LANA WILSON

EMMY AWARD-WINNING
DIRECTOR, WRITER,
AND PRODUCER

Look Into My Eyes

Details:

Release:

Documentary Feature
2024, 105 minutes

Synopsis:

A group of New York City psychics conduct deeply intimate readings for their clients, revealing a kaleidoscope of loneliness and connection, joy and eccentricity, pain and healing.
 
World Premiere, 2024 Sundance Film Festival
 

See the Film:

Stream on Max

Purchase or rent on Amazon, Apple TV+, or Google Play

Press:

CRITIC'S PICK. Profoundly sad and surprisingly hopeful.
Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times
The genius of Lana Wilson’s portrait of New York City psychics is that she doesn’t ask us to believe, but to feel. An exquisitely made documentary that puts compassion before cynicism.
Nicolas Rapold, Sight and Sound
Revelatory. Lana Wilson deftly explores the lost art of human connection.
Pat Mullen, POV
One of Sundance’s best documentaries. Mystical…marvelously nuanced and fascinating. Is this performance? Is it ‘real’? And if it brings peace to the living, does it matter?
Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times
A sensitive and surprising film about the relationship between shared performance and private pain. Lana Wilson is a singularly perceptive filmmaker.
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
ONE OF THE 10 BEST MOVIES FROM SUNDANCE 2024. What Wilson’s complicated, compassionate film ends up proving beyond a shadow of a doubt is that people need to be told that they’re forgiven, they’re loved, and they can let go and move on from trauma. The speaking-from-beyond aspect almost seems superfluous. It’s more about those who have a desire to heal by any means necessary.
David Fear, Rolling Stone
A celebration of human empathy and the power of shared connection.
Nikki Baughan, Screen Daily
Wilson does something remarkable: unveiling the very human desires and drives that motivate us to reach out for something bigger than ourselves.
Alejandra Martinez, The Wrap
Deeply moving.
Jake Kring-Schreifels, The Film Stage
ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OUT OF SUNDANCE 2024. By diving into each psychic’s journey to the oft-mocked practice, as well as the clients’ desperate pleas for any semblance of closure, Wilson explores the grief and humanity of those who are left behind.
Jada Yuan and Sonia Rao, The Washington Post
Wilson makes movies with uncommon intimacy, paving cinematic paths of self-actualization. Look Into My Eyes signals an exciting step forward for Wilson, as she expands her gaze toward an entire community.
David Canfield, Vanity Fair
Perceptive documentarian Lana Wilson has an intellectually inquisitive touch regardless of whom she’s filming. With Look Into My Eyes, Wilson puts forth something that will make every New Yorker—or anyone who’s ever sat with unprocessed grief and suffering—feel a little less alone, a little more seen.
Tomris Laffly, Harper's Bazaar
Magnificent...alternately sobering and vital. What’s unquestionable about Look Into My Eyes is the ability of both the filmmaker, one of the best working today, and her subjects to make people feel less alone.
Stephen Saito, The Moveable Fest
Lana Wilson’s soulful, patient, appropriately skeptical documentary takes psychics at their word but also peers behind the curtain in revealing ways.
Chris Barsanti, PopMatters
Unfolds the grief, turmoil, and loneliness that come along with being a human. Wilson’s truly masterful work with Look Into My Eyes cements her as a powerhouse documentary filmmaker.
Sundance Film Festival
Marvelous. Sensitive and serious…elegantly bends the definition of documentary.
John Anderson, The Wall Street Journal
Incredible. When we watch Look Into My Eyes, its subjects are looking at us, too, asking what fictions we use to keep ourselves sane, and whether we’d really live better lives without them.
Sam Adams, Slate
An exploration of humanity’s shared search for significance. Wilson zeroes in on what truly matters: the human craving for connection, comfort and healing.
Ryan LaBee, Cinemablend
Immensely moving…profound. A meditation on the need for connection in life. It invites us to breathe in, breathe out, and ask ourselves what brings us here today.
Andrea Chase, Killer Movie Reviews
A deeply resonant work about the ways in which people cope. A filmic interpretation beyond words…it’s hard not to come away changed.
Siddhant Adlakha, Mashable
Profound…a journey through loneliness, desperation, love and loss. Wilson’s documentary bleeds with a deeply human truth, providing unrelenting catharsis for the viewer. Look Into My Eyes witnesses the fullness of the human experience and reveals its unspeakable and tender beauty.
Sasha Ravitch, Moviejawn
★★★★. A profound and touching documentary that engages your attention differently than movies usually do. Parts of this movie seem to rediscover the reason close-ups were created.
Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
You don’t have to believe in the supernatural to feel the emotional pull of Lana Wilson’s intimate documentary Look Into My Eyes...
Stephanie Zacharek, TIME
Cathartic. Suggests that whether psychic readings are accurate is beside the point, [showing] that strangers talking one-on-one - that companionship - can be even more valuable.
Olivia B. Waxman, TIME
A gem of a nonfiction film. With a gentle evenhandedness, it slowly evolves into a lovely and moving meditation on loneliness, longing, and the universal search for connection.
Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post
Luminous. Hypnotic and lovely, a bittersweet gem.
Ray Pride, Newcity Film
A coolly provocative, emotionally transfixing study about people who claim to be able to communicate with the dead.
Stephen Schaefer, Boston Herald
A must-watch. Look Into My Eyes acts as a surprising cinematic therapy that opens your heart and mind in one sitting.
Tom Moore, In Their Own League
Even the most die-hard skeptics of psychics and the services they offer will likely come away from Lana Wilson’s hypnotic documentary moved, maybe even profoundly so.
Randy Myers, The Mercury News
Remarkable. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Lana Wilson explores the relationships between New York City psychics and their clients in a compelling character study about the desperate need for human understanding.
Julian Roman, MovieWeb
Moving. Cathartic.
Sean Boelman, FandomWire
Entrancing.
Nicolas Rapold, W Magazine
Stunningly intimate. A subtle, intuitive documentary that uncovers the deeply human, deeply moving impulses under all the supernatural woo-woo.
Katie Rife, IGN
★★★★. Bold…dares audience members to keep looking. Wilson exhibits the type of fearlessness in filmmaking that makes her work so exciting to watch. It makes you look at the world differently.
Hayley Croke, Loud And Clear Reviews
Soul-stirring. Wilson brilliantly captures a profound exchange of purpose and healing.
Giovanni Lago, Next Best Picture
The film stirs the soul less by the magic of ghosts than by the power of human connection.
Amy Nicholson, The Washington Post
Human connections are gifts, imagination is powerful, and empathy isn’t a trick. These are the things Look Into My Eyes patiently communicates to us from its watchful perch. The sensitive, intimate outlet shown in Wilson’s compassionate documentary - one of the year’s best - lets us put our mistrust aside to consider what can be deeply felt from a pretense accepted between willing, receptive souls.
Robert Abele, The Los Angeles Times
trailer

Honors

Nominee

Cinema Eye Honors 2025, Best Nonfiction Feature Film

Nominee

Cinema Eye Honors 2025, Best Direction

Nominee

Cinema Eye Honors 2025, Best Editing

Winner

National Board of Review 2024, Top Five Documentaries of the Year

MOMI WILL PRESENT THE RETROSPECTIVE COME ALIVE: THE FILMS OF LANA WILSON NOVEMBER 22-24