuit) and his family. (imdb)
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Nanook of the North

1922
Drama, Documentary
1h 18m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 62.14% from 719 total ratings

Ratings & Reviews

(719)
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Rated 17 Feb 2008
75
54th
Although it plays very fast and loose with the truth, Flaherty's semi-documentary ethnographical study of the Eskimos is interesting, entertaining and lovely. By modern standards, a few parts are dragged out too long and I would have liked to learn more about their culture, but it's still some compelling material.
Rated 30 Jul 2010
83
93rd
If you consider the logistics of making a film like this with 1922 equipment, it would be absurd to expect no amount of intrusiveness or staging. What's amazing is the absorbing illusion that Flaherty creates, that is, the fly-on-the-wall mood that he achieves as his film recreates every aspect of traditional Eskimo life. In this sense this is a cultural treasure of a document, and the cornerstone of ethnographic cinema and documentary cinema at large.
Rated 14 Aug 2007
98
99th
Awsome! This a great piece of art. 80 years later and still as fresh as the first day. The first documentary ever in history.
Rated 09 Apr 2008
95
92nd
Staged scenes be damned, this was entertaining as hell, and plenty informative of a time that would have been forgotten had this film not existed.
Rated 27 Sep 2010
61
38th
Who knew eskimos could be this much fun sober? That is, for as long as they use a canoe to magically make family members appear or play a happy-go-lucky slapstick version of Chuck Norris in the wild... When all they want is to eat or sleep, it naturally gets boring
Rated 12 Jun 2011
74
83rd
Maybe some viewers wish Flaherty had been a fly on the wall among an undiscovered tribe. With his huge hand-cranked camera, outdoors, in the arctic hinterland, in 1920, 15 years before the term "documentary film" was coined. Might as well complain it's not in 3D. Flaherty "staged" many of the scenes, but it's essentially realistic reenactment of authentic traditional Inuit life, by Inuit. Flaherty's approach to his subjects is not beyond criticism, but it's a giant leap beyond SOP for the time.
Rated 01 Aug 2012
5
44th
eh, nothing special
Rated 23 Jun 2013
74
91st
The walrus hunt is unforgettable; they sneak up on them on the beach, evading the walrus herd's lookout, and harpoon one of them with a spear with a line attached. Then they just sit on the shore eating the meat off the bone, licking their knives. It's a very primal experience.
Rated 14 Jul 2007
75
66th
Interesting and informative, but deceptive on the part of the filmmaker.
Rated 01 Mar 2008
90
84th
# 194
Rated 02 Mar 2008
80
61st
While much of it is scripted it is still real enough to have an impact. It's a very nice film to look at, following Nanook striving for survival in the harsh barren north.
Rated 19 Dec 2008
90
80th
210
Rated 22 Sep 2009
90
88th
A truly fascinating piece of cinema, no matter how much of it was staged. There's a falsity in all documentary anyway, and Flaherty's staging of a few scenes reminds me of the way Herzog often "creates" certain sequences in his documentary films. The obvious blend of staged and unstaged does not take away from the sheer power of the images, as Flaherty successfully communicates both the joy and the hardship experienced by these hardy people. Excellent film.
Rated 13 Jan 2010
88
76th
239
Rated 30 Aug 2010
75
76th
"The eskimos are happy-go-lucky people."
Rated 05 Sep 2010
80
75th
It's a small miracle that any film was made at all after the majority of the initial footage was destroyed in a fire. Interesting portrait of a lifestyle that was basically a thing of the past at the time of filming.
Rated 16 Sep 2010
62
15th
The first hour is very entertaining but then it gets tedious.
Rated 28 Sep 2010
25
43rd
Primitive but trail-blazing documentary, hard to sit through for modern audiences, I bet.
Rated 10 Nov 2010
70
58th
The issues of its factuality cannot be ignored, but there is still so much that you can take away from this.
Rated 18 Apr 2011
60
44th
ha, great fun. NB: not meant to be factual (different times)
Rated 09 Sep 2011
49
20th
OVERRATED, COME AT ME BRO.
Rated 01 Nov 2011
80
66th
anthropologically bad, but sweet and very good for its times :)
Rated 13 Nov 2011
65
69th
FUR IS MURDER ESKIMOS
Rated 30 Nov 2011
88
76th
#239
Rated 01 Aug 2012
75
83rd
Watch for historical importance as this is considered the first ever full length documentary.
Rated 14 Aug 2012
69
47th
That the first documentary was mostly staged (how couldn't it have been?) is pure classic cinema, but the contents therein aren't exciting anymore and it's hard to be engaged despite the interesting subject matter. The kids are cute and the walrus hunt was suspenseful, at least.
Rated 20 Aug 2012
65
26th
Informative, if not always engaging, documentary tows the line between an honest portrayal of a group of people whom Flaherty obviously loves and an exploitation of their otherness.
Rated 18 Sep 2012
70
42nd
kuzey buz denizi, arktik, kanada, aile, avcilik, fok, balik, mors, iglo,gercek yasami ele alan belgesel sari köpek diye bir mogol filmi vardi bu filme benziyor.
Rated 10 Dec 2012
15
16th
While I appreciate this as a landmark of documentary filmmaking, I didn't get much out of it and it was even a bit tedious.
Rated 12 Feb 2013
31
85th
The historical significance can't be overstated, but it did at times feel like a more apt subtitle may have been: "The Banality of the Eskimo." Yet there were definitely shots, like Nanook as a long figure against a seeming endless expanse of iciness that, that were quite beautiful.
Rated 17 Feb 2013
92
99th
wow. i'm shocking and impressed. i've seen many of hundreds nature documentaries but this one maybe the best with storytelling and many details; there is no doubt that it's better than modern ones. the only negative point that it deserves better ending. still a masterpiece.
Rated 12 Jun 2013
70
54th
This is so good man, now I can build an esquimaux igloo of my own.
Rated 24 Dec 2013
77
39th
surprisingly, it was actually kind of interesting ... but still rather boring.
Rated 27 Jan 2015
76
92nd
An interesting and affectionate demonstration of traditional Inuit ways, that played a huge part in shaping notions of what a documentary could or should be.
Rated 14 Apr 2015
42
19th
I do not regret watching 'Nanook of the North' but I can't really say I've enjoyed it too much either. I understand the importance of this documentary and how legendary it must have been for people seeing this not knowing anything about the Belcher Islands but to me it felt too much like fiction. Besides of the building-an-igloo-part, I had to drag myself through an endless mix of early Micky Mouse concertos. https://cinemuckblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/nanook-of-the-north-1922/
Rated 06 Nov 2015
85
89th
Once upon a time, a grammophone was a culture shock. Imagine if we could've given them our memes.
Rated 26 Sep 2016
95
83rd
Apart from its historical context, I still really enjoyed Nanook of the North. Perhaps I'm an old-fashioned dude, or easily impressed, but I still loved it.
Rated 09 Oct 2016
90
78th
A fascinating watch.
Rated 10 Feb 2017
80
85th
Robert Flaherty's full-length documentary film is a fascinating watch, even 95 years later. Worth looking up some of the surrounding lore to add to the experience...
Rated 18 Feb 2017
55
17th
I told my girlfriend I was seeing this film in class and she misread that as "Norm of the North"
Rated 13 Apr 2017
55
28th
Doesn't age well beyond a film history stand point of being the first "documentary." I don't mind that much of it was staged beyond making them appear more primitive then they actually were at that point. A few moments are laughably fake but probably not to audiences in 1922.
Rated 30 Jul 2017
90
82nd
Nanook of the North is a fascinating watch from beginning to end, as Nanook and his family build an igloo, hunt for seals and play in the snow.
Rated 04 Sep 2017
65
62nd
This set the tone of most documentaries that followed. There is staging and editing to fit the filmmakers vision, however the film feels more natural than most film of it's kind.
Rated 29 Nov 2017
5
1st
In order to form a cohesive argument about why this film is terrible and should only be seen in an academic light, I would have to give the film far more thought than I'm willing to. Yes, that's a copout. Nope, I don't care. The longer I watched this, the more I detested it.
Rated 01 Jan 2018
91
89th
Ano de Centenário de André Bazin: Repassando os filmes citados em Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? Filme #1 Experiência cinematográfica extraordinária - o que não quer dizer boa. DVDRip no MakingOff.
Rated 16 Feb 2019
75
76th
Not great as a movie (nor as an anthropological work), but man, those pictures nobody will ever be able to shoot again!
Rated 18 Jul 2019
60
35th
This must have been stunning in 1922, as we meet these "other world"-ly people living in an almost inhospitable area. It's no longer 1922, and National Geographic pumps out a few of these each week with color and sound, so the "amazingness" of this film is almost hard to see. I'm glad I watched it for the historical checkmark, but it's not a movie I really would ever care to see again.
Rated 01 Mar 2022
66
29th
This iconic “original†documentary has a certain amount of interest from a historical perspective, but on its own terms as a film it’s fairly crude and even dull at times, with the antics of Nanook and his “family†showing their real life contrivance and artificiality. Still Flaherty deserves a certain amount of praise for breaking new ground as a “back to nature†film-maker.
Rated 22 Jul 2022
76
62nd
The fact that so many of the scenes were staged or exaggerated hurts the movie slightly for me, but it's a fascinating artifact of the time. Watching it as a procedural for how Inuits hunted seals or built igloos, for instance, is interesting. Even if their methods had advanced beyond what is depicted, it's still watching how their immediate ancestors would have done it. What also shines through is the humanity and the universality of certain emotions and experiences.
Rated 29 Mar 2023
40
25th
Whatever, it's okay. I guess it's an "important" film, but not anything I'd voluntarily watch if someone else hadn't looped me in.
Rated 30 Nov 2023
83
68th
The love and empathy for Nanook and his people shines through each frame.

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