Worst to Best: The Films of Kelly Reichardt

Kelly Reichardt is one of the great and truly independent directors of her generation, quietly accumulating an oeuvre that ranges from meticulously crafted period pieces like Meek’s Cutoff and First Cow to insightful stories of contemporary Americans living off the grid, like the South Florida lovers-on-the-lam in her debut feature River of Grass, the once-close friends drifting apart in Old Joy, and an artist/academic much like herself in Showing Up. Given the 12 years before her first and second feature, it’s a gift that Reichardt has even accumulated enough work to populate a list like this one, much less directed films so consistently excellent that ranking them feels like a more arbitrary exercise than usual. Try not to sweat the ranking too much: With her terrific new movie The Mastermind in theaters, this list is just an opportunity to look back on her iconoclastic career and try to find all the common threads: 

9. Night Moves (2013) 

Reichardt is like Paul Thomas Anderson in that they’ve directed close to the same number of films to date—she’s at nine, he’s at ten—and their worst effort would be the envy of many respected filmmakers. Maybe that makes Night Moves Reichardt’s Hard Eight, but aside from a slight discomfort with having to deliver on crime-movie conventions, particularly in the film’s second half, Reichardt has an exceptionally grounded feel for eco-activists whose desperation is not complemented by criminal expertise. As two young environmental radicals (Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning) enlist an ex-Marine (Peter Sarsgaard) in a plot to blow up a nearby dam, Night Moves tracks the inevitable unraveling, but not without respecting the frustration of those who feel think-globally-act-locally incrementalism is not enough. Reichardt also reveals a sneaky talent for the slow-burning suspense set piece, particularly in a scene where Fanning orders a conspicuous quantity of ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. 

8. Showing Up (2022)

Reichardt is a personal filmmaker but there are levels to that, and Showing Up accounts beautifully for the pleasures and hassles of the artistic path she’s chosen for herself. In their fourth collaboration, Michelle Williams plays the director’s on-screen surrogate, a sculptor who’s working on her latest gallery show while managing the administrative irritations of academia and a flighty landlord (Hong Chau) who’s slow to fix the hot water heater. Having spent her own career chipping away at features while teaching film classes at Columbia and Bard College—the tiny liberal arts school in Showing Up feels more like the latter—Reichardt suggests the fulfillment of a life lived under the radar, where an artist’s ambition is more about process and growth than widespread recognition. At a time when there seems to be no such thing as selling out, it’s inspiring to see her advocating for her own independence.