Fantastic Fungi (2019) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Matt ★★ 15

  This film is confused propaganda made by someone with skill in timelapse photography and not much in the way of a coherent project or narrative.

  The film is dominated by Paul Stamets, who is a wonderful salesman and a 'controversial' figure in mycology (this is of course not broached in the film) and psilocybin. It is understandable why both of these things are; Stamets is the primary evangelist of fungi in the United States and its most successful businessman, and psychedelic drugs are both very exciting and hold great potential for change(s).
  In telling the story of psychedelic mushrooms great attention is paid to contemporary clinical trials, Stamets' own personal experience, and the frankly embarrassing stoned ape hypothesis. One line…

• Review by 👶🏾 ½ 6

  PLEASE READ...

  The racism of industrial/scientific people in botanical/anthropological 'research' is absolutely known to anyone who is lucky enough to have indigenous traditional knowledge systems.

  This film literally describes the STEALING of a traditional medicine from Mazatec people as THE DISCOVERY of a substance by a white man... Obviously nobody owns nature but people who have been exploited by those who simultaneously attempt to wipe-out their culture as well as appropriate it for profit, have a right to defend their cultural knowledge systems.

  Some scientifically-enlightened bigot chosen to be interviewed for this also made my blood boil. He implied that indigenous cultures today are primitive and that looking at indigenous cultures is a good way to tell what…

• Review by Jonah ★★★½ 2

  Um... this is a cult initiation video.

• Review by melody ★★½ 3

  they had us in the first half ngl.................. really felt betrayed as this devolved into a biopic about some guy who sells mushrooms / a psilocybin propaganda film. barely any science and a frustrating tendency to say nonsense like "mycelium is the dominant species on earth." they really felt it was necessary to include "stoned ape theory" and act like that was legitimate scientific thought lol. also, weird fetishistic references to, iirc, unspecified indigenous peoples while like everyone in this was white... not sure why brie larson was here. all that said, i have never seen so much beautiful footage of mushrooms growing and for that reason i really enjoyed this and i'm glad i saw it! wish we had talked about entomopathogenic fungi more! hope someone makes an actual serious documentary about fungi sometime soon!

• Review by Sam ★★½

  I could happily look at time-lapse footage of mushrooms all day

• Review by Alexander ★½ 1

  this is a trojan horse except the horse is mushrooms and mycological facts and the soldiers inside are paul stamets and his cgi apemen who are zonked to the moon

• Review by 𖤐🕯𝖕𝖆𝖒𝖊𝖑𝖆🕯𖤐 ★★★½ 2

  I feel like y'all in the reviews need to.... relax

• Review by Julie ★★★ 1

  we get it, mushrooms are communists

• Review by Liam Navey ★★

  I really liked how it started out but I didn't like where it went

• Review by zambetty ★★★★

  I worship at the mycelium temple. I pray to the fungi overlords. I kneel for our mushroom masters. I'm a true believer!

• Review by Zoë 🐛 ★½ 9

  Starts strong with some lovely animation and facts about the wonders of fungi, but then it devolves into way too many theses, none of which become cogent enough to warrant an entire documentary. Its main thesis is just magic mushrooms propaganda. This was recommended to me and my friends by a woman selling her wares at a flea market, so we should have known what we were in for from the start.

  (The more I think about it the more I think this might be a grifter's propaganda doc...please don't seek this out)

• Review by julia ★★★

  i both agree with the major points laid out here (mushrooms are awesome, also psilocybin therapy should be legal) and agree with popular criticism that it reads as culty mushroom propaganda that at times literally assumes the convention of having been written by a mushroom (?!). but this movie did me one undeniable favor which is show me many beautiful mushrooms, including a mushroom that looks like a tiny pink goblet out of which a little fairy could drink a sparkling grapefruit juice, so all in all do i owe it my deepest gratitude? yes