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Man with a Movie Camera

Original title: Chelovek s kino-apparatom

“The Greatest Documentary Ever Made”

1929 · 1 h 8 min
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Documentary

Cast

Mikhail Kaufman Elizaveta Svilova

Credits

Written by: Dziga Vertov
Cinematography: Mikhail Kaufman
Music: Pierre Henry Nigel Humberstone Konstantin Listov
Editing: Dziga Vertov
Produced by: Star Mishkel-Eneva

Plot

With no actors, plot or intertitles, Dziga Vertov's 1929 film follows a cameraman and his editor as they record a day in the life of several Soviet cities, from waking to sleeping. Workers, trams, machines, beaches and weddings are cut into a rhythm, and the film keeps showing its own making, with the camera, the editing room and the audience in view. Using double exposure, split screens, slow motion and freeze frames, it became a landmark of the documentary and of the idea that cinema can have its own visual language.

Sinekatalog’s take

Dziga Vertov's silent documentary of a Soviet day is a catalogue of what cinema can do: split screens, freeze frames, fast cuts. Experimental and exhilarating, nearly a century later.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 8.3 / 10 (30,825 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 98% (43 critic reviews)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset; Rotten Tomatoes snapshot from October 2026. Scores change over time.

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