War movies like The Hurt Locker show us that Americans are the nuanced protagonists of our own stories, even if those stories occur on other people’s land, in other people’s homes, with other people as the main casualties.

| May 29, 2024

More enduring than your typical war movie, Bigelow has constructed a suspenseful and confident motion picture about addiction, filled with biting observations about why some go to war, and then why some stay.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 4, 2023

Evocative and unsettling, The Hurt Locker remains an outstanding and cautionary war drama.

| Jun 14, 2023

... An unflinching look at the personal cost of being really good at a really tough job.

| Sep 30, 2022

Never does Bigelow falter in her direction, which, by adroitly alternating between muscular and sensitive, reapplies a recognizable face to a conflict that has largely slipped from the American public conscious with all the wispiness of a bad dream.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 19, 2022

The Hurt Locker, despite claims about its "apolitical" or "non-partisan" character, proves in its own unsavory fashion to be a pro-war and pro-imperialist film.

| Feb 13, 2021

Powerful, alluring, and eye-opening entertainment.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 28, 2020

Switching effortlessly between passages of nerve-shredding suspense and ones of adrenalin-charged excitement, The Hurt Locker blows away the competition.

| Nov 24, 2020

A muscular film that literally embeds the audience inside the hell that is war.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 11, 2020

Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie exchange drunken punches to the gut as we wonder what civilian life could offer that might possibly compete with this sweaty, boozy, dirty love.

| Jun 18, 2020

[A] riveting, nail biting, action-packed, tension-filled film that pounds the screen with jack hammering intensity. Powerful. Visceral. One of the finest war movies of all time that will find a home in history among the best of the best.

| Nov 13, 2019

As taut and tense as a trip-wire, The Hurt Locker / is a go-for-broke, hang on for dear life, action thrill ride.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 5, 2019

An edge-of-your-seat thriller that also manages to have a heart and soul.

| Original Score: A | May 16, 2019

Portraying the effects of war both psychologically and physically, The Hurt Locker features amazingly beautiful direction and superb performances.

| Mar 12, 2019

While many films have tried to present the American family's consumerist nightmare before, Bigelow's film is one that really makes you feel it.

| Apr 30, 2018

One of the best films of 2009. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 2, 2018

...possibly one of the best war films, despite its low budget and its apparently limited significant range, centered on the role of the hero and the sense of heroism, in the context of the American occupation of Iraq. [Full review in Spanish]

| Mar 2, 2018

The Hurt Locker thus enters the select group of war films that address in a masterly way the eternal question "why should man fight for reasons he does not know?" [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 2, 2018

... a modern classic. [Full review in Spanish]

| Mar 2, 2018

Visceral.

| Mar 1, 2018