Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Hunted, The
Paramount Pictures


3.3

based on 34 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 16 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for strong bloody violence and some language

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Connie Nielsen, Jenna Boyd, and Leslie Stefanson

An FBI deep-woods tracker (Jones) captures a trained assassin (Del Toro) who has made a sport of hunting humans.

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	David Griffiths Peter Griffiths Art Monterastelli
DIRECTED BY:	William Friedkin
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 12, 2003 Video: August 12, 2003 Theatrical: March 14, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	94 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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...

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Walking in, I thought I knew what to expect, but i didn't anticipate how William Friedkin would jolt me with the immediate urgency of the action. This is not an arm's-length chase picture, but a close physical duel between its two main characters.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

It's a good ride, briskly paced, well played and vividly photographed by Caleb Deschanel.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Isn't exactly fraught with psychological depth and nuance, but as a stalker-stalkee suspenser, the pic has some nice things going for it.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Engrossing as it is, The Hunted is more a showcase for formidable talent than anything else. It's a brainy, exciting but shallow show -- an expert's action movie that almost runs out of breath.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

While the plot of The Hunted is tiresome and the character development is phlegmatic, the picture holds fascination in its determination to trim away chat and guff and focus on tempo and filmic textures.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

All about the thrill of the chase, and Friedkin challenges the antiseptic spectacle and fantasy flamboyance of computer-enhanced blockbusters with a lean, mean manhunt thriller and gritty, hard-edged style.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Few modern thrillers aspire to look this striking.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

What keeps you watching isn't the story or the actors, none of whom are at the top of their form, but the relentlessness of Friedkin's vision. The film has great forward thrust -- Friedkin's a full-throttle guy -- and the director knows where to put the camera.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Aided by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, Friedkin works economically, lending the film the mark of a master craftsman, albeit of the coldly efficient variety. The terseness and surplus of technical skill make The Hunted surprisingly engaging.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Routine, superficial manhunt stuff.

Slate David Edelstein

Brutally exciting and sometimes brutally inept.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The Hunted is so openly, defiantly derivative of 1982's "First Blood," you figure there has to be a copyright lawsuit brewing right this very minute.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Just a "Rambo" rehash.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Friedkin has huffed and puffed and blown up a single chase sequence into the whole damn movie. You got your hunted, you got your hunter, and away they go. And go and go.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The Hunted stalks the masculine psyche with sharp knives, but it tracks its audience too noisily to bag us.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

In one slack exchange, Del Toro intimates that the government wants to shut him up because he knows too much, but apparently someone decided that this thing was silly enough already and the matter was dropped.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

Jones seems to have trouble keeping up with the large amount of action he's required to participate in. And Del Toro seems ill-cast and ill-used.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is schlock -– by-the-numbers action that ignores character development to the point where we find it hard to care whether L.T. catches Hallam.

TV Guide Ken Fox

If your idea of a good time at the movies is watching two grown men go at it with fists and shivs and nasty wilderness booby-traps, then you're in luck.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Aspiring to pure action -- several very long passages are wordless -- the movie ends up teetering on the brink of self-parody.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

The bottom line is the movie's a mess. Friedkin would like one to believe there's more than meets the eye to his tale of two trackers.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

To be fair, Friedkin does amp up the tension when called for. If only it were all for some purpose, or in service to a story that actually went somewhere.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Del Toro does remind you of Brando here; unfortunately, it's the Brando of ''Apocalypse Now,'' the one with the green face and puffy line readings. Jones fares better, even if he wears the same grieving-for-humanity expression throughout the film.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

As in "The Edge," in which Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins were stranded in the wilds, you can earn a wildernesssurvival merit badge just from watching.

LA Weekly Henry Sheehan

This superficial nonsense is easily ignored; that the movie runs out of gas at the midpoint isn't.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Essentially a reheating of 1982's "First Blood" -- a psychologically wounded warrior-vet pits himself against civilized America -- but the fallout this time is simultaneously more ruthless, less emotional, and duller.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Has so little going for it, you wonder if you've missed something.

Film Threat Robert Learner

The movie appears brutally cut which might explain its inability to develop a thought, much less any narrative momentum.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It soon gets down to its real business: fights, face-offs, and showdowns mired in the shallowest sort of Hollywood machismo.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The only prize this shamelessly derivative schlock is likely to be in the running for is the year's dullest thriller.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Friedkin is steeped in gore, like some cinematic Macbeth, and it's obscuring his artistic vision.

USA Today Mike Clark

You keep waiting for there to be more, but there never is -- other than the fact that it all gets gorier and uglier as the dyspeptic look on Jones' face progresses from a four- to a six-a-day scotch-and-peppermint schnapps hangover.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The stripped-down narrative is almost an apology for the ludicrous story -- but it's just not enough of one.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

It's an A-list movie for the most brain-dead elements of the action-movie crowd.

The average user rating for this movie is 3.3 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Nick B. gave it a 7:
This movie is filled with action and violence which is great. But the movie is set in Portland, Oregon and I live in Portland. They made this city seem like New York instead of the hippy infested town that it is. Not realistic at all!

Derek W. gave it a 2:
After watching this movie I went out and bought a t-shirt that said "I watched The Hunted and lived to tell about it". Stay away from this movie at all costs. If you must see it, con a friend into renting it when it comes out on video so you don't waste your own money on it.

Matt P. gave it a 6:
Other than it's disturbing opening sequence you won't remember a single thing about this movie ten minutes after watching it.

Carsten K. gave it a 7:
I expected "The Fugitive III", when I went to the cinema. But this movie is all about hunting the bad guy down. Two thirds of the film are chasing - one way or the other. I'm not sure, if I ever saw a movie like this one - although the suspense drops the longer the movie lasts.

John Y. gave it a 6:
The film provides a promising set-up; we learn what to anticipate -- chase sequences. And we receive two successfully executed ones. But then the movie ends, leaving the viewer feeling cheated of a more complete experience. The actors add some intrigue, but ultimately, at 94 minutes, "The Hunted" is in dire need of another act.

David K. gave it a 0:
How bad was this? AWFUL!

Zeke gave it a 0:
Ranks up there with the worst movies of all time. Pure unadulterated garbage.

Hunted, The Paramount Pictures

Hunted, The
Paramount Pictures