The Mastermind · reception & legacy

How The Mastermind has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Premiered in competition at Cannes 2025 to a genuinely split room — walkouts-and-raves territory, with some critics calling it a triumph and others 'a story about nothing at all' — before settling into warm critical standing on its MUBI release that fall.

What's debated

The perennial Reichardt fight, at maximum volume: is the deliberately deflating 'anti-heist' pacing the whole point, or did she finally make a film where nothing happens?

Its footprint

It cemented the running film-Twitter/Letterboxd joke about Josh O'Connor's scruffy-art-thief era — fresh off tomb-raiding in La Chimera, he's back stealing paintings — while Rob Mazurek's restless jazz score became the film's most argued-about feature.

Where it stands

Too new for verdicts, but it's already a slow-cinema litmus test and a favourite entry in the 'rank the Reichardts' conversation.

Named by the director

Influences Kelly Reichardt has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

• Jean-Pierre Melville — Reichardt named Melville as the main reference point for heist cinema — the tradition she set out to subvert rather than honour.
• Le Cercle Rouge (1970) — She cited Melville's film directly, saying she wanted to undo its Delon-style cool-criminal heartthrob — 'these guys are actually such jerks.'