--- title: "Koyaanisqatsi" year: 1983 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/koyaanisqatsi" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 54 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-16T13:54:23.920441+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T13:54:59.885001+00:00" region: "US" 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." --- # Koyaanisqatsi (1983) Directed by Godfrey Reggio · 1h 26m · MPA NR · Documentary, Music **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 54 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* We came to worry about modern life and found ourselves enjoying the time-lapse far too much > Godfrey Reggio makes the strain of modern life absorbing to watch, with Ron Fricke’s photography and Philip Glass’s music doing the difficult work. The ecological case is thin, but the pleasure and unease are worth staying with. ## Synopsis American landscapes and city life are set beside each other in Godfrey Reggio’s non-narrative documentary. Ron Fricke’s time-lapse photography changes the speed of the visible world, while Philip Glass’s music accompanies the images. Natural scenery and urban development supply the material for a look at humanity’s relationship with technology and its environmental costs. Archive footage includes Ed Asner, Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett, all appearing as themselves. There is no central character with a task to complete; the film asks us to watch the patterns of nature and modern life and consider the phrase “Life out of balance”. ## Review Godfrey Reggio’s *Koyaanisqatsi* is a compelling film with a rather blunt view of what has gone wrong with modern life. Its 86 minutes bring natural landscapes and urban development into a comparison that can feel settled before we have begun looking. Yet the images keep giving us reasons to look more closely, and Philip Glass’s music makes that looking pleasurable even when the subject is troubling. The film asks for sustained attention without providing a conventional narrative. Ron Fricke’s time-lapse photography is crucial because it changes what we notice about movement. At this speed, urban activity becomes a pattern before we can consider the separate actions that produce it. We were exhilarated by those accelerated city images, then uncomfortable with how readily we enjoyed a view of modern life that the director presents as troubling. The photography leaves us looking for order even in the urban decay. Philip Glass supplies much of the energy, and the score deserves attention of its own. Its persistence can make contemplation feel urgent; we find ourselves wanting the images to keep moving even while considering the environmental cost of all this activity. Music this forceful risks telling us what to feel, and there are passages where it seems to settle our response before we have looked properly. More often, the pleasure of listening makes us stay with images we might otherwise have decided we understood. The editing by Ron Fricke and Alton Walpole matters just as much as the individual images. Placing nature and urban development together invites an easy judgement, and the cutting sometimes makes that judgement for us. What works better is the chance to notice how movement connects images whose subjects appear opposed. As a documentary, *Koyaanisqatsi* is strongest when it encourages that sort of looking, allowing us to consider what we have seen without needing to agree with every implication. The limitation is the suggestion that nature is innocent and the city is where the trouble starts. Godfrey Reggio makes the contrast forcefully, but it remains a broad judgement about an enormous subject. We can accept the environmental concern without accepting that urban life is adequately described by its damage, or that natural beauty explains how we should live. The images cannot tell us whose choices produced the damage they show. Most critics disagree with our enthusiasm. The consensus is mixed, with objections clustering around the simple environmental message and the film’s attraction to the technology it questions. We think that gives the message too much weight when judging the film: the photography and music sustain interest well beyond the point at which the comparison has become clear. Its broad judgements did not stop us finding more to notice in the images as we watched. Give it a large screen and enough volume for the music to do its work. Anyone hoping for a detailed account of how cities function should choose a different documentary. Watch it when you can leave the phone in another room. *Fi1m score 82, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are divided on Koyaanisqatsi, but praise consistently centres on its images and Philip Glass’s score. Even some sceptical critics acknowledge the sensory force of the film’s landscapes and accelerated urban activity, while admirers find the combination hypnotic and immersive. Ron Fricke’s time-lapse cinematography draws particular praise for making the contrast between nature and technology compelling without a conventional narrative. The disagreement concerns what those images have to say, with responses ranging from enthusiastic admiration to outright rejection. Several critics find the contrast between unspoilt nature and modern civilisation simplistic, or question whether Reggio is too fascinated by urban life to condemn it convincingly. Time Out takes the harshest position, finding the ecological message condescending and its reliance on technology hypocritical. Collider reads that tension more generously, seeing a film that recognises human ingenuity and beauty alongside the environmental costs of progress. ### Reviews we read (8) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film simplistic in contrasting pristine nature with human civilization's mess but praises its impressive visual and auditory experience created by Reggio and composer Philip Glass. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/koyaanisqatsi-1983) - **Evening Standard** (50/100, inferred): The time-lapse cameras on the American landscape deliver psychedelic visuals that were striking when premiered in 1983. There's nothing much for the mind to bite on and many effects have become over-used, though its appeal is directed entirely to the senses with Philip Glass's resonating score. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/koyaanisqatsi-7433989.html) - **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (50/100, inferred): Reggio’s debut remains the most heartfelt entry in the Qatsi series, though it is not without structural and theoretical complications. The film’s synergy of natural beauty and urban decay contemplates a “life out of balance,” yet Reggio appears intoxicated with the very blight he questions. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/koyaanisqatsi-powaqqatsi/) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (30/100, inferred): The critic calls the non-narrative film slick, naive, chic, maddening and sometimes very beautiful, a hypnotic folly that evokes a psychedelic moviegoing experience through its images and Philip Glass score. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/04/movies/koyaanisqatsi-back-to-psychedelia.html) - **Time Out**, KJ (20/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a condescending ecological documentary that uses time-lapse photography and Philip Glass's score to criticize modern technology and urban life while hypocritically relying on advanced technology to make its points. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/koyaanisqatsi) - **Collider**, Joe Hoeffner (80/100, inferred): The critic sees the film as a timeless marvel that captures humanity's ambivalent relationship with progress, lamenting its environmental costs while celebrating ingenuity and beauty, especially in the 'Grid' sequence. [Read](https://collider.com/koyaanisqatsi-godfrey-reggio-embodies-wonder-dread-human-progress/) - **/Film**, Ben Pearson (80/100, inferred): The critic views the film as an immersive, hypnotic experience more than a traditional movie, praising its time-lapse cinematography by Ron Fricke and Philip Glass score for creating a powerful contrast between nature and technology. It notes the environmental message may leave viewers dispirited while scratching a wanderlust itch during quarantine. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/579263/the-quarantine-stream-koyaanisqatsi-may-help-satisfy-your-sense-of-wanderlust/) - **Consequence** (75/100, inferred): The piece praises the film as a transcendent work of art fusing striking imagery with Philip Glass's powerful score into an unforgettable experience that explores themes of imbalance between humanity and nature. [Read](https://consequence.net/2009/07/cinema-sounds-koyaanisqatsi/) ## Details - **Director:** Godfrey Reggio - **Director:** Godfrey Reggio - **Screenplay:** Ron Fricke, Michael Hoenig, Alton Walpole, Godfrey Reggio - **Cinematography:** Ron Fricke - **Editor:** Ron Fricke, Alton Walpole - **Music:** Philip Glass - **Producer:** Godfrey Reggio - **Cast:** Ed Asner as Self (archive footage); Pat Benatar as Self; Johnny Carson as Self (archive footage); Dick Cavett as Self (archive footage); Marilyn Chambers as Self (archive footage); Sammy Davis Jr. as Self (archive footage); Lou Dobbs as Self (archive footage); Linda Ellerbee as Self (archive footage) - **Runtime:** 1h 26m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 27 April 1983 - **Genres:** Documentary, Music - **Budget:** $600,000 - **Box office:** $3 million ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CZ, DK, ES, GB, HK, HU, ID, IE, IN, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PT, RO, RS, TR, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Baraka* (1992): Another wordless encounter with landscapes and human rituals, given room to hold our attention. - *Man with a Movie Camera* (1929): Urban movement becomes the subject, with editing that makes everyday activity newly absorbing. - *Playtime* (1967): A comic alternative: modern architecture keeps making ordinary human contact needlessly difficult. - *Manufactured Landscapes* (2006): Industrial scale becomes easier to grasp when the camera refuses to hurry. - *Leviathan* (2012): Fishing becomes an enveloping encounter with machinery, water and the effort of work. --- © 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/koyaanisqatsi