Film
Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay
A portrait of Ricky Jay, the legendary sleight-of-hand artist and historian of magic, told through interviews and demonstrations. It's a film about mastery, deception, and the obsessive scholarship required to perfect an invisible art. For anyone who's ever watched magic and wondered how, and why someone would spend a lifetime learning to do it better than anyone alive.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love the backstage craft of conjuring and the odd, bruised characters who live by hustling, and you enjoy a documentary that lets its subject's own stories and sly charm carry it.
Skip it if you want a fast, tightly edited film packed with onscreen magic, since much of this is talking heads and anecdote rather than sustained tricks.
What it asks of you: Settle in for a loose, conversational ninety minutes of reminiscence that circles its subject rather than building toward anything grand.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Prestige2006
Nolan's thriller about rival magicians chasing obsession treats magic as both technical puzzle and psychological warfare. It shares Ricky Jay's fascination with the architecture of deception and the price of perfect secrets.
But The plot mechanics get intricate to the point of convolution, and some reveal choices divide viewers sharply on rewatchability.
Now You See Me2013
A heist film where magicians use real sleight of hand techniques as their crime weapon. It captures the visual joy of watching impossibly skilled hands at work, even as it wraps everything in a broader caper plot.
But Trades substance for spectacle; the magic is window-dressing on a formula heist, not the subject itself.
Criss Angel: Mindfreak2005
A TV series built entirely around elaborate street magic and illusions performed in real locations. It shows magic's theatrical potential and its power to genuinely astonish ordinary people in ordinary spaces.
But Angel's persona is aggressively theatrical in a way that hasn't aged well, and the production values can feel thin compared to modern TV.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Melancholia2011
Both are about the mastery of technique in service of an inevitable, inexorable conclusion—the performer executing something with perfect precision while their audience feels that ending approaching. The form doesn't change the content, but it makes it bearable.
Lars von Trier's film about the end of the world is a masterclass in creating dread through composition and performance. Like Ricky Jay demonstrating a card trick, it shows you exactly what it's doing and somehow you can't look away. The architecture of despair mapped as precisely as palm transfers.
But Terminally slow. A 130-minute meditation on depression and apocalypse that requires patience most viewers won't grant. Also genuinely difficult to watch.
More like this (6)
Penn & Teller: Fool Us2011
Two legendary magicians judge other magicians in a competition format. Every episode is about the analytical study of how magic actually works—the thinking, the micro-movements, the psychology.
But It's a game show first, a magic lecture second; pacing and edit choices prioritize entertainment over deep explanation.
Dynamo: Magician Impossible2011
Street magic shot with cinematic ambition and genuine technical skill. British television investing in the visual grammar of impossible sleight, presented without the irony or winking that often undercuts magic on screen.
But Emphasizes spectacle over mystery; you watch knowing the effect, not really caring how—the opposite of Ricky Jay's philosophy.
F for Fake1973
Orson Welles meditates on forgery, art fraud, and the nature of authentic deception. It's a magician's film about how skillfully reality can be made to lie, shot with playful brilliance.
But Welles' narrative structure is deliberately baroque and digressive; some find it maddening rather than delightful.
The Illusionist2006
A period drama about a stage magician in Fin de Siècle Vienna, focused on the emotional and historical weight of the craft. Magic as metaphor for memory, loss, and the persistence of wonder in a changing world.
But Deliberately slow and melancholic; magic is backdrop to a sadder story about aging and obsolescence.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi2011
Both films are about a master craftsperson who has organized their entire life around an esoteric practice that very few people would choose. The pleasure and tragedy of choosing something and staying. The joy of getting better at it than anyone else.
A documentary about an aging sushi chef who has devoted eighty-seven years to perfecting sushi. It's meditative, rigorous, and treats a simple craft as the site of infinite ambition and refinement. Pure obsession filmed with reverence.
But Repetitive to the point of monomania. If you're not interested in sushi or in watching an old man think about sushi, nothing here will convert you.
Page One: Inside the New York Times2011
Both are elegies for specialized knowledge. Both follow practitioners who learned their craft before its cultural moment passed, and who maintain impossible standards for work almost no one cares about anymore. The question both ask: what does mastery mean when nobody's watching?
A documentary following the New York Times newsroom in 2010 as print journalism crumbles around them. It's about the rituals and ethics of a dying craft, the people who won't let standards slip even as institutions collapse.
But It's a film about newspaper work made for people who find newspaper work interesting; everyone else will find it myopically narrow and slow.
People
Cast
Ricky JaySelf
Dick CavettNarrator- Winston SimonSelf
David MametSelf- Persi DiaconisSelf
Directing
- Molly BernsteinDirector
Production
- David SimoneAssociate Producer
- Winston SimoneAssociate Producer
- Peter BlockCo-Executive Producer
- Cathy GreenwoldExecutive Producer
- Alan EdelsteinProducer
- Alicia SamsProducer
- Philip DolinProducer