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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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49
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65
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xx
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59
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74
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43
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69
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Hunger
Universal acclaim
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 13 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Steve McQueen
Enda Walsh
Directed by: Steve McQueen
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 5, 2008
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: UK | Ireland
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham, Helena Bereen, Larry Cowan, Liam Cunningham, Dennis McCambridge, Liam McMahon, and Laine Megaw,
Hunger follows life in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, with an interpretation of the highly emotive events surrounding the 1981 IRA Hunger Strike led by Bobby Sands. With an epic eye for detail, the film provides a timely exploration of what happens when body and mind are pushed to the uttermost limit. (IFC Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Village Voice J. Hoberman
A superbly balanced piece of work, addressing the passion of Irish Republican martyr Bobby Sands.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
McQueen has taken the raw materials of filmmaking and committed an act of great art.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Reyhan Harmanci
Artful, beautiful in parts and unbelievably brutal in others, and no less honest for its stagecraft.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Hunger -- the disturbing, provocative, brilliant feature debut from British director Steve McQueen -- does for modern film what Caravaggio did to Renaissance painting.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
An alternately harrowing and poetic take on the fatal 1982 hunger strike of Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands, Hunger is also one of the most impressive feature directing debuts in years.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Hunger is a mesmerizing 96 minutes of cinema, one of the truly extraordinary filmmaking debuts of recent years. It's also an uneasy, unsettling experience and is meant to be.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
A disturbingly avid re-creation of the last six weeks in the life and slow, self-imposed wasting of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The movie is a political remake of "The Passion of the Christ," only more aestheticized: It's rigorous, evocative, and, in spite of its grisly imagery, elegant. It's a triumph--of masochistic literal-mindedness.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Sands' death is shown in a tableaux of increasing bleakness. It is agonizing, yet filmed with a curious painterly purity.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
So what is Hunger? Unexpectedly, a visually ravishing tour of hell and a meditation on freedom that at best is wordlessly profound and at worst interestingly obscure.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Although the film, for the most part, is told from the perspective of the IRA, it does not blithely take its side.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Hunger may be criticized for being willfully arty, or for reducing a complex political situation to a broadly allegorical vision of martyrdom, but it's never less than visually stunning.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
While Hunger is a very brutal film, it also taps into human emotions and, in the end, asks what would we be willing to die for or, better, what could we truly not live without?
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
It's a strength of this carefully composed, almost obsessively controlled picture that it has no interest in the conventional biographical focus on a subject.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Hunger is almost silent, most of its sounds being unintelligible moans and screams.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
In all, Steve McQueen is a master of fascination rather than of drama--he creates stunning shots rather than an intricate story.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
The fulcrum of this deeply humanist work is an extended two-shot of the strike's leader, Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), as he converses with a priest (Liam Cunningham); the virtuosic sequence encapsulates the whole sorry history of a horrific civil war.
Read Full Review >Variety Leslie Felperin
Picture represents a powerful, pertinent but not entirely perfect debut for British visual-artist-turned-feature-helmer Steve McQueen, who demonstrates a painterly touch with composition and real cinematic flair, but who stumbles in film's last furlough with trite symbolism.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The brutality in the film is pervasive and often stomach turningly graphic, but what is perhaps most unnerving is the tact, patience and care with which Mr. McQueen depicts its causes and effects.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
For those who can tough it out -- and not everyone will -- Hunger is a searing experience. Just don't expect to have much of an appetite when it's over.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein
The first-time director's unflinching camera, deliberate pacing and maddeningly long takes just amplify the story's innate harshness and test audience endurance levels.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
An emotionally devastating drama that isn't for the squeamish.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mark gave it an8:
Incredibly acted, very long, uninterrupted two-character scene.
Joe M gave it a9:
Steve McQueen has constructed a film devoid of politics and bias. Instead the emphasis is the bare bones of human conflict and sacrifice. We see the mundane world of tea trolleys and care homes spliced with the blind and bitter violence of the troubles. Despite an obvious visual priority in McQueen's filming their is a poignant concentration on dialoguge, climaxing in the elongated discussion between Sands and his priest. To call the film trite is a lazy accusation, and is mistaking what is the most simple of human communication, emotion. A film of depth and patience that is vital viewing.
Rory P. gave it a9:
This is a hard one to describe. First of all, this is an exceptionally well made film. I am surprised that It has not done so well critically here. I will assume it has something to do with its controversial subject matter-which perhaps is a tad unfair as it is accurate-and a finale which some argue descends into moving but slightly benign and closed martyr centric iconography- which is a far more valid point. I can see why people have such criticisms, but to be honest I cannot fully endorse them, mainly because the film is just so plainly overwhelming. Exceptionally acted, exceptionally shot and put together, it is an incredibly immersive, cinematic experience. It was one of the few films that i have actually sat, after the end credits started to roll, in the darkness of the cinema, totally bowled over by the whole experience. The second best film of 2008 in my book (the best being There will be Blood, which says alot of the the quality of this film.) The fact that it has been relatively ignored during the awards season is a travesty, especially when far less daring and affecting films such as milk, frost/nixon and yes, even slumdog millionaires are getting acknowledged. I am willing to say it if no one else will, they are all not as good as this film. go see it.
raymond h gave it an8:
Far better film than some of the reviews would suggest. A powerful and painful film that shows the relativity of man's brutality, as it moves from victim to perpetrator and back again. The viewer inevitably sides with the prisoner, not the state authority, without regard to the nature of the crimes that resulted in the incarceration in the first place.
