Pig
Neon | Release Date: July 16, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Irish TimesTara BradyAug 20, 2021
The film built around the actor’s affecting turn works equally hard at upending expectations. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 14, 2021
It’s a rustic, poetic, occasionally funny, sometimes heartbreaking and wonderfully strange and memorable character study of a man who is in such tremendous pain he had to retreat from the world. Read full review
100
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 13, 2021
Like the character at the heart of Pig — who is not, as it turns out, a pig at all, even metaphorically — it is smoldering and gentle. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJul 13, 2021
It's attentive to regret and failure in ways that American films tend to avoid for fear of bumming viewers out and making them warn other people not to watch the movie. And it seems to understand the way people mythologize others and themselves, and the reasons it happens. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloJul 13, 2021
Like the animal itself, Pig is considerably smarter and more ardent than it appears at first glance, and unearths treasures that are barely evident on the surface level. We’d have settled for much less, but what a rare treat to be offered a great deal more. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 12, 2021
At a time when so many people are struggling to find something of value in their lives, when people are fleeing jobs, cities, futures they thought they wanted, Cage has crafted a quiet soliloquy about grasping on to something that has meaning. In some ways, this is one of his most emotionally brutal films. Read full review
100
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJul 12, 2021
Sarnoski’s debut is a scintillating tone poem about the inextricable links between love, creativity, and commerce, and what happens when the latter encroaches too much upon the former. Read full review
90
Screen RantDebopriyaa DuttaJul 23, 2021
An intense slow-burn, Pig is a beautiful meditation on the true meaning of loss, replete with vignettes drenched in humor, pathos, and violence. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJul 16, 2021
As it proceeds, it expands its vision and compassion, even as it de-escalates the tension. It’s not about the thing it’s about, except that it ultimately is totally about the thing it’s about. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayJul 15, 2021
Pig is a rich character study, marked by several riveting Cage monologues. Read full review
90
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJul 15, 2021
Pig, Michael Sarnoski’s stunningly controlled first feature, is a mournful fable of loss and withdrawal, art and ambition. Read full review
90
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaJul 13, 2021
Pig subverts the expectations of the average revenge-thriller and accentuates the deep emotional scars that often underscore these stories. It features a measured, meticulous performance from Nicolas Cage. Read full review
90
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaJul 13, 2021
Pig is not the movie you think it is. It’s something far more beautiful, and far more painful. It is an existential meditation on the search for something. Anything. A kind of cosmic loneliness envelopes this film. It’s extraordinary. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 12, 2021
Pig hangs on Cage’s soulful intensity in the part, a man who used to be somebody who, as one contemptuous old acquaintance hisses “doesn’t exist” now. Read full review
87
TheWrapCarlos AguilarJul 15, 2021
A hefty order of longing served with a side of crime thrills, Pig is flavorful, fascinating and fancy, crafted by someone who knows how to create a dish that’s accessible yet undeniably gourmet in its complexity. Read full review
86
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 21, 2021
Director Michael Sarnoski’s feature debut is more like a Nicolas Cage supercut: alternately ridiculous, bare-bones, heartfelt, puzzling and what-in-god’s-name-y. And more often than not, it works. Read full review
86
Paste MagazineJacob OllerJul 14, 2021
Part of Pig’s impactful, moving charm is its restraint. It’s a world only hinted at in 87 minutes, but with a satisfying emotional thoroughness. Read full review
83
UproxxVince ManciniAug 6, 2021
The beauty of Pig, the new Michael Sarnoski movie starring Nic Cage as a bedraggled truffle forager, is that while it is utterly bonkers, it’s not bonkers in any of the traditional ways that we’ve come to expect. It’s quietly bonkers, meditative and subdued, rather than loud and frenetic. Read full review
83
The Film StageLogan KennyJul 16, 2021
With director Michael Sarnoski subverting expectations from the start, the experience is ultimately a rewarding one. Read full review
83
Original-CinJim SlotekJul 13, 2021
If this seems like a bit of a deep dive when the subject is trendy restaurants in Portland, Pig is a serious movie with heady themes that just happens to come at you from oblique and unexpected angles. Read full review
83
The PlaylistAndrew CrumpJul 12, 2021
There’s no action here, no real revenge to take, but there’s a meaty, idiosyncratic, and especially moving story about finding peace in loss. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellAug 23, 2021
Pig offers something strangely tender and even sometimes lyrical, wrapped up in the trappings of a noirish thriller that is as much a satire on the meaning of value and social status as it is a straightforward revenge film. Read full review
80
EmpireJoshua RothkopfAug 16, 2021
Quiet, unforced and delicate, Pig provides a forum for Nicolas Cage, one of our most dazzling showmen, to get serious and burrow more deeply into his talent than he has in years. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenAug 13, 2021
Like those truffles that kick it into gear, this film is a rare treat. Read full review
80
The AtlanticDavid SimsAug 3, 2021
Pig is a blend of absurd cooking melodrama, jokey revenge thriller, and allegory, and Cage is the connective tissue holding all those ridiculous elements together. He may have abandoned the brightest spotlight, but he’s lost none of his edge. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekJul 15, 2021
This is primo Nicolas Cage dialogue, inquisitive and soul-deep, the kind of stuff he was born to say. To hear and watch him in this movie is like greeting an old friend. Pig seems to have come out of nowhere, but we’re lucky to have it. Read full review
80
SlateKaren HanJul 15, 2021
Pig is a small film with a few big surprises executed very well, and well worth going into as blind as possible. Read full review
80
VarietyMichael NordineJul 12, 2021
As a descent into the apparently high-stakes world of truffle-pig-poaching, Pig is unexpectedly touching; as a showcase for Cage’s brilliance, it’s a revelation. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJul 30, 2021
This is, in many ways, a deeply thoughtful film—about loneliness, grief, anger, and finding something to truly care about. And Cage gives a performance that embodies all of those things. Read full review
75
IndieWireRyan LattanzioJul 16, 2021
In not trying to reach too deeply into the well of profundity, Sarnoski has incidentally achieved a pretty profound movie. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJul 15, 2021
It’s my favorite Cage performance in some time, after overly bizarre turns in recent years as a murderous parent in Mom and Dad and an inmate on a mission in the Japanese film Prisoners of the Ghostland. When he goes back to basics, it’s as rich and juicy as a delicious ham steak. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 13, 2021
Pig is a thoughtful, well-made movie for an audience primed for junk: It’s pearls before swine. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJul 12, 2021
Nicolas Cage, in full martyr mode here, seems to get off on the perversity of, well, caging his brand of operatic hysteria. Read full review
70
Film ThreatAlan NgJul 16, 2021
Pig takes itself way too seriously, making some interesting storytelling choices. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Simran HansAug 22, 2021
Though the film is teed up as a kind of John Wick-style revenge bender, Cage’s star persona is soon smartly subverted. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsJul 16, 2021
It’s a good-looking, well-acted movie with a solid kicker. As for the odyssey of emotional nuance that its style and portent seem to promise, it digs beneath the surface, but to a shallower depth than it seems to think. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJul 12, 2021
Cage is remarkably restrained (bar one unnecessary scream), delicately deconstructing what we’ve come to expect from him. His trademark tics are gone, his voice that much softer, his swagger replaced by an unsureness, an aggressive blare that’s faded into calm. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenJul 12, 2021
Pig isn’t the gripping mystery Sarnoski might have intended, but as a crawl through the underbelly of a hipster city’s glamorous foodie culture, it’s a gutsy narrative recipe, even if the final dish is less than the sum of its ingredients. Through it all, Cage plays the enigmatic central character at the perfect simmering temperature, and without a shred of ham. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJul 19, 2021
The film is redeemed only by the dour, weary, mournful, stubborn, and wise performance of Nicolas Cage, which is not so much a star turn as the project’s sole raison d’être. Read full review
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