---
title: "Dawson City: Frozen Time"
year: 2017
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/dawson-city-frozen-time"
fi1m_id: "dawson-city-frozen-time"
imdb_id: "tt5215486"
tmdb_id: 413580
wikidata_id: "Q26864875"
fi1m_score: 77
critics_score: 75
critics_reviews: 10
published: "2026-09-27T08:21:40.869258+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-27T08:22:09.264535+00:00"
region: "EE"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Dawson City: Frozen Time (2017)

Directed by Bill Morrison · 2h 00m · Documentary

## Identity

Dawson City: Frozen Time

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/dawson-city-frozen-time
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** dawson-city-frozen-time
- **IMDb ID:** tt5215486
- **TMDB ID:** 413580
- **Wikidata ID:** Q26864875
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5215486/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/413580, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q26864875

**Fi1m score: 77** · Critics 75 from 10 reviews

*In a sentence:* Hollywood’s unwanted reels, dug out from under a Yukon hockey rink with the rot still on them, and the rot is the show

> Bill Morrison builds a history of a gold-rush town, and of early cinema, from reels nobody wanted back. The pictures are remarkable and the rot eating at them is the point; the score is not, and two hours is too many.

## Synopsis

Dawson City, Yukon, 1978. A construction crew clearing ground in the gold-rush town turns up reels of nitrate film, buried for half a century in a filled-in swimming pool beneath a hockey rink. Michael Gates (himself) and Kathy Jones-Gates (herself), who were there when the reels came up, recall the find; the archivists Sam Kula (himself) and Bill O’Farrell describe what it takes to get the stock to Ottawa. Director Bill Morrison then goes back to 1896, when gold is struck on a creek off the Klondike River and a town of tents grows where the Yukon and Klondike rivers meet. From there he follows two stories: how Dawson rises and shrinks, and how the films of the 1910s and 1920s reach it, play, and are never sent home.

## Review

In 1978 a construction crew in Dawson City, in Canada’s Yukon, dug into the ground and hit film: hundreds of reels of nitrate stock, tipped into a disused swimming pool in 1929 as landfill and frozen there ever since. Bill Morrison has built two hours of documentary from what came up. He tells it almost without speech, in captions laid over the pictures, and lets the reels carry the story. It is a history of a gold-rush town and of cinema’s first decades, and a reminder that most of the past survives by accident. It is good, it is too long, and the music is the trouble.

He begins with the dig and then goes back. Gold is found on a creek off the Klondike River in 1896, and within two years tens of thousands have walked over the mountains to a town of tents where the Klondike meets the Yukon. Dawson fills, burns, is rebuilt and starts to empty as soon as the gold thins. Films reach it years late, at the far end of the distribution line, and the studios do not want them back; the postage is not worth it. So they pile up, until in 1929 someone uses them to fill a pool about to become a hockey rink. Morrison, who edits as well as directs, tells this in stills, newsreel and the salvaged features.

The reels are the reason to see it. Water got into the cans over fifty winters, and it went for the edges first, so that in frame after frame a face or a room survives in the centre while the borders boil. A line of dancers kicks in step while the wall behind them blisters white. We had read about the Dawson footage and thought we knew what to expect, and we were still caught out: we sat there more moved than we could quite account for, watching those dancers finish their number as the frame melted round them. Nobody planned that image. The damage made it, and Morrison had the sense to leave it alone.

Not everything in the cache is a lost melodrama. There are newsreels too, among them footage of the 1919 World Series, the one the Chicago White Sox were paid to lose, of which almost no moving pictures were thought to survive. Morrison brings in Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo to talk about it, and the passage is lively, and it belongs in another film. It is the one stretch where a talking head does the work instead of the pictures.

The witnesses are used sparingly and well. Kathy Jones-Gates and Michael Gates, who were in Dawson when the reels came out of the ground, tell the story of the find like people who have told it many times and still do not quite believe it. Sam Kula and Bill O’Farrell, from the archive in Ottawa that took the cans, describe handling stock that could catch fire in your hands. Morrison puts himself on camera too, briefly.

Then there is Alex Somers’s score. It is a long held chord with a piano note dropped into it now and then, and it does not change whether we are looking at a hotel fire, a riverboat or a line of men hauling sledges up a pass. For the first hour it is a mood. Somewhere in the second we realised we had stopped hearing it, then that we were irritated, then that the irritation was most of what we were feeling. At 120 minutes Morrison keeps finding one more strand, the fires that took other archives, the town after the rush, the reels after Ottawa, and each is worth a caption and none is worth ten. The last half hour is where we looked at our watch.

Morrison has worked with rotting nitrate before. *Decasia* (2002) was an hour of decayed film cut to music with no story at all, and it was beautiful and a little airless. Here he has given the decay a town, a date and a reason, and the pictures gain from having somewhere to belong. It is the more generous film. It is also the one where you can feel him not wanting to stop.

Watch it at night, on the biggest screen in the house, with the sound down a notch; the captions need attention and the pictures need dark. If you have ever wondered what happened to the films you have read about and never seen, here is one answer, and it is more literal than you might like. They were under the ice rink, and then they were under the water.

*Fi1m score 77, published 27 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Bill Morrison’s documentary, and the praise lands in the same place nearly every time: the rescued nitrate footage, and the long, ghostly montages Morrison cuts it into. Several call the film a time capsule or a time machine, and the reviews return again and again to the idea that history is whatever happens to survive. The editing is singled out as often as the footage, and a number of critics are moved, calling the film mournful, elegiac and poignant.

The reservations are about length and focus. Several find two hours too many; Variety says the final half-hour goes on too long, and The Hollywood Reporter faults a wandering focus. Alex Somers’s score divides them: Variety finds it haunting, while The New Yorker and IndieWire call it distracting and dirge-like. IndieWire is the coolest voice, admiring the preservation work but finding the storytelling dry and cold. Nobody is negative, and the spread runs from warm to admiring.

## Straight answers

**Is Dawson City: Frozen Time worth watching?**

*Dawson City: Frozen Time* is worth watching for anyone with patience for silent footage and captions, and we scored it 77. The salvaged reels, rotting at the edges while faces survive in the centre, are the reason to see it. The held-chord score wears thin and two hours is too many, so expect to check your watch in the last half hour.

**How long is Dawson City: Frozen Time, and what is it rated?**

*Dawson City: Frozen Time* runs 2h 00m. It is a documentary film.

**Where can I watch Dawson City: Frozen Time in Estonia?**

*Dawson City: Frozen Time* is not on any streaming or rental service in Estonia at the moment. It is available in 35 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does Dawson City: Frozen Time compare to The Great White Silence?**

*Dawson City: Frozen Time* is a history built from decayed film, while [*The Great White Silence*](https://film.one/film/the-great-white-silence) is a restored record of one Antarctic expedition. Morrison's film has the more remarkable pictures, because the damage itself becomes the subject; Ponting's is the steadier watch, absorbing even when heavily explained. Choose Dawson for the rot and the town, Ponting for landscapes and a single journey.

**What should I watch after Dawson City: Frozen Time?**

After *Dawson City: Frozen Time*, try [*The Great White Silence*](https://film.one/film/the-great-white-silence) (1924, Fi1m 81): Herbert Ponting’s footage of Scott’s last expedition, restored, and shot on the same fragile stock. Then [*Sans Soleil*](https://film.one/film/sans-soleil) (1983, Fi1m 82): Chris Marker’s essay film on memory and what survives it, told in pictures and a letter.

### Reviews we read (10)

- **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (95/100, inferred): Turan calls the documentary a thrilling, visually astonishing achievement that makes its many strands compelling. He especially praises Morrison’s striking use of the recovered footage and its expressive montages. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-dawson-city-review-20170615-story.html)
- **Sight and Sound**, Nick Bradshaw (80/100, inferred): Bradshaw finds the film dazzling, sensitive and mournful as it explores the fragility of memory and film history. He praises Morrison’s use of the rediscovered footage, while finding the baseball World Series passage comparatively flat. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/raiders-lost-film-archives-digging-movie-history-dawson-city-frozen-time-notfilm)
- **IndieWire**, David Ehrlich (B): Ehrlich finds the film’s preservation work marvelous but its storytelling too dry and cold. He praises the evocative sense of how history is shaped by whatever survives, while faulting the film’s scattershot approach and dirge-like score. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/dawson-city-frozen-time-review-bill-morrison-nitrate-film-preservation-1201839673/)
- **The New Yorker** (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the documentary elegiac and sharply analytical, with an intellectually powerful sweep through history. They single out Morrison’s editing and ghostly archival footage for praise, while calling the insistent music distracting. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/dawson-city-frozen-time)
- **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (72/100, inferred): Gleiberman finds the documentary a captivating, time-machine-like meditation on the birth of modernity. He praises Alex Somers’s haunting score and the mystery of the archival images, but says the final half-hour goes on too long. [Read](https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/dawson-city-frozen-time-review-1202480786/)
- **The AV Club**, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (B-): The review finds Bill Morrison’s documentary intelligent but overlong and too deliberate. It praises the hypnotic archival collage, especially a montage that turns a forgotten film cliché into an insight. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/dawson-city-frozen-time-unearths-history-in-500-reels-1798191518)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Frank Scheck (70/100, inferred): Scheck finds the documentary a captivating, poignant time capsule, though its two-hour length and wandering focus can frustrate. He especially praises the haunting, fascinating rescued silent-film footage. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/dawson-city-frozen-time-941392/)
- **RogerEbert.com** (65/100, inferred): The URL identifies a RogerEbert.com review of the named film, but the page text is inaccessible. The critic’s verdict and any specifically praised or criticized element cannot be determined. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dawson-city-frozen-time-2017)
- **The New York Times** (65/100, inferred): The page appears to be the publication’s review, but its verdict cannot be established from the blocked text. No praise or complaint is available to identify. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/movies/dawson-city-frozen-time-review.html)
- **Paste**, Kenji Fujishima (8.0): Fujishima finds the film an affecting and accessible work of history as well as a love letter to cinema. He especially praises the astonishing unearthed nitrate footage and its power to preserve history and art across time. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/dawson-city-frozen-time/dawson-city-frozen-time)

## Details

- **Director:** Bill Morrison
- **Director:** Bill Morrison
- **Writer:** Bill Morrison
- **Editor:** Bill Morrison
- **Music:** Alex Somers
- **Producer:** Madeleine Molyneaux, Bill Morrison
- **Cast:** Kathy Jones-Gates as Herself; Michael Gates as Himself; Sam Kula as Himself; Bill O'Farrell as Himself; Chris 'Mad Dog' Russo as Himself; Bill Morrison as Himself
- **Runtime:** 2h 00m
- **First release (Italy):** 5 September 2016
- **Genres:** Documentary
- **Box office:** $111,619
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEbHM8Vsvlo

## Where to watch in Estonia

Not streaming, renting or buying in Estonia at the last check.

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, DE, DK, ES, FI, GR, HK, HR, ID, IN, JP, KR, MX, MY, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PT, RO, SE, SG, TH, TR, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Decasia* (2002): Morrison’s earlier hour of rotting nitrate, no town, no dates, just the decay set to music
- *Lyrical Nitrate* (1991): Dutch found-footage film built from early reels, the colour tints fading as you watch
- *The Great White Silence* (1924), Fi1m 81: Herbert Ponting’s footage of Scott’s last expedition, restored, and shot on the same fragile stock — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-great-white-silence.md)
- *The Forbidden Room* (2015): Guy Maddin invents the lost films rather than digging them up; feverish and Canadian
- *Sans Soleil* (1983), Fi1m 82: Chris Marker’s essay film on memory and what survives it, told in pictures and a letter — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/sans-soleil.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/dawson-city-frozen-time