Sightlines · reception
How Don't Look Now was received
1973 · Nicolas Roeg · Don't Look Now on Sightlines
The arc
Respected but controversial on release — the frankness of its central love scene nearly earned it an X and dominated the conversation — it has since been fully canonized, topping Time Out's 2011 critics' poll of the 100 best British films.
What’s debated
Fifty years on, fans are still litigating whether that Julie Christie–Donald Sutherland scene was real — both actors always said no, but a studio exec's memoir reignited the rumor and the debate refuses to die.
Its footprint
The small figure in the red raincoat glimpsed through Venice is one of cinema's most referenced images, and the film's fragmented, time-slipping editing became a template filmmakers from Soderbergh onward have openly borrowed.
Where it stands
A fixture of 'greatest horror' and 'greatest British film' lists alike — the arthouse-horror crossover that Letterboxd users treat as essential viewing rather than a deep cut.
Did you know? In UK cinemas it originally screened as a double bill with The Wicker Man — arguably the greatest one-two punch in British horror history, and both were 1973 releases.