The New York premiere was on November 21, 2014, at the Walter Reade Theaterat Film Society of Lincoln Center in Lincoln Center, Manhattan.

Many reviews were positive. Diana Clarke of the Village Voice called the film "marvelous" and said, "Nicholas Vreeland has a shaved head and a famous last name. The first, obvious and gleaming, advertises his humility and his life as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. The second, subtle and refined, suggests just how hard that humility was to come by."

Godfrey Cheshire on the website RogerEbert.com commented that the film's portrait of Vreeland suggests, "an inner odyssey as extraordinary as any journey across continents, mountain ranges and time zones".

David Noh of Film Journal International called Monk with a Camera an "enthralling and uplifting documentary".

In a review for Variety, Dennis Harvey said the film has an "attractive mix of retro celebrity and spiritual appeal".[10]

Monk With A Camera was shown in Los Angeles starting on December 12, 2014, at the Laemmle Royal, and after that was shown in other cinemas nationwide.

During his years as a monk, Vreeland struggles with his relationship with the camera, finding it almost impossible to give up being a photographer, but worrying that his attachment to photography as an artistic pursuit might compromise his dedication to the spiritual path.

When promised funding for the rebuilding of the monastery falls through because of the 2008 global financial crisis, out of necessity Vreeland's abilities as a photographer become the means to raise the funds needed to complete the building project.

In 2012 the Dalai Lama appoints Vreeland as the abbot of the monastery.

The film uses archival photographs and film sequences, animated sequences, interviews, and numerous on-location segments filmed in India, in New Jersey, in New York City, in Los Angeles, and other major cities worldwide. 

At various points in the film, as well as photographs taken by Vreeland himself, we see him looking at photographs of his family taken by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Cecil Beaton. We also see Vreeland reading Tintin in Tibet, by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé. This was a book he enjoyed as a child; it was his first introduction to Tibetan Buddhism