Vérités et mensonges 1973

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Welles stretches his material and his legend just about as thin as possible in this tedious treatise on truth and illusion. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Alternately superficial and profound. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: A singular combination of documentary, essay, narrative, broad comedy, hoax, and cinematic vaudeville. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: F for Fake is as grand, multitudinous, and original as Welles himself. Read more

Vincent Canby, New York Times: A charming, witty meditation upon fakery, forgery, swindling and art, a movie that may itself be its own Exhibit A. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: F For Fake is minor Welles, the master idly tuning his instrument while the concert seems never to start again. But it's engaging and fun, and it's astonishing how easily Welles spins a movie out of next to nothing. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: For all its nods, winks and witty asides, it's a richly personal work, picking over the questions every creative artist must eventually ask: Am I 'for real'? Does it matter? And what is all this work worth, anyway? Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: An intriguing, enjoyable look at illusion in general and his own, Clifford Irving's and De Houry's dealing with it in particular. Read more

Gary Arnold, Washington Post: The result is a curious, unsatisfactory pastiche of documentary tidbits acquired from Reichenbach and speculative filler supplied by Welles himself. Read more