You could pick up the many books that house Colvin’s accounts on war; you’d likely get more of a sharp kick in the gut out of those than by the movie.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 9, 2024

Rosamund Pike is a master at her work, yet the film's structure does not help us connect with the crude reality of Marie Colvin's impressive persona. We become numb of emotion by the pace of it all. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 17, 2022

Central to A Private War's effectiveness is star Rosamund Pike, playing Colvin in a performance that volleys between admirable strength and searing vulnerability.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 4, 2022

A powerful tribute to Marie Colvin, and the thousands of victims she gave a voice to.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 20, 2021

Comes at an interesting time for journalism. With the profession under fire from Fake-Newsers it's important to discover the stories of the people who report on "the rough draft of history."

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2021

Pike has the physicality required for such a role - even unashamedly stripping down to Colvin's infamous La Perla bra - but the magnificence of her performance is that she emotes just as piercingly true in the stillness as she does in the action.

| Jan 28, 2021

It is a sensational work of cinema: aggressively told and emotionally powerful.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jan 7, 2021

Pike is ably supported by the likes of Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci and Jamie Dornan.

| Oct 8, 2020

A gripping account of a remarkable woman and journalist, anchored by an exceptional lead performance from Pike.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 28, 2020

...somewhere out there, someone forgot to announce Pike's Oscar nomination.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2020

It's a rare case of a movie that could've done with just a little more narrative breathing room to flesh out the woman behind the iconic eyepatch a little more.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 14, 2020

Transfixing, uncompromisingly visceral and tonally raw, Heineman's A Private War is a powerfully traumatic memoir.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 13, 2020

In mythology, an eye-patch or blindness is often symbolic for the burden of seeing - attaining (unwelcome) knowledge. Marie Colvin is a real-life Odin, affected by the terrors of the world and burdened by the knowledge.

| Jun 20, 2020

Beat by beat it is thoroughly detailed, but on the whole it fails to be contextualized in any meaningful way.

| Mar 18, 2020

While Rosamund Pike delivers an unbeatable portrayal of Colvin, the film itself fails to say anything new about addiction or the demons she battles.

| Feb 22, 2020

The war scenes have a you-are-there quality, gripping and vivid. But the scenes at the newspaper, where editors clutch their collars and say "the world needs to hear this" feel a bit self-congratulatory.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 29, 2020

It's one of the year's best roles, performances, and it's contained in a film that undoubtedly matters. Now, more than ever.

| Oct 18, 2019

[Rosamund] Pike has been in a few war-themed films this year, but we think her performance in this one is the best.

| Aug 23, 2019

For a film that wants desperately to paint a portrait of a woman to whom the lives of war casualties were of utmost concern, A Private War makes Marie Colvin's struggles so private as to sever them from the people whose tragedies set them in motion.

| Jul 17, 2019

It couldn't have been easy but Marie Colvin was an important life and the film pays homage to the brilliant woman behind the faces of wars and conflicts all over the world.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 12, 2019