critics consensus

At once tender and unsentimental, Sweetgrass gracefully captures the beauty and hardships of a dying way of life. Read critic reviews

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Movie Info

This spare documentary follows a group of shepherds as they guide hundreds of sheep through endless miles of Montana wilderness. Herding the livestock through the Beartooth Mountains, the crew covers stunning landscapes as they brave dangerous weather and the threat of various wild animals, including bears and wolves. As the shepherds make their journey, the film depicts the hardships that they face in their age-old occupation, which seems largely outmoded in 21st-century United States.

Genre:

documentary
Original Language:

English
Director:

Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Illisa Barbash
Producer:

Ilisa Barbash
Release Date (Theaters):

Jan 6, 2010 limited
Release Date (Streaming):

Apr 17, 2020
Box Office (Gross USA):

$206.7K
Runtime:

1h 42m

Cast & Crew

Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Director

Illisa Barbash
Director

Ilisa Barbash
Producer

News & Interviews for Sweetgrass

Critics Consensus: Daybreakers Has Bite

View All

Critic Reviews for Sweetgrass

All Critics (64) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (62) | Rotten (2)

Though the tale of these wry, hard-bitten lives is told with neither music nor a narrating voice, the final effect is not to numb or confound the viewer but, rather, to cast a spell.

May 26, 2020 | Full Review…

Anthony Lane
New Yorker
Strange to relate that one of the year's most striking cinematic experiences so far is a documentary starring 3,000 sheep.

July 6, 2018 | Full Review…

Kieron Corless
Sight & Sound
[The directors] portray something indelible by capturing the rancher's old-hand ways.

September 24, 2014 | Full Review…

Nicolas Rapold
Film Comment Magazine
A tenaciously observed and a quietly absorbing ethnography about a pair of shepherds leading some 3,000 sheep on a 150-mile journey up into Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains for summer pasture.

April 26, 2011 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Sukhdev Sandhu
Daily Telegraph (UK)
The images, including sheep on the move up near vertical hills, are remarkable, the landscape spectacular, the unsentimental account of back-breaking, backside-aching work impressive.

April 23, 2011 | Full Review…

Philip French
Guardian
This beautiful and hypnotic documentary shows the agony and the ecstasy of herding sheep up into Montana's Beartooth mountains for the summer pasture.

April 21, 2011 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's hypnotic look at Montana mountaintop shepherding is Wiseman-esque in its observant, non-intrusive style.

November 13, 2020 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Tom Meek
Cambridge Day
Sweetgrass' strength comes in its collection of indelible images.

October 12, 2019 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review…

David Harris
Spectrum Culture
Its simple, unassuming beauty makes for a quietly engrossing ode the the shimmering mystique of the west.

August 5, 2019 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Matthew Lucas
From the Front Row
Whatever one decides, [director Lucien] Castaing-Taylor deserves a great deal of respect for documenting a dying tradition.

March 8, 2018 | Full Review…

Steve Erickson
Gay City News
The talk is sheep. And normally, I'd say baa humbug to sitting down with lambs for 90 minutes. But any apprehension. abates under the power of a documentary that's as beautiful as it is informative.

May 25, 2013 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…

Al Alexander
The Patriot Ledger
As it progresses it begins to strike a subtly elegiac, unsentimental tone...

June 13, 2011 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Alistair Harkness
Scotsman

View All Critic Reviews (64)

Audience Reviews for Sweetgrass

Jun 24, 2011

"Sweetgrass" is a stunningly photographed documentary about the process of sheep farming in Montana. The movie keeps the human subjects at a distance, giving us little chance to really get to know any of them. Instead, the natural scenery and the sheep are the true stars here and the one who looks directly into the camera knows that. In fact, he would like to file a complaint with his union representative about the working conditions. Yeah about that. Not much has changed in this profession since the 19th century. The cowboys still ride horses, camp out under the stars and rely on dogs for a lot of help in keeping the sheep in line. Cell phones are about the only indication that this is now the 21st century. And I should warn those of you expecting lots and lots of footage of cute sheep roaming around the mountains that there is a gruesome shot of an eviscerated sheep which speaks to the difficulty and frustration for the cowboys which is expressed in the most colorful language heard since "Deadwood" went off the air.

Walter M Super Reviewer
Jan 12, 2010

Beautifully lyrical documentary chronicles the last sheep drive into the Beartooth Mountains in Montana, a time honored tradition that has been going on since the late 19th century. A quiet, simple, elegiac ode to a forgotten way of life.

Matthew L Super Reviewer