Documentary · Review ·
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
The critics are close to unanimous: this is a rediscovered 1972 party at Duke Ellington's Harlem home, filmed by William Greaves and finished fifty years later by his son David, and reviewers call it vivid, argumentative and alive. Time names it one of the great documentaries of the year.
Read it for the voices and the form. Expect conversation and overlapping talk, not a tidy lesson.
Dir. William Greaves, David Greaves · 2026 · 100 min · in cinemas
The setup
In 1972 the filmmaker William Greaves gathered the surviving figures of the Harlem Renaissance at Duke Ellington's Harlem home for a party that was part reunion, part memorial and part symposium. Many of the guests had not seen each other in decades. Greaves filmed it, considered it the most important thing he ever shot, and died in 2014 without finishing it. His son David, who was behind a camera that day, and his granddaughter Liani, a producer, brought it to the screen fifty years on. That is as much of the story as this review needs.
It’s history that breathes.
Stephanie Zacharek, Time
What works
The reviews I drew on are close to unanimous. Critics describe a film that feels like being in the room: location sound, overlapping talk and split-screen frames that give you several faces at once. Jason Gorber at POV Magazine says that style would have looked highly experimental in 1972 and now feels natural, and Jason Bailey at Crooked Marquee ties it to Greaves's earlier experimental film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.
Names that critics single out include the pianist Eubie Blake, the painter Aaron Douglas, the writer Richard Bruce Nugent, the poet Arna Bontemps and the photographer James Van Der Zee, who is described playing Ellington's piano. Gorber calls Richard B. Moore the sharpest voice in the film. Matt Zoller Seitz at RogerEbert.com notes how a guest born in the nineteenth century, nearly a hundred years old when filmed, links the Civil War to the present, and finds a note of melancholy in how these elders might judge what Harlem and America became.
Several reviews also praise the editing by Lynn True and Anne de Mare, and the way a casual party turns into an oral history. Gorber compares the sense of discovery to Summer of Soul, and says that unlike A Great Day in Harlem it keeps the arguments, not only the celebration.
What doesn't
Almost no critic finds fault, so the reservations here are mine, read between the lines of the reviews. The form is dense: split screens and talk that overlaps ask for attention, and Gorber frames that as a strength, though it may tire anyone who wants one clear voice at a time. It is also an oral history, not a story with a plot. Bailey says the guests debate integration against separatism, culture against politics, gender and party politics, and that these arguments still resonate, but the film does not settle them. If you want a tidy lesson, it does not offer one.
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Where to watch
It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2026, and Neon released it in United States cinemas on 16 October 2026. We found no confirmed European release or streaming dates in the sources we read. Availability varies by country, so check your local cinema listings.