Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master List
Spoiler-free premise
Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip.
Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free+
Agnès Varda meets people who gather discarded crops, market leftovers, and abandoned objects across France. Her small digital camera also turns toward her own aging hands, accidental images, and found heart-shaped potatoes, linking material salvage with the filmmaker’s personal act of collecting.
Why it belongs
Agnès Varda transforms gleaning into an essay on waste, survival, art, aging, and her own digital hand, curious without appropriating the people she meets.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
With her lightweight digital camera, Varda uses gleaning for both social inquiry and self-portrait, moving among discarded food, found objects, aging hands, legal definitions, and playful images gathered by the filmmaker herself.
Major award wins
No verified wins in this six-institution crosswalk.
Awards are reference metadata only · zero points in 40/40/20
Good for
Film Club
Descriptive guidance derived from rating, genre, runtime, mood, and GCML scores.
Institutional reference ranks
Sight & Sound67IMDb Top 250—AFI 100—
Reference metadata only · not part of the 40/40/20 score
Great Cinema Master List scores
Greatness9.1
Engagement7.2
Ease5.8
French · Not Rated Documentary Feature Mood: Thought-Provoking
