---
title: "The History of Concrete (2026) review"
description: "This is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek if Annie Dillard were stuck on a New York City sidewalk."
url: https://www.joekarlsson.com/reviews/the-history-of-concrete/
---

![A still from The History of Concrete (2026)](https://www.joekarlsson.com/images/reviews/the-history-of-concrete/backdrop.webp)

# The History of Concrete (2026)

Nov 8, 2026 | 2 min read | Rated 4.5 out of 5 | Dir. John Wilson

This is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek if Annie Dillard were stuck on a New York City sidewalk.

I mean that as the highest praise. I’m a sucker for sprawling slice-of-life documentaries, and I’ll sit and watch them all day long. Just show me hyper-specific people living their weird little lives, and I’ll be seated for it. I’m also a huge fan of How To with John Wilson, and of anything Nathan Fielder touches (he executive produced the show and pops up here), and I was not disappointed by this at all.

The History of Concrete is one of the best films I’ve ever seen about the artistic process, because it shows how meandering creativity is. Noticing, paying attention and letting the journey take as long as it takes lead to the biggest creative and personal insights.

The behind-the-scenes of making it is the film. Wilson opens at a workshop on how to write and sell a Hallmark movie, then tries to use the formula to sell a documentary about concrete. The formula never stands a chance. In classic John Wilson fashion, he follows his instincts, meets people, and goes deeper and deeper into their lives, and every one of those detours ends up being the movie. He shows his work, Zoom pitches that go nowhere included, and it’s the clearest look I’ve had at how an idea actually comes together.

The standout for me is the GumBusters guy, who has the Sisyphean task of removing gum from New York City sidewalks. The city will never run out of gum, and he seems joyful doing it anyway. Truly a character from a Camus novel. He might also be the most John Wilson person in the whole movie, happily paying attention to the thing everyone else steps on.

Dillard’s book has a whole chapter called “Seeing.” She went to a beautiful slice of nature in Virginia and tried to get every ounce of insight out of a creek. Wilson is stuck in the concrete jungle doing the same thing with the stuff under his feet. Concrete is so easily passed over and misunderstood, and it turns out to be fertile ground. Somehow he and Annie Dillard cross paths, from such different angles.

Also on [Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/joekarlsson/film/the-history-of-concrete/)

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Joe  
Karlsson

I write about my homelab, AI tools, databases, and the weird stuff I build on the side.

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