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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed shows.
Generation Kill
EMAILPRINTMINISERIES: HBO, begins Sunday 7/13 at 9:00p

Universal acclaim
Based on 27 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 43 votes
Read user comments
Rate this show >
Show Info
Genre(s): Drama, War
Created By: Evan Wright (book)
First Air Date: July 13, 2008
Summary
Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Billy Lush, Brian Patrick Wade, Chance Kelly, David Barrera, Eric Ladin, Eric Nenninger, J. Salome Martinez Jr., James Ransone, and Jon Huertas
The Wire's David Simon produces this seven-part miniseries about the 2003 war on Iraq through the eyes of one Marine unit.
Episode Guide & More Info: More about this show at TV.com
Also On The Web: Official Show 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...
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Generation Kill stands in the tradition of classic war movies. Vivid storytelling, superb acting and a frank approach make this a TV landmark.
Read Full Review >San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Generation Kill is rewarding in its complexity. It feels real - and that realness is bracing, sad and funny in equal measures.
Read Full Review >Washington PostTom Shales
Wright says. "After the Vietnam War ended, the onus of shame largely fell on the veterans. This time around, if shame is to be had when the Iraq conflict ends--and all indications are there will be plenty of it--the veterans are the last people in America to deserve it." Generation Kill makes that point so powerfully as to stand among the truest and most trenchant war movies of all time.
Read Full Review >USA TodayRobert Bianco
What Kill has to offer is clarity and clear-eyed empathy. TV's the better for it.
Read Full Review >Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Kill pays both you and its subjects two solid compliments: It doesn't scream ''Take heed: This is a work of art!'' And it lets you form your own opinions about what its social commentary is.
Read Full Review >TV GuideMatt Roush
Critical without being overtly political, with stretches of boredom punctuated by the sudden chaos of firefights where it’s impossible to distinguish innocent bystanders from insurgents, Generation Kill is both timely and timeless.
Read Full Review >Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
It’s as addictive and absorbing, in its own way, as “The Wire.”
Read Full Review >Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond
Bolstered by superb acting and first-rate direction and cinematography, Kill delivers the goods in ways both unexpected and rewarding.
Read Full Review >Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart
Once again Simon and his producing partner, Ed Burns, plunge us deeply into the culture of foul-mouthed men, many of them barely out of their teens, who have ready access to firearms and agendas that have little to do with the American dream that you and I understood growing up. And, as before, you can’t stop watching it.
Read Full Review >TimeJames Poniewozik
Colbert is the series' rock, and a straightman contrast to the constantly yammering Person, his driver. As the stoic enigma and the hopped-up smart-ass speed through the desert landscape, you could almost take Kill for a surreal road comedy.
Read Full Review >Wall Street JournalDorothy Rabinowitz
It's best to get quickly past the confused and shapeless first episode and on to the rest, where the characters become individualized.
Read Full Review >Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
A raucous, raunchy and utterly loving account of life at the bottom of the military food chain.
Read Full Review >Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
An engrossing, detailed military character drama, Generation Kill is a modern-day "Band of Brothers," a warts-and-all account that hits closer to home because it depicts such recent events.
Read Full Review >PopMattersCynthia Fuchs
Like Wright’s book, the series is disjointed and disturbing, a story of youthful workers who are underprepared, underequipped, and underinformed.
Read Full Review >Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik
There is a near-perfect symmetry between the sensibility of Wright's book and the work of Simon and Burns.
Read Full Review >New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Wright is a diligent reporter, and his material has been whipped into a smooth script under producers David Simon and Ed Burns.
Read Full Review >The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley
Generation Kill, which has a superb cast and script, provides a searingly intense, clear-eyed look at the first stage of the war, and it is often gripping. But like a beautiful woman who swathes herself in concealing clothes and distracting hats, the series fights its own intrinsic allure.
Read Full Review >LA WeeklyRobert Abele
There’s a formal integrity to the Simon-and-Burns storytelling style--predicated on the theory that details matter, complexity rules and you can’t force momentum--that meshes well with the close-up vividness of Wright’s dispatches from an often chaotic front.
Read Full Review >VarietyBrian Lowry
This technically superior project intriguingly mirrors territory the producers explored in tackling Baltimore's mean streets, and while Baghdad's avenues are even meaner, the producers' impeccable craftsmanship is roughly the same.
Read Full Review >New York MagazineJohn Leonard
Meanwhile, some remarkable television has been made. To report on a new generation of young warriors raised on hip-hop, heavy metal, and video games, Wright went to Iraq as Michael Herr before him had gone to Vietnam, like Dante to hell with a cassette recording of Jimi Hendrix.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Generation Kill tends to play as a series of discrete events. I suppose an argument might be made that this mirrors the way that the constant threat of extinction, and subject always to a sudden change in (rarely explained) orders, makes one live in the moment. I don't think that was what the producers intended, but it works well enough for watching it.
Read Full Review >Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
If the world that Simon, Burns, Wright and company drop us into can be confusing at first (mirroring, as they intended, the confusion that Wright felt at the time), it's a fully-realized one that's both thousands of miles away (literally and figuratively) from the Baltimore of "The Wire" and one that will feel very familiar to anyone who spent a lot of time watching McNulty and Bunk drink at the train tracks.
Read Full Review >NewsdayVerne Gay
You get the sense that the filmmakers' vision and Wright's are never quite in sync--or perhaps are in sync too perfectly.
Read Full Review >SlateTroy Patterson
It plays like it's been built for antisocial boys--mchair heroes in love with guns and in search of demented adventure.
Read Full Review >The New YorkerNancy Franklin
If we got to know any of the characters in Generation Kill, the show might be more interesting, or, at least, more memorable.
Read Full Review >New York PostAdam Buckman
The end result of all that effort, however, is a miniseries that's as dull and throbbing as a severe headache.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this show is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Walt D gave it a6:
Having been an infantry soldier, albeit in a different country, I feel I have more of an insider perspective than when I watched The Wire. Overall, where GK seems fairly real to me, it doesn't hook me, and where it feels a bit "off" (sets sometimes a bit limited) its offputting. Not bad.
Margaret D gave it a0:
I can't believe these idiot reviewers. GK was the most vacuous TV I've ever seen. A total crock. Cliched characters and cliched lines. So boooooooooooring.
Alex N gave it a10:
Powerful, realistic and infinitely watchable. HBO, Simon and Burns can clearly do no wrong. Highly recommend Evan Wright's book upon which the series is based as well.
Thom gave it a3:
Deeply disappointing series, this. I only watched it in full because it was by the creators of the Wire, but whereas the Wire was the most brilliant series to be broadcast on television in a long time, this was a nothing but a sprawling, messy, cartoonish letdown.
Mark E gave it a10:
The most captivating and entertaining dramatization of the war I have seen yet; far surpassing any previous series or film on the subject. Its confusing, fustraiting, funny and very intense. The superb casting, direction and writing form a work on par with the greatest war films of all time. And its not blatant protest drama; it pays full respect to the troops with its honesty towards the overall stupidity of war.
Stevens gave it a10:
This show accurately depicts being in the military from convoy operations to singing stupid songs out of boredom. Even the incompetence of superiors is captured perfectly. When I watch this show, I feel like I'm there. Like I'm at work with them. What they do on the show is exactly what we do. All the glory and coolness, all the questionable things war makes us do, the acts of atrocities and heroism is in hard to turn away from once you start watching. It superbly tells the story without fancy camera effects and a dramatic musical score. If the story is not fast enough or exciting enough for you, that's because it's pretty close to real life. Unlike the latest Hollywood action movie, real life moves at it's own pace. Excellent TV Show.
Matthew A gave it a10:
This is the most accurate portrail I've seen of Marines yet and i should know because I am one.
