"Only in the seventies could a filmmaker pitch a dream – the intention to shoot the movie without a finished script – get it greenlit by a major studio. Such is the genesis of 3 WOMEN, Altman's most psychologically haunting, offbeat, and visually captivating film. Stepping away from the narrative vastness of his previous "Nashville" and "Buffalo Bill and the Indians", Altman presents his 1977 feature with a languid sense of dread and claustrophobia, in which three social outsiders (Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Janice Rule) form an unusual bond around a Palm Springs health spa for the elderly. The film opened in New York in April that year and screened one month later at Cannes, where Duvall won the best actress award." Film at Lincoln Center

"This shape-shifting movie, which explores self-delusion, intense attachment, and identity-merging, originated in a dream Altman had and proceeds with a particular oneiric logic. The film is rich in brilliant oddities and juxtapositions, never more so than when Duvall and Spacek are encompassed in the same frame." Melissa Anderson, Artforum (2014)

"3 WOMEN emerged as such a seamless weave of image, sound, story, and character that no plot summary can do it justice. Ideally, it should be watched and pondered more than once, since many moviegoers find the film so utterly outside the cinematic frameworks they're familiar with that they wonder if its tenuous narrative (especially the deliberately indefinite ending) has passed them by, or isn't really there in the first place." David Sterrittm Criterion Channel (2011)

"Famously inspired by a dream and shot without a full screenplay, 3 WOMEN strips away all conventions of plot in favor of an exercise in characterization and sinister tone-building, and finds Robert Altman at his most Bergmanesque. An examination of the warped relationship between two women – the sweet but doltish Pinky (Sissy Spacek) and vapid modern gal Millie (Shelley Duvall) – which begins a slow descent into darkness following a near-fatal accident, 3 WOMEN successfully captures the feeling of a dream turning into a nightmare. It also stands as an example of Altman at the height of his powers, working with full and unrestrained instinct, creating a film awash in a hazy logic and chock-full of visual experimentation and aural tension, making for a truly unforgettable and unnerving experience." Alamo Drafthouse Cinema