Monos chills you to the core from its sheer intensity. Here is a story where narrative detail is minimum, but thematic substance couldn’t be more plentiful.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 14, 2024

Overly vague and distant, though it leaves memorable impressions with a handful of moments.

| Original Score: 50/100 | Jan 14, 2022

Nerve-shredding in its intensity, but utterly captivating, Monos is an exhilarating climb to the top of the Colombian mountains, and a breathless tumble back down to the jungles below.

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

The visual style constantly reminds me of the aesthetic similarities it shares with Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now', portraying the darkness of the human being in the heart of a Colombian jungle. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 27, 2020

The fresh thrill of chaos -- of teenage abandon bearing down on a broken system -- courses through this dreamy, violent third feature from Colombian-Ecuadorian writer-director Alejandro Landes.

| Jun 26, 2020

An engrossing, immersive, unsettling world of isolation, life-or-death struggles, and raging youth. Apocalyptic and oblique, nightmarish and surreal, it's a dark allegory, one that contains weirdly more Gummi Bear fun facts than expected.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 26, 2020

It's clear from the start that Landes is out to make a tragedy about innocence lost and the wickedness of political movements that rule by remote control with the capriciousness of Greek gods. He's succeeded brilliantly.

| Jun 25, 2020

What's interesting about a movie like Monos is the quasi-documentary approach to hierarchies, processes, and rituals among the young soldiers. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 10, 2020

Monos is the type of movie that doesn't leave viewers indifferent because in a way it manages to provoke a feeling in all of us. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7.5/10 | Jun 9, 2020

A brutal, engrossing, superbly well-shot, well-scored and better-than-average thriller of child-soldiers at war.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 28, 2020

[...] a stunning looking film, but the musical approach [from Mica Levi] is what really makes it stick in your head...

| May 22, 2020

Despite all the references, it's bracingly original. That duality is also present as a travelogue: here are some of the most beautiful locations in the world, exquisitely shot, along with reason to never visit them.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 3, 2020

Essential viewing for anyone seeking an intense survival experience told with expert framing.

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

There are allusions to William Golding's Lord of the Flies, but that fine novel, and Peter Brook's 1962 screen adaptation, though also elliptical, provided far more satisfying drama than Landes somewhat frustrating epic...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 26, 2020

[Monos] is, by all means, a dark, intense and unforgiving coming of age film that might just be one of the most daring films of 2019.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 6, 2020

Monos sucks you into its almost unearthly world, with just under two hours of running time slipping easily away as your drawn into the shaken lives of these teenagers and their relationships.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 5, 2020

Without forgetting his influences, [director] Alejandro Landes is able to find his own voice and, what is even more exceptional, is able to give resonance to those of each of his story's protagonists. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 24, 2020

Monos turns that conflict into an overwhelming essay about violence and detachment. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 21, 2020

To a so direct to the jugular job, with so many cinematographic and literary references, a little more background risk would have been good. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 21, 2020

Horrifying and beautiful. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 18, 2020