Don't Look Now (1973)

Set in off-season Venice, British director Nicolas Roeg’s tragedy combines an acute study of grief with a supernaturally charged thriller plot, to beautiful and devastating effect.

Based on Daphne du Maurier’s short story, Don’t Look Now opens with the death of a child, but the tragedy is that of her parents, John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie). Relocating from the English countryside to wintry Venice, where John is restoring artwork in a church, the couple try in their different ways to recover from the loss. There is tension between them, as she falls in with two peculiar sisters – one a blind clairvoyant – and he catches glimpses of a figure who resembles his dead daughter.

Director Nicolas Roeg composes an uncanny masterpiece of colour (notably red) and fractured editing, expressing the characters’ psychology and experience to stunning effect. The sex and death scenes have seldom been matched.

1973 United Kingdom, Italy
Directed by
Nicolas Roeg
Produced by
Peter Katz
Written by
Allan Scott, Chris Bryant
Featuring
Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason
Running time
110 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Don't Look Now

Critics

Ali Arikan
Turkey
Jason Barker
UK
Michael Blyth
UK
Catherine Bray
UK
Stuart Brown
UK
Jonathan Coe
UK
Wostry Ferenc
Hungary
Lizzie Francke
UK
Kevin Harley
UK
Sean Hogan
UK
Jennie Kermode
UK
Kalle Løchen
Norway
Brigitte Mayr
Austria
Jamie McLeish
UK
Adam Nayman
Canada
Andrew Pope
UK
Brian Robinson
UK
Mark Salisbury
UK
Dana Stevens
USA
Ben Stoddart
UK
Sarah Street
UK
Drake Stutesman
USA
Meredith Taylor
UK
Jon Towlson
UK
Tricia Tuttle
UK
Rebecca Vick
UK
Stephen Volk
UK

Directors

Henry Blake
UK
Robert Connolly
Australia
Lorcan Finnegan
Ireland
Andrew Haigh
UK
Margo Harkin
Moin Hussain
UK
Asif Kapadia
UK
Lynne Ramsay
UK
Bernard Rose
UK/USA
Rob Savage
UK
Ann Turner
Australia
Eskil Vogt
Norway
Edgar Wright
UK

Articles related to Don't Look Now

Then and now

Don’t Look Now at 50: in search of the Venice locations today

By Adam Scovell

Don’t Look Now at 50: in search of the Venice locations today
10 great

10 great films set in Venice

By Brogan Morris

10 great films set in Venice
10 great

10 great British films of 1973

By Alex Ramon

10 great British films of 1973
Load more