...much like young Loung, we constantly question that. This is far and away Angelina Jolie’s finest achievement as a director...

| Jul 2, 2024

The dialogue is sparse and the timeline of events only hinted at, but Jolie's approach succeeds in capturing Loung's adaptation to the huge changes in her life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2024

As a kid it wasn't a history class that first educated me on the Khmer Rouge and the atrocities committed by their hand. It was a movie – 1984’s powerful “The Killing Fields”. Now I feel another movie is reopening my eyes.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

Angelina Jolie's latest directorial effort, First They Killed My Father, captures the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from 1975-1979 through the eyes of a girl who lived it.

| Aug 25, 2021

Angelina Jolie's Khmer-language war-period thriller is an empathetic, informative and unerringly elegant dissection of Cambodia's bloody history through the eyes of a 5-year-old girl...

| Oct 28, 2020

A harrowing film that conveys war through the eyes of a child, so it's all the more impressive that it decides to do so through meditative silence and observation.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 1, 2020

Jolie's record as a director has been hit and miss over the years, but there's no disputing that this is her strongest work as a storyteller and visual artist.

| May 13, 2020

An important topic at play here, but slow pacing holds it back in places.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 23, 2019

The film does a fine job of humanizing a part of history that has often been overlooked in mainstream media.

| Oct 11, 2018

It provides a look at war from non-combatants, a people scooped up in a regime's quest to dismantle and destroy everything its predecessor touched without remorse.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 10, 2018

Its straightforward honesty is devastating, and it takes its place alongside The Killing Fields as one of the most important cinematic perspectives on the genocide to be made for international audiences.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 17, 2018

The film's power is in how affecting it is to see the country so ravished and the children so mistreated.

| Original Score: B | Dec 23, 2017

First They Killed My Father is a completely realized vision, even in that vision is the exact kind of harrowing you were expecting.

| Dec 20, 2017

Uniquely takes child's eye view of brutal rule of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia...This powerful look back will keep this genocide fresh in mind of viewer, hopefully sensitize them.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 3, 2017

The narrative is just as vicious and painful as the title suggests it to be.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 20, 2017

This is an effective retelling of history from a very specific viewpoint. The acting is very good by all the main characters. I was really impressed by Anthony Dod Mantle's ('Slumdog Millionaire') camera work. Images tell so much of this story.

| Original Score: B | Nov 16, 2017

Stylistically, the film is impeccable... [Full review in Spanish]

| Nov 16, 2017

A powerful, personal story of how one Cambodian family was impacted by the bloody reign of the Khmer Rouge.

| Original Score: B | Nov 10, 2017

It's certainly Jolie's best directorial effort to date. She wrangles the multiple elements of this tragic historical drama successfully though without any significant flare.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 24, 2017

The camera seldom strays from what she can see or hear. It's a historical tragedy viewed from four feet off the ground by a character who doesn't quite grasp what's happening.

| Oct 11, 2017