Popular reviews

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  Review by kársten ★★★★½

  jim jarmusch’s most action packed movie and it’s still a mostly chill time

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  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★ 3

  The Last King of Scotland as Ghost Dog. A hip-hop listening, bird loving, samurai assassin who goes to war with the mob after a routine hit goes to shit. Words of samurai wisdom. Old school messaging. A French ice cream man. A pigeon massacre. A mob guy who knows his gangsta rap. Henry Silva's blank stare. Hunting bears out of season and paying the price. A wise hound. Getting shot in the exact same place twice. Watching one too many cartoons. Looking down the wrong sink. An epic final shootout. The RZA's Wu-Tang heavy score. Jim Jarmusch directs a modern day samurai classic.

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  Review by Florin Scanlon ★★★★★ 18

  What follows is me beating about the bush so for a clearer representation of what I think of this movie, skip to the last line.

  Strange movie. It's directed by Jim Jarmusch after all. And it's awesome. Like, extremely awesome. And strange. Like, really strange. At a first look it seems like a cheap student movie made for cheap that looks cheap and is cheap in its reason for existing. But that's a very early and uninformed first look. Once Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog inserts a cd into a freshly stolen car's player early into the movie and this song starts playing you realize that this is no ordinary movie. You begin to realize this is an awesome movie.…

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 2

  “matters of great concern should be treated lightly. matters of small concern should be treated seriously."

  maintaining the old ways even in the face of extinction and seeing the world as a dream. meditative and mystical (and like all jarmusch filled to the brim with wonderfully weird digressions and bursts of personality) but also the kind of movie where the guy whips his pistols out john woo style and swings them around like a katana, full whoosh sound effects and all. 

  [35mm]

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★★ 9

  instant favorite. resonates with everything i've ever thought, the core of my very being, the depths of my soul. it's like looking into a pane of glass; reflecting myself, while also perceiving the world around me. there is no difference. we are all journeying together, each having her own path. in the end, there is nothing to be said, save for the motion of a life lived. ghost dog is the Way of ways; the eternal present moment.

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  "Me and him, we're from different ancient tribes, and now we're both almost extinct. But sometimes you gotta stick with the ancient ways, the old school ways. I know you understand me."

  that pretty much sums it up, not that i'm complaining. a DEAD MAN B-side, and probably Jarmusch's most accessible film. plus it uses an "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoon as an extra thematic button at the end.

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  Review by PopcornIdeology ★★★★★ 3

  INJECT THIS FUCKING MOVIE INTO MY VEINSSSS, POUR IT INTO A SHOT GLASS AND LET ME CHUG IT, CRUSH IT INTO A POWDER AND LET ME SNORT IT, PUT IT IN ME ASAP
  
  RASHOMON 10

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  Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★ 4

  Criterion Collection Spine #1057

  Director Jim Jarmusch's stylistic tribute to the Samurai genre, which paints a portrait of a badass urban warrior complete with Zen ideology, and a surprising flair of humor.

  'If a warrior's head were to be suddenly cut off, he should still be able to perform one more action with certainty ... What the fuck does that mean? ... It's poetry. The poetry of war."

  I first checked out Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai when my movie-loving uncle recommended it as a cool stealth assassin flick. And this was long before I became familiar with the classic international cinema it was inspired by. The main influence being Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Le Samouraï', which I was not…

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 29

  “Ghost Dog Way of the Samurai” is a testament to intertexuality as a means for survival. And also for the construction of a necessary, self-made end. 

  Jim Jarmusch’s film, about a New York mob hitman who sees himself as a legendary Japanese warrior, wears its primary inspiration in its title; Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï” (male directors, I’m begging you to please see another movie). While many have tried to varying success to make an entire film out of an homage to that classic of French cool, Jarmusch distinguishes “Ghost Dog” for how it is also an allusion to so much else. 

  Jarmusch isn’t just throwing in references to his favorite pieces of art for self-gratification. Each allusion becomes an artistic…

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  Review by Kylito ⚯͛ ★★★★★ 4

  You thought killing John Wicks's dog was a crazy move? Wait until you mess with Ghost Dog’s pigeons LMAO.

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  Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★★★ 2

  He was a stoic urban samurai professional hitman who loved pigeons. He was an Italian mobster who watched old cartoons and dropped mad bars. Together, they shared only one thing in common: a fucking quirky code of honor.

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  Review by Sean Baker 3

  Criterion Blu-ray

  DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
  - New Q&A with Jarmusch, in which he responds to questions sent in by fans
  - New conversation between actors Forest Whitaker and Isaach De Bankolé, moderated by film scholar Michael B. Gillespie
  - New interview with casting director Ellen Lewis
  - New interview with Shifu Shi Yan Ming, founder of the USA Shaolin Temple
  - Flying Birds: The Music of “Ghost Dog,” a new video essay on RZA’s score by filmmaker Daniel Raim
  - The Odyssey: A Journey into the Life of a Samurai, a 2000 program on the making of the film
  - Deleted scenes and outtakes
  - Archival interviews
  - Trailer
  - English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  - Essays by critics Jonathan Rosenbaum and Greg Tate, a 2000 interview with Jarmusch, and quotations from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, by the early-eighteenth-century monk Yamamoto Tsunetomo