Elephant is still very relevant and remains one of the most impactful films of the 21st Century.

| Oct 10, 2024

A powerful and haunting film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 24, 2023

A quiet, enthralling slice of life portrait of an average day at a high school before it erupts into a school shooting. Van Sant offers no explanation, reassurance, or catharsis, which only makes the film all the more powerful.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 17, 2023

...throughout it all, Elephant has stood the test of time due to the deeply human way it engages the very sensitive subject...

| Nov 2, 2022

Rather than lecture us, Van Sant makes us witnesses.

| May 26, 2022

The argument that a work of art can seriously treat a phenomenon without discussing its origins or causes is an absurdity, an unfortunate byproduct of a reactionary intellectual climate.

| Feb 15, 2021

Elephant represents exactly the sort of risk-taking and inspired approach that Van Sant has never shied away from.

| Jul 25, 2020

...it remains one of the most unsettlingly accomplished American movies of the new millennium, and exactly as difficult to categorize or definitively interpret as its maker intended.

| Apr 6, 2020

There's much to argue with, but this unconventional, oddly beautiful film resonates in unexpected ways.

| Mar 12, 2018

Elephant is a cool, distant film, content for the most part to observe the routine of high-school life.

| Feb 2, 2018

Watching it, one is left with the cold realization that a story like this had to be made for the screen, and it had to be done so exactly with this level of intensity.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 14, 2014

It offers a dismaying whiff of mortality in the spaces between the girls' chattering remarks in the cafeteria and in the blank eyes of boys who feel alienated from everything except the guns they cradle so lovingly in their arms.

| Apr 24, 2013

What I'll remember most vividly about Gus Van Sant's extraordinary "Elephant" is not the violent climax but the state of grace that precedes it.

Full Review | Apr 24, 2013

Elephant creates gorgeous, wide-open spaces that allow viewers the freedom to reflect without having a point-of-view imposed on them.

Full Review | Apr 24, 2013

The approach is oddly riveting, though, because the tension builds slowly, and you know what's going to happen at the end of the day.

| Apr 24, 2013

Director Gus Van Sant takes a powerful approach to this material, without being heavy-handed.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 3, 2012

One of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, one that gave me a rush of emotions of sadness, horror, disbelief, shock, and anguish.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 29, 2009

One of the most stimulating and provocative films of the year.

| Oct 18, 2008

Van Sant's least 'show-offy', most personal, best picture in years (maybe ever), and an honourable attempt at respectfully considering the unbearable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2006

The film doesn't try to explain, but to put us in a subjective time and space, a place where it's impossible not to feel the abject horror of random violence.

| Jan 26, 2006