Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 8 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 11 Ratings

  • Summary: This trilogy stands as a masterful reinvention of international crime cinema, as poignantly human as it is brutally and viscerallyrealized. The three films reveal the humanity in even the most violent criminals and how every pusher -- no matter what his status -- is only one bad deal away from total ruin. (Magnolia Pictures)
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  • Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
  • Genre(s): Action, Drama, Thriller, Fantasy, Horror, Comedy
  • Runtime: 90 min
  • More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 8
  3. Negative: 0 out of 8
  1. Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    88
    While I have no problem enthusiastically recommending writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy, I'd also heartily discourage all but the most rabid crime-movie nuts from consuming the whole thing in one afternoon or evening.
  2. Reviewed by: Robert Abele
    80
    It's the rare crime film that balances the vicarious thrill of rampant illegality with the real-world desperation of broken souls who are nearly always one wrong move away from a wretched end. Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's "Pusher" trilogy are such movies.
  3. Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    Each film in Nicolas Winding Refn's mesmerizingly brutal Pusher trilogy can stand on its own, but it's fun to see all three and observe the way the bad guys in one become the sympathetic heroes (or anti-heroes) in another.
  4. 75
    [Refn] mixes jittery hand-held camerawork, improvised dialogue and available light to create a nightmarish world of sex, drugs and horrific brutality that will turn off many viewers while delighting others.

See all 8 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. TelyS.
    10
    The spiritual successors to Scorsese
  2. Cruising late-nite cable, I stumbled upon the restaurant party scene in Pusher III. It's rare that my remote finger pauses for long but this scene grabbed me by the throat. Aside from being beautifully shot, the performance of Zlatko Buric, as the father Milo, was mesmerizing. I knew nothing of the plot or who this man was but watching him work the room and seemingly engage the guests, his subtle nervous energy suggested something else was on his mind.(little did I know) I knew then that I needed to see this film and start it from the beginning. To my surprise, I found out it was the 3rd film of the Pusher trilogy. Wisely, I decided to start at the "real" beginning and ordered all 3 from Netflix. Boy o' boy, I struck gold!!
    I loved all 3 films with Pusher III my fave. These are grim stories, with grim characters and the filmmaker lets them be. These are great, great films.
    This ain't Hollywood........thank God.
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  3. ChrisS.
    9
    Very well done. I enjoyed all three films and would watch them again. I was very impressed not only by the lead performances but the supporting ones as well. If you enjoy gritty urban crime dramas then you can't go wrong here. Expand
  4. christoffer
    1
    Incredible cliched, plotless, sterotype characters and bad camerawork. do not waste your money. Refn is a talentless hack who is known in his own country, Denmark, for begging newspapers for good reviews for his movies. Now you know. Expand

See all 5 User Reviews

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