The film also devotes time to the rescued as they slowly reclaim their individual identities, physical appearance and emotional and ideological freedoms.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 16, 2023

Beyond being informative, it is a harrowing and surprisingly exhilarating portrait of survival, retrieval, and justice.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 8, 2022

It's alternately raw, angry, and bitter, but never anything less than powerful and intimate.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 27, 2022

It's an anxiety-inducing portrait of courage and suffering.

| Jan 4, 2022

Hirori is careful to underplay neither Mahmud and his male colleagues' tireless compassion nor the complicity of Daesh women who we witness concealingsabayafromrescuers.

| Dec 3, 2021

It takes us into a primitive world that we can't seem to escape from without feeling guilty.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 14, 2021

Sabaya is tough viewing and a potent snapshot of a major human rights crisis.

| Nov 7, 2021

Brilliant, unvarnished, on-the-ground storytelling of real-life heroes facing mammoth odds.

| Sep 11, 2021

The sensitivity it displays to its subjects, its cautious optimism, and an energetic pacing make Sabaya an enthralling watch.

| Aug 24, 2021

A documentary by way of a "Bourne" movie, but so much more an act of daring.

| Original Score: A | Aug 22, 2021

A riveting documentary which is as tense as it is revealing.

| Aug 22, 2021

[A] sensitive, frequently harrowing observational documentary...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2021

A documentary with gripping scenes of high tension, Hogir Hirori's film could surely have provided a few more background details into the bargain. It still has journalistic value, though, on top of its general power.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2021

A challenging watch, but visceral and powerful nonetheless.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2021

...and you notice it's not laundry, it's the rescued seven year old girl wearing nonrestrictive clothes laying under the sky.

| Original Score: 86/100 | Aug 19, 2021

The first 20 minutes of Hogir Hirori's extraordinary documentary has the beat of a gripping thriller, full of hushed voices, car chases, and the terrifying sounds of gunfight.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 18, 2021

Sabaya has an often alarming immediacy, if not much explanatory clarity. While probably best seen after some background reading on the subject, it still provides a somewhat hair-raising delve...

| Aug 13, 2021

This hauntingly true modern tale of rescue keeps such a tension level, through the failures and successes of each mission, longer would be even more wrenching to the viewer, like me.

| Original Score: A- | Aug 7, 2021

The kind of movie that almost feels helpless but isn't.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 6, 2021

A vital and important portrait ... as well as a reminder of the long-term ramifications of a region enduring more than a decade of war.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 6, 2021