The Cave
Cinema Delicatessen | Release Date: October 18, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
83
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinKim HughesNov 7, 2019
The Cave may be the saddest, most infuriating chronicle of the ghastly ravages of war on a country’s most vulnerable citizens —children — ever made. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 23, 2019
Fayyad — who directed a team of cinematographers remotely when he was prevented from entering Ghouta himself — films The Cave with a grace and compositional sensitivity all the more impressive for being achieved under the most difficult circumstances. Read full review
100
Film ThreatAndy HowellSep 10, 2019
It will stick with you long after you leave the theater. It is as moving as it is possible for a film to be. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattOct 18, 2019
It delivers something more and better, too: a moving, beautifully humanistic story whose inevitable hardships are laced with real hope and levity. Read full review
90
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergOct 17, 2019
Entering theaters at a timely moment, The Cave is a frightening immersion in life under siege in Syria that, as difficult as it often is to watch, can’t come close to replicating how harrowing it must have been to film. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesSep 10, 2019
Fayyad and his cinematographers and editors wield the cameras and shape the scenes in the documentary so beautifully that The Cave is both intensely real and a carefully wrought work of cinema. A kind of counterpart to Last Men, the new film is perhaps more wrenching and even more ambitious in its visuals. Read full review
90
VarietyTomris LafflySep 10, 2019
This is both an immensely humanist film, and a tough, heartbreaking watch. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloOct 18, 2019
In a sea of so much tragedy, it’s a marvel to stop and consider each individual’s experience fighting the tide. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 10, 2019
It’s a frantic, unnerving window into Syria’s collapse, and a nerve-wracking thriller that alternates between acts of courage and utter despair; through that paradox, it captures the struggles on the ground in intimate detail. Read full review
82
TheWrapRobert AbeleOct 17, 2019
What emerges in Fayyad’s gripping underground triage documentary is a compelling picture of compassion, grit, and feminist righteousness in Dr. Amani Ballor Read full review
80
The GuardianCath ClarkeDec 10, 2019
To say The Cave would break anyone’s heart feels flimsy. Like Ballour, it has a purpose: to focus the world’s attention on the suffering of Syrian people. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellDec 10, 2019
The Cave is a raw, urgent film about one of the great humanitarian crimes of our times, made all the starker for the utter lack of a global response. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 27, 2019
Ballour’s presence makes Fayyad’s film inspiring, even as we cringe for her safety with every overhead explosion. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 16, 2019
The Cave reminds us of the horrors of a situation we have perhaps become numb to and shows us the unforgettable people who don’t have that luxury. Read full review
80
TheWrapSteve PondSep 10, 2019
Fayyad’s cameras roam freely through the hospital and paint an intimate picture of the facility in which many of the patients are indeed children who’ve grown up under the shadow of warplanes. The footage of injured children and malnourished babies is wrenching and hard to watch, to the point where you wonder how Dr. Amani and her colleagues can fail to succumb to hopelessness and rage. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonOct 30, 2019
It’s like a Syrian “MASH,” except real. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerOct 30, 2019
A subtext of the film is a focus on classical music, as if to ask how humans can be capable of both intense beauty and ruthless inhumanity. Read full review
75
Slant MagazinePat BrownOct 11, 2019
Its depiction of the perpetual terror of living in a war zone will stick with viewers long after The Cave’s doctors have left Ghouta. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 7, 2019
The grace notes don’t obscure the ugly situation we’re shown here. It’s not compact, perfectly organized film, but The Cave is an honest fly-on-the-wall/cinema verite portrait of a place and a couple of the people working in it. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 22, 2020
Watching anonymous child after anonymous child arrive for treatment makes for grim and frustrating viewing. We want to know who these kids are, but the film does not. It’s the very antithesis of how hospital drama – narrational or otherwise – are supposed to function. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubVikram MurthiOct 15, 2019
It’s a monotonous descent into agony that coasts on the impossibility of anyone walking away unaffected by the imagery. Read full review
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