Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
September Dawn
EMAILPRINTBlack Diamond Pictures
Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 34 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Romance | Western
Written by:
Christopher Cain
Carole Whang Schutter
Directed by: Christopher Cain
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 24, 2007
DVD: January 2, 2008
Running Time: 110 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for violence
Starring Jon Voight, Trent Ford, Tamara Hope, Jon Gries, Huntley Ritter, Lolita Davidovich, Dean Cain, and Terence Stamp
On September 11, 1857, in an unspoiled valley of the Utah territory--and in the name of God--120 men, women, and children were savagely murdered. Who ordered the massacre, and why, has been hidden in a cloak of secrecy and conspiracy. And the reputation of one of this nation's mightiest religious figures has been preserved and protected. This film is based on historical events. (Slow Hand Releasing)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Young Guns
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
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...
TV Guide Ken Fox
Most significant and contrary to the Mormon Church's ongoing position, the film depicts Young as present when the plot is hatched to slaughter the emigrants. Needless to say, this workmanlike but unflinching film won't be playing in Utah anytime soon.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The cruel simplicity of the atrocity is made needlessly chaotic by artless camerawork that swishes rapidly back and forth across the action, to the accompaniment of a syrupy soundtrack.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Luke Sader
Cain has crafted a modest picture, filmed in Canada, that too often feels like a very elaborate episode of "Gunsmoke."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The movie isn't THAT bad -- it's just made-for-TV historical treacle that has somehow found its way to the big screen (and barely that; if you want to be moved or outraged by the film, you'll have to travel to Danvers or Revere).
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen
A rare case in which one can't help but wish the film were somehow worse than it is, for it would then be easier to dismiss outright. Jon Voight's turn as a fictional local Mormon leader and, in particular, Terence Stamp's performance as Brigham Young have a strange, unnerving conviction about them, and give the film an oddly engaging pull.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Shot in a style that might be termed Americana gravitas, September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials. The schematic script is further burdened with heavy ironies and hackneyed dialogue.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
The didactic presentation, grim speechifying and tacked-on love story all signify a less-than-healthy regard for the audience's intelligence.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
September Dawn, written by an evangelical Christian, may be the worst historical drama ever made.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Filmmaker Christopher Cain has turned a national tragedy into a teen romance, and not in a grand, entertaining, "Titanic" way.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
A ham-fisted cautionary tale of religious fanaticism that would have been hooted out of even 19th-century theaters as melodrama of the most lurid kind.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
The villainous turns by Jon Voight (as a hard-hearted Mormon bishop) and Terence Stamp (as a bloodthirsty Brigham Young) would have been more fun if they weren't part of such a clumsy campaign to lay this tragedy at the church's doorstep.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Steven Hyden
With its complete lack of empathy for early Mormons and simplistic rendering of historical figures, September Dawn is that rare movie that actually deserves whatever condemnation might come from religious groups.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The audience gets the message (religious fanaticism: bad), but nothing we see is convincing on its own.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Succeeds completely at failure; the unified incompetence of its writing, directing and acting suggest a man who manages to be on fire and drowning at the same time, just as the bus runs him over.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz
The maudlin, grotesque western September Dawn, about the massacre on Sept. 11, 1857, of about 120 settlers by Mormons (and their Paiute Indian mercenaries), apes "Schindler’s List" in hopes of creating a Christian Holocaust picture.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
What a strange, confused, unpleasant movie this is. Two theories have clustered around it: (1) It is anti-Mormon propaganda to muddy the waters around the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, or (2) it is not about Mormons at all, but an allegory about the 9/11/01 terrorists. Take your choice. The problem with allegories is that you can plug them in anywhere. No doubt the film would have great impact in Darfur.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 3.9 (out of 10) based on 34 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
khela' ri gave it a10:
This was a very good movie, where it shows all of us what that amount of hatred can do to a group of people. This is an untold story that needs to be in the history books, the Mormons have tried hard to keep this under wraps and now its out in the open, we should respect those who died on that day, and remember them because their story is no less important that the story of slavery and that of WW1 ad WW2. Kudos, to Christoper Cain, his crew and cast for such an outstanding movie.
brad b gave it a1:
This movie might have been pretty good if it had been written and directed by atheists.
Dr Morris gave it a0:
Slander in its most blatant form. Cain, Voigt and the crew are not historical authorities, and less, objective. This is a hateful, slanted, untamed, and utterly worthless. The romance trivializes the situation, the shoddy history attacks Mormons, the sappy writing makes one gnash their teeth. The worst movie ever. (and why are the reasons that it was given an 8 or 10? Because "Voigt said" or "Mormons won't like it" or "it's not attacking Mormons". Please. How stupid can they be.
ananymous gave it a6:
This movie wasn't poorly made but I believe that the depictions of Mormon beliefs were exaggerated and it sort of gave the idea that Christianity is a better more forgiving religion even though it's not.
G. Roll gave it an8:
The low ratings are only because Mormons are portrayed as fanatics and contrasted against Christians. If you're in neither of the sects, you could think that the movie is about what religious faith can do to people in general, that only with a heavenly mandate a good person could commit such atrocities. That seems to be the moral behind this film, and from that perspective it is perfectly enjoyable and not biased against any particular religious cult.
Robert J. gave it a10:
September Dawn is an outstanding and convincing re-counting of a true historical event. Sure the Mormons don't like it, but hey, Christians are not proud of the Crusades either. I have seen and heard interviews of Jon Voight regarding the truth of the story. He is totally convincing in his belief that the main story element, the massacre of Christians, is true. The professional Critics reveal their anti-Christian bias by their low ratings.
Mindy T. gave it a10:
Mormons will score it low!
