Out 1 · reception & legacy

How Out 1 has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

For decades it was cinema's great unseeable legend — screened in full basically once in 1971, then circulating only as rumour and a shortened cut (Spectre) — until the 2015 restoration finally let people watch the thing everyone had only read about. It went almost straight from 'holy grail' to canonised masterpiece the moment it became viewable.

What's debated

The perennial fight: is the near-13-hour runtime the whole point — duration as the medium — or an endurance stunt, and does the shorter Spectre cut count as 'really' having seen it?

Its footprint

It's the byword for extreme-runtime cinephilia — the Everest of movies — and logging it on Letterboxd functions as a badge of honour, usually accompanied by a review about the watcher's own stamina.

Where it stands

The ultimate 'holy grail' cult object turned canon climber: a film more cinephiles now brag about finishing than almost any other, and a fixture of longest-films and Rivette-completist lists.

Named by the director

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

• Louis Feuillade — Rivette pointed to Feuillade's silent serials as the model for Out 1's episodic, serial-like structure, having recently rediscovered them at the Cinémathèque.