You feel thoroughly rung out by it's harsh depictions of a world without compromise and yet thanks to Attah you feel that there is a future for Agu.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 4, 2024

Absolutely devastating in its blunt portrayal of African civil wars, Beasts of No Nation packs so burdensome an emotional punch that I was left in stunned detachment, unable to cope with much of what I was experiencing.

| Aug 1, 2023

It isn’t an action movie, but a realist story of savagery embedded in innocence before they have the chance to be a child rather than make decisions on the battlefield.

| Feb 28, 2023

If there is one thing that profoundly comes across in Cary Fukunaga’s searing war drama it is that war has a cost – an intense human cost.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

As a psychological study of the effects of war and atrocity on a young mind, Fukunaga’s film feels more like a ride than a true examination of the horrors of war, exhausting the viewer for the wrong reasons.

| May 31, 2022

It might be Elba’s best performance outside of "Luther."

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 12, 2022

An urgent, brutal, and harrowing vision of war through the eyes of a child, made by a filmmaker of rare vision and talent.

| Original Score: 4 | Sep 28, 2021

A powerful and emotive war drama which highlights the plight of child soldiers and the evil of those who exploit them.

| Sep 23, 2021

This looks at one of the many ways in which innocent children are caught in the web of war -- in this case, it's those unfortunate boys who are captured and trained to become child soldiers.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 17, 2021

A harrowing experience.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 4, 2021

Push it up your watchlist, you won't regret it.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 20, 2020

A harrowing, surreal, and often times bleak portrayal of a reality many of us shy away from.

| Original Score: A- | Jul 14, 2020

Fukunaga left the inflexibilities to tell the authentic and harsh chronicle of a child soldier with all the realities that it implies. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 26, 2020

Beasts of No Nation is high caliber cinema.

| Feb 6, 2020

It will be seared into viewers' memories for quite some time.

| Original Score: A | Oct 16, 2019

Beasts is a harrowing experience, but a powerful one. It might read as derivative to a cynic, but there's something palpable at the film's core that can't be denied.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 16, 2019

The cast's intense young actors are to be applauded, as is the film's stance as a thought-provoking (and crushing) piece of cinema - but twenty minutes fewer would alleviate violence fatigue.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 23, 2019

Violent, but not without reason, Fukunaga brings out the best of his actors, his story, and his resources for a movie that will sit heavily in your heart and thoughts long after the credits roll.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2019

Fukunaga and his actors -- especially the two leads -- have managed to create a riveting drama which is suitably appalling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 8, 2019

It's a one-hundred-percent humanistic, visceral story that transcends any issue or conflict you could read about in the news.

| Original Score: 8.5/10 | Feb 27, 2019