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Film

Short films based on Joe Frank’s programs:
“Hitchhiker,”
“Jilted Lover,”
“The Perfect Woman,”
“Memories,”
directed by Paul Rachman

Coma and Eleanor
directed by Todd Downing

Magda and Dirt
directed by Chel White

Reviews of Joe’s Work

"Frank wanders deeply into the unconscious, producing Dionysian stories with a fairy-tale intensity whose effect is often funny, disturbing and deeply memorable."

Salon Magazine

"Joe Frank is an original whose work has helped form some of the most eccentric, dark and interesting parts of public radio's personality. "

Terry Gross, Fresh Air

"I came upon Joe Frank's work by accident a number of years ago while driving to my home in the Napa Valley late at night. I couldn't believe the originality and sheer brilliance of what I was hearing. From that moment on I became a dedicated Joe Frank fan. Joe Frank's shows raise the most interesting and enduring questions in new and original ways and are consistently thought-provoking and very funny."

Francis Ford Coppola, filmmaker

"Frank has created a series of dead-pan radio monologues so sharp and intelligent that during the quiet bits you can almost hear God taking notes."

The UK Guardian

"To me, he's what radio is really for... his show makes me think he's getting to some great truth... so completely captivating and just unlike anything else."

David Sedaris, writer

"You don't have to close your eyes to appreciate Joe Frank's dense audio universe cascading out of your radio. It helps, though, because there are so many layers - of sound, philosophy, of reality-coursing through his dramas... Come to think of it, after awhile, you won't want to close your eyes because in Frank's short stories for the radio, the tension and pathos are as enveloping as they are intriguing... "

The Washington Post

"Joe Frank is an invaluable warrior who stands in defense of our fears, our vanities and our forever-eroding sense of ourselves. He transforms the everyday banality of the human comedy into an inspired weirdness that feeds on pathos and irony, and feels a lot like revelation. Sartre would have called it nausea; Frank makes it art."

Spin Magazine

"Frank [is] the apostle of radio noire... His free-form radio dramas... are sometimes moving, often funny, but always manage to confound the listeners' expectations. A maestro of verité, Frank exploits the power of radio..."

Rolling Stone

"The world of Joe Frank is a wildly entertaining surrealistic universe...hilarious, unsettling, zany, powerful, moving and perhaps the most unique, inventive and effective use of radio since Orson Welles convinced much of America there was a War of the Worlds."

The L.A. Weekly

"Radio's Prince of Darkness Rules the Freeways. [Frank is] alternately dark, bizarre and very funny - but always hard to turn off."

The Wall Street Journal

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