Obit.

Released Apr 26, 2017

1h 35m

Documentary

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List

93%

58 Reviews

Tomatometer

77%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

At The New York Times, a particular team of writers is entrusted with reflecting upon the luminaries, icons, and world leaders of our day. Here, we are introduced to those responsible for crafting these unequaled obituaries. As we are taken through their painstaking process, we learn about the pressures accompanying a career spent shaping the story of a life.

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Critics Consensus

Obit shines an entertaining -- and overdue -- spotlight on an engaging group of people whose singular craft is too often taken for granted.

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Audience Member

This is an excellent doc. It focuses on the art and craft of obit writing, which should grab the interest of anyone who admires those as they are written in The NY Times and periodicals such as The Economist. It periodically presents some of these obits, and while taking in the details of the lives of those who died, it provokes a lot of self-reflection, as good obits tends to do.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

Audience Member

My kind of documentary -- thoughtful about a lot of different things, mostly from oblique angles. Interesting people, and a subject that I really hadn't given enough thought to before seeing this. Really enjoyable to watch.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/10/23

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Audience Member

Fascinating and thought provoking.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/16/23

Full Review

Audience Member

"Everyone is going to die." said a obit writer for the NYTimes. This entertaining documentary reports about the obit writers and the research that goes into the writing. Some obits are there just waiting for the "end" and last details. The selection of who becomes an important obit in the NYT is fascinating. The documentary follows the shaping of the obit of the man who primed JFK for the first tv debate in 1960. It was felt that his maneuvering helped JFK look so good on tv and, as JFK felt, won him the 1960 election. Fascinating movie.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Surprisingly funny and touching film - the wriers are increcibly smart and clearly dedicated to the job. We should all be so lucky as to have our obits written up by this crew!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/13/23

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rick b

Fascinating documentary about a peculiar niche in journalism: obituary writers.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Obit.: Trailer 1

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Tom Long

Detroit News

"Obit" manages to be both about a specific type of journalism and the larger world it reflects while dropping in all manner of colorful lives and circumstances.

Rated: B+

Jun 23, 2017

Full Review

Matthew Lickona

San Diego Reader

The real subject here is storytelling, the creation of a stylish, authoritative, highly personal record of "how the world got to be the way it is." One more thing to miss about newspapers when they go.

Rated: 3/5

May 18, 2017

Full Review

Ty Burr

Boston Globe

As someone who takes great pleasure in both reading and writing valedictions to the recently deceased, I can personally attest that the movie's dead on.

Rated: 3.5/4

May 18, 2017

Full Review

Jason Adams

The Film Experience

Weaves well sourced magic out of the making of their post-mortems

Jul 6, 2021

Full Review

Richard Crouse

Richard Crouse

It celebrates those no longer with us as much as it does the journalists who write the stories.

Rated: 3.5/5

Feb 28, 2021

Full Review

Leigh Monson

Substream Magazine

I found the poetry and intellectual curiosity of Gould's subjects to be entirely enthralling, and Obit is as entertaining as it is informative.

Rated: 4/5

Sep 24, 2020

Full Review

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Synopsis

At The New York Times, a particular team of writers is entrusted with reflecting upon the luminaries, icons, and world leaders of our day. Here, we are introduced to those responsible for crafting these unequaled obituaries. As we are taken through their painstaking process, we learn about the pressures accompanying a career spent shaping the story of a life.

Director: Vanessa Gould
Producer: Pamela Tanner Boll, Geralyn White Dreyfous
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Production Co: Topiary Productions, Green Fuse Films, Mystic Artists Films Productions, Imperfect Films
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 26, 2017, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jul 25, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $313.3K
Runtime: 1h 35m

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