The Gleaners and I (2000)

Original title

Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse

Directed by

Agnès Varda

Genre

documentary film

Country

France

Runtime

1h 22m

Rated

NR

Rating

7.6 of 10 from 223 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Agnès Varda meets people who collect leftover crops and discarded objects. She films their lives and also turns the camera on herself.

gentleobservationalreflectivequirkyhumanisticmeditativewarmthoughtfuleveryday

What happens

The Gleaners and I (French: Les glaneurs et la glaneuse) is a 2000 French documentary film directed by Agnès Varda that explores the subject of gleaning—historically, the gathering of farm produce left after formal harvest, here including rural-urban reclamation of disposed food and objects. The Gleaners and I was an "Official Selection" of the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, and later went on to win several major film awards. In a 2014 Sight & Sound poll, film critics voted The Gleaners and I the eighth best documentary film of all time. In 2016, the film appeared at No. 99 on BBC's list of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century. The film was included for the first time in 2022 on the critics' poll of Sight and Sound's list of the greatest films of all time, at number 67. In 2025, it ranked number 88 on The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century." In 2002, Varda released a follow-up, The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later (French: Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse... deux ans après), in which she revisited some of the people and themes of this film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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