The Truffle Hunters: reviews

What the critics say average 8.2 from 33 outlets

• 10 The PlaylistJoe Blessing “The Truffle Hunters” is a charming, life-affirming film, a look at an enduring folkway that brings fun and flavor to Italians every year. Read
• 10 Chicago TribuneKatie Walsh A cinematic delicacy as rare as the truffle itself. Read
• 10 Associated PressJake Coyle Just as last year’s beekeeping beauty “Honeyland,” “The Truffle Hunters” is a richly allegorical documentary of a vanishing agricultural pastime. Read
• 10 The Washington PostAnn Hornaday This endearing, thoroughly entertaining movie might be what we all need right now: An invitation to stop and smell the roses — or, if you’re lucky, their far less showy fungal cousins. Read
• 9.0 The Hollywood ReporterDavid Rooney Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (The Last Race) directed, produced and shot this captivating vérité documentary, which finds humor, charm and poignancy in the crusty eccentrics and their adored canine companions who sniff out the aromatic tubers, usually under the secretive cloak of night. Read
• 9.0 VultureHelen Shaw Any good documentary teaches you how to pay attention to something, which is why this one feels like such an overwhelming experience: It teaches you to pay attention to the world, all of it all at once. Read
• 9.0 The Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern It’s rare that a film mixes joy and melancholy with such ease, and to such lovely effect. Read
• 9.0 Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer What I ultimately took away from the documentary is the deep love that can exist between owners and their dogs. In “The Truffle Hunters,” both are shown to be the custodians of each other’s happiness. Read
• 9.0 The Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz It’s a sumptuous movie, with gorgeous cinematography (also by Dweck and Kershaw). It won’t necessarily make you want to rush out and pay a fortune for truffles to shave over your eggs. But it will make you appreciate people whose love for something has so fully informed their lives.
• 8.8 LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen The Truffle Hunters has a great subject—aging Italian foragers and their dogs, carrying on the storied tradition of searching forests for the rare fungi—but its true strength is in its compositions. Read
• 8.8 The Boston GlobeTy Burr The movie, a balm for the senses and the soul, celebrates and discreetly mourns an activity that stretches back to antiquity and is slowly being snuffed out by global market forces. Read
• 8.3 The Film StageJordan Raup These men have dedicated their entire lives to not only finding these exquisite white Alba truffles but also to the dogs that help them find their way, and to see their culture upturned for selfish reasons is an upsetting thing to witness. That they still have so much personality, joy, and life in them, however, makes The Truffle Hunters a delightful, charming watch. Read
• 8.3 The A.V. ClubKatie Rife Ironically, this charming and visually ravishing film may further fuel the demand for white truffles, inflating the bubble and ultimately accelerating their decline. On one level, that’s understandable; we all want to be part of something rare and beautiful. But if you truly heed what the film has to say, you’ll go to the park and play with your dog instead. Read
• 8.3 IndiewireEric Kohn Dweck and Kershaw don’t build a narrative so much as an accumulation of encounters that often lead to the visually immersive thrill of watching a culinary ecosystem come to life. Read
• 8.0 Screen DailyLee Marshall The Truffle Hunters is a film as distinctive and lingering as the scent of the rare tuber that inspires it. Read
• 8.0 VarietyTomris Laffly It’s a complex picture that Dweck and Kershaw navigate with respect, curiosity and a sense of awe, managing to excavate the essence of a tight-knit, lovably atypical commune out of it. Read
• 8.0 The GuardianPeter Bradshaw A strange, funny, mysterious and rather beautiful film about an activity that’s recherché to say the least. Read
• 8.0 Film ThreatAlex Saveliev The Truffle Hunters is about sustaining tradition in a world that seems to (d)evolve too fast. It’s about mortality, but it’s never morbid. It’s about fungi, but it’s never dull. It takes you away from the hustle and bustle of the contemporary, social-media-driven society and plunges you into the woodsy stillness of Northern Italy. You don’t have to love truffles to crave a little bit of that beautiful solitude. Read
• 8.0 New York TimesA.O. Scott A charming and slyly poignant documentary. Read
• 8.0 Time OutPhil de Semlyen It’s full of symmetrical Anderson-like compositions, memorable characters and offbeat laughs. And stitched in are some smart, fly-on-the-wall observations about the often-abrasive relationship between capitalism and tradition too. Read
• 8.0 CineVueChristopher Machell There is a wealth of real humanity underneath The Truffle Hunters’ polished surface; in key moments, the film’s high aesthetics fade away to reveal unvarnished, understated pathos. Read
• 8.0 The TelegraphBenji Wilson Here is a documentary that is simple but contains multitudes. Read
• 8.0 EmpireIan Freer The Truffle Hunters is a low-key delight, a poignant lament for a fading art that doubles as foodie heaven. Go on a full stomach. Read
• 8.0 The ObserverMark Kermode Every bit as immersive as Victor Kossakovsky’s recent documentary Gunda, about a sow and her piglets, The Truffle Hunters serves as a timely reminder that the world does not turn to the industrialised rhythms of mankind alone, and that we lose track of its natural heartbeat at our peril. Read
• 8.0 Little White LiesJake Cunningham Its gnarled, subterranean subject may be shrouded in a biblical halo, but The Truffle Hunters sublime focus on the natural world and both its flora and fauna inhabitants offers calming reassurance for the unwashed. Read
• 8.0 Otros CinesMaría Fernanda Mugica A certain melancholy is inevitable in a film devoted to a trade on the verge of extinction, and it is present in The Truffle Hunters. Read
• 7.8 The Austin ChronicleJosh Kupecki Focusing on a quartet of charming, venerable men and the dogs they love, the film offers an engaging portrait of life in the truffle hunting trade, a bucolic life spent roaming picturesque forests, maintaining the winter wood heaters, and drinking wine. Read
• 7.8 The Globe and MailBarry Hertz By focusing on the old men and their dogs who spend their time in the woods of Northern Italy searching for the prized fungus, Dweck and Kershaw operate on a level of gentle, removed observation. Read
• 7.5 San Francisco ChronicleBob Strauss “The Truffle Hunters” takes us to a part of the world where time appears to have stood still. Read
• 7.5 Roger EbertSimon Abrams Thankfully, despite its creators’ general fussiness, “The Truffle Hunters” is good enough, if only because guys like Carlo and Angelo are more charming than they are eccentric. Read
• 7.0 Página/12Juan Pablo Cinelli In The Truffle Hunters time seems to have stood still, and the directors heighten that feeling by setting the simple life the characters lead in uncomfortable contrast with the scenes showing the ostentatious bad taste surrounding the truffle trade. Read
• 6.3 Slant MagazineCarson Lund The film’s reminder of the fragility of agrarian traditions in the face of a merciless profit motive is delivered with tact and subtlety. Read
• 4.0 MicropsiaDiego Lerer The fascinating world of the truffle hunters of Italy's Piedmont is handled in a very uninteresting way in this documentary, which doesn't live up to its characters or its subject. Read