Steve McQueen brought it to life and didn’t hold back from intensity this story has at its foundation. Incredible performances from Chewitel Ejifor and Lupita Nyong’o carry this film.

| Aug 13, 2024

What’s most impressive about the film is the way it shows how slavery distorts humanity on all levels.

| Mar 8, 2024

A searing and thought-provoking portrait of pre-Civil War American slavery... 12 Years a Slave is an absorbing and divinely crafted film, even if it is a brutal watch.

| Jun 14, 2023

More than just a prestige, period film, it's a difficult but necessary viewing experience.

| Apr 20, 2023

Given 12 Years A Slave’s subject matter, it’s a welcome surprise that John Ridley’s script pushes McQueen to prove he can proficiently execute multiple tones.

| Jan 25, 2023

Piercing and heart-wrenching.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2022

Unsettling and painful to behold, but from the lows of human civilization emerges a courageous and moving motion picture.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 22, 2022

McQueen's vision is one that articulates the overwhelming bleakness of this chapter of history while also recognizing the fleeting moments of emotional serenity that could oddly descend.

| Original Score: 10/10 | May 27, 2022

A lot of the slave movies we see turn around and become a white savior movie, which this one avoided. Every element of this film is done so well and always has a deeply emotional impact on me. It is really captivating.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 24, 2022

Steve McQueen did a masterful job of finding the balance between some heavy content while making it look visually stunning. The score, performances and cinematography was phenomenal.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 24, 2022

It is a story that demanded to be told, demanded to be heard and it is absolutely perfectly done and deserves to be seen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2021

Steve McQueen's film renders the unfathomable brutality of this period in our history tangible in a way that I've never seen captured on-screen before

| Original Score: A | Jul 2, 2021

Any understanding of slavery as a historical phenomenon is absent, despite the occasional reference to slaves as property.

| Feb 27, 2021

Masterful filmmaking.

| Feb 24, 2021

In 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup's story is tragic and infuriating, but only because slavery itself was tragic and infuriating. Beyond that, the story feels generic.

| Feb 16, 2021

A harrowing, stark movie that is equal parts educational and devastating.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 31, 2021

Director McQueen, drawing on the visual aesthetic of his previous works Shame and Hunger, never shies away from frames that capture the ways that beauty exists in the most painful situations.

| Jan 20, 2021

The subject matter lends itself to compelling stories, but the characters that suffer the worst injustices aren't the primary focus and receive no closure.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 3, 2020

It seems impossible to think of anyone turning in as fine a performance as Ejiofor does here.

| Original Score: 4.0/4.0 | Sep 24, 2020

It may have taken its time to daunder down under, garnering plenty of awards buzz behind it, but late January finally saw Steve McQueen's impeccably crafted slavery epic hit our shores, and boy was the eventual Best Picture Oscar-winner worth the wait.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 26, 2020