Sweetgrass (film)
Sweetgrass (film)
Sweetgrass is a 2009 American documentary directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash. The film follows a family of Norwegian‑American shepherds as they drive their flocks of sheep from Montana’s valleys into the Absaroka‑Beartooth Mountains for summer pasture.
Production and premiere
- Filming began in spring 2001 after the filmmakers learned about the family, who were among the last to trail their sheep over long distances through Montana’s mountains.
- After eight years of filming, the movie premiered at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlin) in 2009 and was distributed in theaters by Cinema Guild.
- In the United States, Sweetgrass premiered at the New York Film Festival, and it also screened in Montana at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, where it won the Big Sky Artistic Excellence Award.
Style and themes
- The film is a non-narrative, minimalist documentary with little to no music or narration.
- It has been praised as an anthropological work of art that captures both beauty and hardship in a vanishing way of life.
Reception
- Rotten Tomatoes shows a high approval rating (around 97%).
- Metacritic assigns a favorable score (around 80 out of 100).
- It was named a New York Times Critic’s Pick and a Washington Post Critic’s Pick.
- The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis described it as “the first essential movie” of 2010.
About the title
- The title refers to Sweet Grass County, one of the locations where the film was shot.
Key details
- Running time: 101 minutes
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Poster and production notes indicate it centers on a traditional herding life in Montana.
This page was last edited on 1 February 2026, at 20:19 (CET).