Film

Iris

Name: Iris
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2014
Cast: Iris Apfel, Carl Apfel, Tavi Gevinson, Bruce Weber, Harold Koda

Other titles called Iris: the 2001 film, the 2009 series (KBS2), the 2009 film.

Biopic
Light-hearted

Albert Maysles captures Iris Apfel at 93, a New York institution of radical style and unshakeable joy. It's intimate without being invasive, funny without being cruel, watching someone treat fashion as pure creative exuberance rather than status. For anyone who's ever felt that clothes are how you speak to the world.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love personal portraits of unapologetically idiosyncratic people, where a strong voice and a sharp eye for style carry the whole film.

Skip it if you want a behind-the-scenes look at fashion, since this stays close to one woman's taste and chatter rather than the industry machinery.

What it asks of you: Expect a leisurely 83 minutes of interviews and sidelong glances, with little plot and plenty of room for one personality to set the pace.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Bill Cunningham New York2011

Portrait of another fashion obsessive who never stopped looking, never stopped seeing, never stopped loving the work itself. Cunningham's eye is different from Apfel's temperament, but the devotion is identical.

But Slower and more elegiac than Iris; if you want energy and personality, this is more quiet observation and reverence.

The September Issue2009

Anna Wintour and the machinery of fashion at full throttle. It has Iris's world but from the inside of power—the stakes are higher, the control is tighter, but the obsession is just as real.

But Can feel like watching the fashion industry congratulate itself; not everyone finds that world sympathetic or interesting.

Valentino: The Last Emperor2008

A designer reflecting on beauty, legacy, and what it costs to care deeply about your craft for seven decades. Gentle and surprisingly vulnerable for a portrait of Italian high fashion.

But At nearly three hours, it moves at its own pace. And it's reverential rather than critical about its subject.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Iris

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Funny Face1957

Both Iris and this film argue that fashion is philosophy made visible—that what you wear is how you participate in the world's beauty. Iris just does it at 93 in an apartment in New York.

Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in Paris, a film that believes in the power of fashion to transform not just how you look but how you move, think, and see. The connection is spiritual, not superficial.

But A Hollywood musical from the 1950s; the representation of Paris is colonial, the gender dynamics are dated, and the whole thing is utterly unironic about capitalist glamour.

Jane2017

Jane Goodall through archival footage she and her team shot in the 1960s. A young woman alone with her obsession, completely unguarded. Ravishing and urgent.

But Some difficult nature footage; structured more as found-footage poem than conventional documentary narrative.

Faces Places2017

Agnès Varda and the street artist JR travel France making portraits and causing joy. It's about art, age, and whether your creativity ever stops. Warm and genuinely delightful.

But More impressionistic than structured; some will feel it meanders. And it's subtitled, which narrows the audience.

Grey Gardens1976

Albert Maysles directed both. Grey Gardens is what happens when creative spirit meets isolation; Iris is the opposite—how that same spirit survives through connection and the world's attention. They're the same question asked two ways.

The Maysles' masterpiece: two reclusive women in a crumbling mansion, filmed with absolute tenderness and no judgment. It's the family portrait that teaches you something about memory, style, and survival.

But Unsettling and claustrophobic. The women are eccentric in ways that read as sad rather than joyful; easier to admire than to enjoy watching.

Phantom Thread2017

Both take fashion dead seriously as art and identity, but where Iris sees liberation, Phantom Thread sees domination. Watching them back-to-back shows you how much a creator's temperament shapes what they make.

Paul Thomas Anderson on a London couturier in the 1950s, his obsession with fabric and form, and the woman who slowly poisons him. It's austere, strange, and treats clothes as a language of power and control.

But Deliberately cold and architectural; fashion is a weapon here, not a joy. If you loved Iris's warmth and freedom, this will feel like the opposite of everything she stands for.