Award winning films by Frederick Wiseman
February 16, 2026
Frederick Wiseman, Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 96.
It is with great sadness that Zipporah Films, Inc., and the Wiseman family announce the peaceful passing of Frederick Wiseman, filmmaker, producer, and theater director, on February 16, 2026. He was 96 and considered Cambridge, MA, Northport, ME and Paris, France his homes.
For nearly six decades, Frederick Wiseman created an unparalleled body of work, a sweeping cinematic record of contemporary social institutions and ordinary human experience primarily in the United States and France. His films—from Titicut Follies (1967) to his most recent work, Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (2023)—are celebrated for their complexity, narrative power, and humanist gaze. He produced and directed all of his 45 films under the banner of Zipporah Films, Inc.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1930, Frederick Wiseman graduated from Williams College and Yale Law School. He began his filmmaking career in the mid-1960s and quickly established himself as a fiercely independent artist dedicated to exploring the nuances of institutional life, challenging audiences to form their own interpretations. His work has been recognized with numerous accolades, including an Honorary Academy Award for his life's work and a MacArthur Prize Fellowship.
He will be deeply missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and the countless filmmakers and audiences around the world whose lives and perspectives were shaped by his unique vision.
Mr. Wiseman was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, who passed away in 2021. He is survived by his two sons, David (Jennifer) and Eric (Kristen Stowell), and three grandchildren, Benjamin, Charlie and Tess, as well as Karen Konicek, his friend and collaborator, who worked with Fred for 45 years.
A private funeral service will be held for immediate family.
A celebration of life will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family and Zipporah Films kindly request that you support your local PBS affiliate or independent bookstore in Frederick Wiseman’s memory.
Messages of condolence for the family can be sent to the Zipporah Films office at 32 Widgeon Cove Lane, Harpswell, Maine 04079 or info@zipporah.com
"Frederick Wiseman is probably the most sophisticated intelligence to enter the documentary field in recent years." -Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
/
"He’s arguably the most brilliant, brave and innovative person working in his field." -Terry Atkinson, Los Angeles Times
/
"No contemporary maker of films, whether for theatrical release or for television, engages my emotions so fully or consistently as Frederick Wiseman." – Richard Schickel, Life
/
"It's no surprise that Wiseman's great films stand as such imposing touchstones. For anyone looking to make sense of modern-day America -- its human institutions and social constructs -- no other body of work comes close. -Dennis Lim, Los Angeles Times
/
"Mr. Wiseman is an artist.His shots are carefully composed and painstakingly edited into assemblages that reveal the layers and patterns of experience. His movies are not raw transcripts of reality, but artifacts and representations, at once abstract and laden with content. You can’t rush through them because the usual temporal maps – the ingrained ideas of structure and sequence that guide you through stories – are unavailable. You don’t know what will happen next, which means you have to give the totality of your eyes, ears and mind to what is happening right now." –A.O. Scott, The New York Time s
/
"Wiseman’s work is preoccupied with what one could call spirit. With an intensity usually found only in fiction, Wiseman examines the moral and spiritual life of an institution, revealing the way people are mauled, pounded into shape, ignored, or even ennobled by passing through or working in one of these places; that is, the way people react to authority." –David Denby, The New York Review
/
"Rigorously shot, impeccably edited and at times startling in their beauty, these films usher us into often otherwise anonymous spaces and lives, and help make the invisible visible." – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
/
"For many, Frederick Wiseman has been, quite simply, the American documentary filmmaker. His work has offered an intimate, extracurricular history of his country by way of its institutions" -Kevin Jackson, The Independent
/
"...carefully constructed, each documentary is at once a collection of intimate vignettes, a detailed portrait of an institution, and a time-capsule record of human behavior, speech, and dress. Compassion, suffering, excitement, tedium, the eloquent, the ugly, and the ordinary all pass before Mr. Wiseman’s measured, humanist gaze." -Nicolas Rapold, The New York Sun
/
"Essential viewing. Frederick Wiseman is American cinema’s foremost sociological auteur. Even at the age of 90, Wiseman continues to churn out non-fiction gems like no other, and that definitely holds true with regards to his latest, CITY HALL… a sprawling panorama of government and community work… Proves a celebration of the power of storytelling to unite—and, also, a masterful example of it. –Nick Schager, Daily Beast
/
"Frederick Wiseman is probably the most sophisticated intelligence to enter the documentary field in recent years." -Pauline Kael, The New Yorker / "He’s arguably the most brilliant, brave and innovative person working in his field." -Terry Atkinson, Los Angeles Times / "No contemporary maker of films, whether for theatrical release or for television, engages my emotions so fully or consistently as Frederick Wiseman." – Richard Schickel, Life / "It's no surprise that Wiseman's great films stand as such imposing touchstones. For anyone looking to make sense of modern-day America -- its human institutions and social constructs -- no other body of work comes close. -Dennis Lim, Los Angeles Times / "Mr. Wiseman is an artist.His shots are carefully composed and painstakingly edited into assemblages that reveal the layers and patterns of experience. His movies are not raw transcripts of reality, but artifacts and representations, at once abstract and laden with content. You can’t rush through them because the usual temporal maps – the ingrained ideas of structure and sequence that guide you through stories – are unavailable. You don’t know what will happen next, which means you have to give the totality of your eyes, ears and mind to what is happening right now." –A.O. Scott, The New York Time s / "Wiseman’s work is preoccupied with what one could call spirit. With an intensity usually found only in fiction, Wiseman examines the moral and spiritual life of an institution, revealing the way people are mauled, pounded into shape, ignored, or even ennobled by passing through or working in one of these places; that is, the way people react to authority." –David Denby, The New York Review / "Rigorously shot, impeccably edited and at times startling in their beauty, these films usher us into often otherwise anonymous spaces and lives, and help make the invisible visible." – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times / "For many, Frederick Wiseman has been, quite simply, the American documentary filmmaker. His work has offered an intimate, extracurricular history of his country by way of its institutions" -Kevin Jackson, The Independent / "...carefully constructed, each documentary is at once a collection of intimate vignettes, a detailed portrait of an institution, and a time-capsule record of human behavior, speech, and dress. Compassion, suffering, excitement, tedium, the eloquent, the ugly, and the ordinary all pass before Mr. Wiseman’s measured, humanist gaze." -Nicolas Rapold, The New York Sun / "Essential viewing. Frederick Wiseman is American cinema’s foremost sociological auteur. Even at the age of 90, Wiseman continues to churn out non-fiction gems like no other, and that definitely holds true with regards to his latest, CITY HALL… a sprawling panorama of government and community work… Proves a celebration of the power of storytelling to unite—and, also, a masterful example of it. –Nick Schager, Daily Beast /
