The spaces between conversations, idle moments of life where seemingly nothing happens, and the time accumulating before something actually happens, are the common places of Kelly Reichardt’s filmography. Characterized by long takes, minimal dialogue and action, and low-budget depictions of characters on the outskirts of society, usually drifters looking for a better life, her films have made her one of the most interesting auteurs of American cinema for the past two decades.
After her first feature, River of Grasspremiered to critical acclaim in 1994, she found herself struggling to secure financing for a second feature. A male-dominated industry frowned upon her possible projects, leaving her to self-produce short films for the following years. After her long-time friend, director Todd Haynes introduced her to novelist Jonathan Raymond, of whom Reichardt was a fan, a fruitful work relationship blossomed, starting with them adapting one of Raymond’s short stories into film. The result, Old Joy, was Reichardt’s first widely known work, and launched her as one of the most recognizable voices in American independent cinema.
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9 The Kelly Reichardt Style
A24
Mostly filmed on location (Oregon and the Pacific Northwest), her films use this beautiful environment not for its aesthetically appealing nature, it is rather employed in a purgatorial nature, working as a place where characters pass through in their way to something else, or its silence as a reflection of their inner loneliness.
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Reichardt herself told The Guardian that her movies are essentially “glimpses of people passing through,” which resonates to the search for realism found in the works of filmmakers like Robert Bresson or Roberto Rossellini. Much like Italian Neorealists, Reichardt portrays the everyday life of working-class people, who in the context of modern America find themselves between the greater narratives of life and their personal experiences and limitations.
Attention to ambiances, development of slow-paced plots, referential to politics without making political films, and ambiguous endings were the viewer has to make its own sense and relation to what happened, define a cinematic language that nearly thirty years after her debut, continues to grow and evolve. In honor of Kelly Reichardt’s newest work, last year’s Showing Up, here’s her entire filmography of full length films, ranked.
8 River of Grass
Strand Releasing
In her directorial debut, Reichardt begins to string together a series of themes and situations that will be a constant throughout the coming decades. River of Grass is about a couple on the run, believing they have committed murder, and their unsuccessful attempts at leaving Florida.
Episodically cut, River of Grass is more concerned with the notion of time and its psychological advancement through its editing, than it is with the traditional idea of plot. A minimal and personal approach to cultural ennui and alienation that in 76 minutes leaves more questions than answers. Much more rough around the edges than all of her next films, this fantastic debut stood out both at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, eventually leading up to four Independent Spirit Awards nominations.
7 Night Moves
Cinedigm
Probably the bleakest film in the director’s filmography, Night Moves is a sharp and narrow eco-terrorist thriller about three eco activists planning to blow up a hydroelectric dam. Superficially, it’s a film about activism, but deep down it’s about radical yet sensitive persons having to come to terms with their actions.
The film examines consequences of actions which, even though they are in line with the characters’ set of beliefs, will eventually hurt people and ultimately, in a way, themselves. As in all the films in this list, there is not much “action,” as the film focuses on the tension and implicit inner distress each of the characters face.
6 Wendy and Lucy
Oscilloscope Pictures
Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams are one of the greatest director-actor duos of contemporary cinema. With already five films done together, Reichardt’s knack for silent filmmaking and characters is complemented by Williams’ versatility and vulnerability.
In their first collaboration, Wendy and Lucy,Williams plays a homeless woman who is headed for Alaska looking for a possible job, along with her only friend in the world, her dog Lucy. A heartbreaking story of struggle and reality set a magic alchemy between actor and director that has gotten the best of each other for more than a decade.
5 Showing Up
The newest work from both Reichardt and Williams finds them shifting gears from their previous effort into a more seemingly relaxed and mature piece. Showing Up is a quiet slice of life that recounts the days leading up to an artist’s exhibition and her encounter with inspiration through the absurdity of everyday life. Though some critics have called it a rare misfire, Showing Up points to new things while retaining the essence and spirit of previous films from Reichardt. A re-examination of mumblecore and the director’s own aesthetic, this is one of 2022’s most underrated films which hopefully will find a more positive reception in the coming years.
4 First Cow
In her biggest film to date, Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond, in their fifth film together, adapt his 2004 novel The Half-Life into one of the most lauded films of its year. First Cow tells the story of a loner cook who has traveled west to what’s today Oregon in the early 19th century and his encounter with a Chinese man. They both strike a deal to work together and find fortune, by illegally milking the first ever cow in the region. A study of male friendship, in which Reichardt covers similar ground as in Old Joy, finds her at the top of her game delivering powerful emotions through simplicity.
3 Certain Women
Sony PicturesIFC Films
For Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt moved action from her traditional settings in Oregon to Montana. In these wide plains and cold distant mountains, three women seek to make their own through life.
A lawyer deals with a troubling client, a wife and mother finds the cracks in her marriage as plans to build a house move forward, and a ranch hand who starts to form an ambiguous relationship with a law student. In a stellar cast that finds Michelle Williams alongside Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart, it’s Lily Gladstone’s performance as Jamie, a melancholic lonely rancher looking for a human connection the one that steals the show.
2 Old Joy
Film Science
The first collaboration between Reichardt and Raymond is a beautifully intimate portrayal of time, friendship and meaning. Old Joy concerns two friends, Mark and Kurt, the former married and about to experience fatherhood which is apparently causing him some stress, and the latter a drifting hippie who at first sight seems to have much fewer problems than his friend, but also carries his own issues.
They embark on a weekend camping to trip to hot springs in a mountain east of Portland. For Mark, the weekend is a break from the pressure of his upcoming fatherhood, for Kurt, a moment of connection and rest from the loneliness in his life. A film about loss, alienation and time, set Reichardt apart from the rest of the indie cinema landscape, establishing her voice as one that would never need to say or show much, to create great art.
1 Meek’s Cutoff
Oscilloscope Laboratories
In her greatest film to date, Reichardt makes a period drama that is not a period drama, a political allegory that is not political at all, and a western that is not really a western. At its heart, Meek’s Cutoff is in line with all of her other work, a story of outsiders trying to survive the grueling conditions of the world. The movie follows a group of settlers going down the Oregon Trail who begin suspecting that their guide, doesn’t really know where he is headed, as the journey that was supposed to last two weeks, stretched to five. Meek’s Cutoff is the quintessential Kelly Reichardt film, which incorporates her characteristic narrative and style with the notion of the genre film (in this case westerns) in order to create new meanings out of known aesthetic conditions.
Filmed at the end of the Bush administration, a film about a group of people led astray was a powerful allegory for working-class America at the time. The ambiguous ending, leaves no answers and quite frankly, not many questions either. What was seen is just a stretch of time, a moment in the lives of common people and their struggles, not in a romantic of critical lens, just observed, allowing the viewer to engage with the film rather than imposing the narrative upon. This last point, is the magic of her films, they are ones that treat the audiences with respect and ask, not demand, of them to make their own understanding of everyday life.
