Little Murders is one of the greatest films of the 1970s—nay, of all time!—and anyone who doesn’t watch it is a scoundrel.

“What’s it about?” you ask. Warily.

Well, it’s about how horrible life is. Yes. And how everyday survival is akin to constantly committing murder.

As you can surmise from that description, it’s arguably the blackest comedy you’ll ever see. It’s based on a play by Jules Feiffer, who also wrote Carnal Knowledge and illustrated The Phantom Tollbooth (among other things). It stars Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, Alan Arkin, and several stage actors whose names you probably won’t recognize, but who are all terrific. (If you don’t watch the movie, at least watch Sutherland’s cameo.)

Supposedly Gould asked Jean-Luc Godard to direct it; in the end, Arkin helmed it, with cinematography by the great Gordon Willis. (It’s gorgeous.)

Dave Sim, the genius behind the long-running  comic Cerebus, based the character of the Judge on the late Lou Jacobi’s character in this film.

Here’s Roger Ebert’s four-star review.

And here’s the film!

Now you can impress all of your friends!