Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is a 2010 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 about the life and career of comedienne Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...

. It premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival

San Francisco International Film Festival

San Francisco International Film Festival is the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. Organized by the San Francisco Film Society, the International is held each spring for two weeks, presenting an average of 150 films from over 50 countries...

 at the Castro Theatre

Castro Theatre

The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...

 on May 6, 2010.

Cast

All appearing as themselves

• Joan Rivers
  Joan Rivers
  Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...
  
  
• Melissa Rivers
  Melissa Rivers
  Melissa Joan Rivers is an American television host, producer and the daughter of Joan Rivers.-Early life:Rivers was born Melissa Warburg Rosenberg in Manhattan on January 20, 1968; the only child of Joan Rivers and Edgar Rosenberg...
  
  
• Kathy Griffin
  Kathy Griffin
  Kathleen Mary "Kathy" Griffin is an American actress, stand-up comedienne, television personality, New York Times best-selling author and an LGBT rights advocate. Griffin first gained recognition for appearances on two episodes of Seinfeld, and then for her supporting role on the NBC sitcom...
  
  
• Don Rickles
  Don Rickles
  Donald Jay "Don" Rickles is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic....
  
  

Archive footage

• Donald Trump
  Donald Trump
  Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
  
  
• Phyllis Diller
  Phyllis Diller
  Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
  
  
• Annie Duke
  Annie Duke
  Annie Duke is a professional poker player and author who won a bracelet in the 2004 World Series of Poker $2,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Event and was the winner of the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, where she earned the Winner-Take-All prize of $2,000,000...
  
  
• Johnny Carson
  Johnny Carson
  John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
  
  
• George Carlin
  George Carlin
  George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
  
  

Critical reception

The film earned very high critical praise. It scored a 79 from Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

. As of January 16, 2011, the film had a score of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

.

Box office

The film had a limited release

Limited release

Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....

 on June 11, 2010. In its opening weekend, the film made $164,351 while playing at 7 theaters.

Home media

On December 14, 2010, A Piece of Work was released on Region 1 DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 and Blu-ray

Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

, complete with the theatrical trailer

Trailer (film)

A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the...

, 10 deleted scene

Deleted scene

In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...

s, and TV spots.