Unfortunately, the history behind the film is more engaging than the movie itself.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 9, 2019

Far too weak structurally to have the emotional impact it should.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 7, 2019

Katyn is deliberately intended to inspire patriotism, in the most positive sense of the word.

| Aug 23, 2018

This was the film Wajda wanted to make all his life.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 31, 2014

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 24, 2011

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2011

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Oscar-winning Polish writer/director Andrzej Wajda is now 83 years old. But he thankfully hasn't lost his ability to outrage viewers for all the right reasons.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 2, 2009

Andrjez Wajda, whose father was one of the officers killed in Katyn, uses the event to explore some of the unhealed wounds suffered by the Poles in World War II.

| Aug 13, 2009

[Director] Wajda has brought some small measure of rest to their names, to Poland, and to history.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 23, 2009

Katyn is remarkably concise and (if one may say this about a cinematic commemoration of mass murder) elegant.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 17, 2009

Wajda's intensity and passion, as well as his intelligence and craft, are unmistakable from the very first sequence. Virtually from the first shot.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 19, 2009

This may not rank among his greatest masterpieces, but it's exciting to see that Wajda still has a devastating, defiant work in him.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 19, 2009

The principal success of Wajda's stately, widescreen and exquisitely shot film lies in its sober attempt to mirror the fragmented truth of a genocide.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 19, 2009

Delivering an emotional punch to the gut in the final reel, this engaging account of an under-reported tragedy will remind you how cinema can still rise to the occasion and go beyond the empty bangs and flashes of tent pole releases.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 19, 2009

It is serious film-making of the most noble intent and it strenuously attacks the state ideologies that continue to legitimise war crimes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 19, 2009

This powerful, heartfelt and important drama from one of the great names in world cinema deserves to be seen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 19, 2009

Wajda has achieved something truly memorable: the film reminds you that cinema can be the preserver of the truth's smallest details, when a run of excellent pictures can finally tell a story the world was waiting for.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 19, 2009

Katyn is a solemn, troubling film that makes necessary demands on its audience.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 19, 2009

Wajda employs a full range of sweeping shots and orchestral cues to ramp up the emotion, although he's often guilty of sacrificing the intimacy of character for the grander narrative of history.

Full Review | Jun 19, 2009