Jane Fonda in Five Acts

2018

2 hr. 13 min.

Documentary

Biography

List

97%

34 Reviews

Tomatometer

90%

50+ Ratings

Audience Score

A look at the life, work, activism and controversies of actress and fitness tycoon Jane Fonda.

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Premiered Apr 11

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Critics Consensus

Raw and rich in decade-spanning detail, Jane Fonda in Five Acts paints a living portrait of one popular culture's most compelling figures.

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David H

Incredible! Informative and insightful, revealing and rewarding, it does true justice to Jane Fonda as a performer, an activist, and much more -- but most importantly, as a marvelous human being.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/13/23

Full Review

Lee C

Jane Fonda, you will NEVER "be authentic"! Poor little rich kid who married billionaires and plays a victim! Harry and Megan are waiting for you in the lobby!

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/22/23

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Audience Member

The greatest 02 hours: and 13 minutes ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With real footage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

Full Review

georgan g

One of my heroes, Jane Fonda, is candid & in-depth about her personal life. She is 10 years older than me, and her growth as a person in the 60s really resonate.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I have always admired Jane Fonda. This documentary was riveting. Beautifully produced and directed. Her relationship with her father echoed my own.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I watched this in 2019 as a naive democrat only to rewatch in 2021 as an informed citizen. She (and her family) were nuts 🥜. First, her dad abandons the family and at age 45 marries a girl who is 22 only 8 months after his wife commit suicide? Go back and watch Grapes of Wrath 1939 - pre-WW2. It’s not that good. Secondly, the whole fist-pump BS is the communist handshake. jFK and LBJ were the ones who got The US into Vietnam and after JFKs death they tripled the budget and soldiers there because of the democrats! LBJ gas-lit the counter-culture generation of 1966 just like Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Look back at Hitler (socialist) and Lenin/Stalin worked together dismantling Poland and Europe for each other until the Barbarossa operation - THEN Stalin joined the Allies. Fonda’s and Hollywoods whitewashing disinformation goes back a 100 years and 99% of most people have no clue. Hanoi Jane, guess what the North Vietnamese were leftist also, working supported by the Soviet Union and China, and anti-communist South supported by the United States. Know your history.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

12/30/21

Full Review

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Susan Lacy

Director

Jane Fonda

Self

Tom Hayden

Self

Robert Redford

Self

Lily Tomlin

Self

Paula Weinstein

Self

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David Fear

Rolling Stone

She's a legend, sure. But now she's not Henry's daughter, or Roger/Tom/Ted's wife, or Bree Daniels. She's just Jane, the doc suggests, plain old Jane. It only took decades to get there.

Dec 20, 2018

Full Review

Gwen Ihnat

AV Club

Fonda is so solid throughout the documentary that an enthusiastic reference to a prophetic psychic reading sticks out as a flighty departure.

Rated: A

Dec 14, 2018

Full Review

Julia Raeside

Guardian

Modern documentaries have led us to expect more rigour in their storytelling but this, despite its willingness to touch on family discord and so on, keeps a respectful distance that ultimately frustrates.

Rated: 2/5

Nov 6, 2018

Full Review

Marya E. Gates

Moviefone

A stunning profile of a complex person, ‘Jane Fonda In Five Acts’ excels at capturing all the intricacies that make us who we are and inspires us to keep working on our own unfinished self-portraits.

Feb 13, 2024

Full Review

Sandie Angulo Chen

AWFJ.org

Brother Peter and oldest daughter Vanessa Vadim are conspicuously missing from the interviews, but otherwise, Jane Fonda in Five Acts is a frank and fascinating look at the complicated life and career of an extraordinary woman.

Oct 12, 2021

Full Review

Cate Marquis

AWFJ.org

For Jane Fonda fans, this documentary is an in-depth look inside her life, although like any autobiography, it lacks outside perspective. It is the life of Jane Fonda as Jane Fonda would tell it.

Oct 12, 2021

Full Review

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Synopsis

A look at the life, work, activism and controversies of actress and fitness tycoon Jane Fonda.

Director: Susan Lacy
Production Co: HBO Documentary Films
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 27, 2018

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