Sightlines · reception

How Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World was received

2023 · Radu Jude · Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World on Sightlines

The arc

It stormed out of Locarno 2023 (Special Jury Prize) already tagged a masterpiece, then topped a pile of 2024 year-end critics' lists — less a reappraisal arc than an instant coronation, with 'best film of the 2020s so far' claims attaching to it almost immediately.

What’s debated

The eternal Radu Jude split: is its 163 minutes of abrasive, deliberately 'ugly' provocation exhilarating or exhausting — brilliant vulgarity or an endurance test critics graded on a curve?

Its footprint

Bobiță — the bald, unibrowed TikTok-filter alter ego parodying Andrew Tate — became the film's meme-ready calling card, and the Stanisław Jerzy Lec aphorism of a title gets endlessly borrowed as a caption for late-capitalist burnout.

Where it stands

A certified Letterboxd cinephile favorite and rapid canon climber — the consensus 'you must see this' entry point for Jude and a fixture of best-of-the-decade lists in progress.

Did you know? Notorious video-game-movie director Uwe Boll appears as himself, gamely playing along with his own reputation — including his infamous history of literally boxing his critics.

Named by the director

• Angela Moves On (1981) — Jude built the film in explicit dialogue with Lucian Bratu's Ceaușescu-era drama about a Bucharest taxi driver, intercutting its footage and bringing back its star, Dorina Lazăr.
• Jean-Luc Godard — Jude has repeatedly named Godard his lodestar in interviews around this film, which openly nods to the director's then-recent death.