The Documentary You're Sleeping On

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Laura Poitras 2022 documentary about photographer Nan Goldin activism against the Sackler family, won the Golden Lion at Venice and then seemed to vanish from conversation. It should not have.

The documentary interweaves Goldin personal history, her iconic photography of 1980s New York, her near-fatal opioid addiction, and her organization PAIN campaign to remove the Sackler name from major museums.

Poitras brings investigative rigor to the Sackler story. The film presents internal Purdue Pharma documents and testimony that builds a devastating case against the family knowing role in the opioid epidemic.

Goldin photography provides visual material that is both beautiful and brutal. Her images of friends lost to AIDS, of addiction, of intimacy and violence, are presented as evidence of a life spent in proximity to pain.

The activism sequences are genuinely thrilling. Watching PAIN members stage die-ins at the Guggenheim creates a sense of possibility.

Stream on HBO Max or find at https://www.hbo.com/movies/all-the-beauty-and-the-bloodshed.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is essential because it connects art, activism, and accountability in a way that feels urgent. Watch it and you will never look at a museum donor wall the same way.