Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

All Critics (181) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (157) | Rotten (26) | DVD (3)

Beasts of the Southern Wild is sheer poetry on screen: an explosion of joy in the midst of startling squalor and one of the most visceral, original films to come along in a while.

January 8, 2013 Full Review

Christy Lemire

Associated Press

Top Critic

A dreamy but strikingly immediate and frayed-at-the-edges, child's-eye view of life on the margins of America.

October 16, 2012 Full Review

Dave Calhoun

Time Out

Top Critic

A beautiful, strange tone poem about childhood and innocence.

July 20, 2012 Full Review

Rene Rodriguez

Miami Herald

Top Critic

The atmosphere Zeitlin develops here is moist with promise and danger, and he moves back and forth between outright fable and pungent reality with an astounding sureness of vision for a first-time director.

July 19, 2012 Full Review

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

Beasts is film as natural mystery museum.

July 13, 2012 Full Review

Lisa Kennedy

Denver Post

Top Critic

Beasts of the Southern Wild marks one of the most auspicious American directorial debuts in years.

July 13, 2012 Full Review

Liam Lacey

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

A cute, but meandering story of growing up alone and having to fend for oneself even when there's help to be received.

March 21, 2013 Full Review

Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

One of the ten best films of 2012.

January 27, 2013 Full Review

Fr. Chris Carpenter

Rage Monthly

A strangely different and slightly magical film.

January 23, 2013 Full Review

Matt Neal

The Standard

Prepare to be moved and inspired by this unique masterpiece.

January 20, 2013 Full Review

Mary Clare Waireri

Fan The Fire

Beasts of the Southern Wild is the reason we go to movies.

January 18, 2013 Full Review

Mark Sells

The Reel Deal

Yearns to find eternal truths under impossible circumstances, and succeeds with flying colors by my watch.

January 10, 2013 Full Review

Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

In his willingness to ignore convention, Zeitlin does reveal a confidence that few first-time directors display. He's made a film that's the antithesis of Hollywood's summer mind-set.

January 8, 2013 Full Review

Perry Seibert

TV Guide's Movie Guide

For all its curiosities and loose ends, Beasts of the Southern Wild casts a formidable spell.

December 31, 2012 Full Review

Jordan Hiller

Bangitout.com

A startling debut feature - this year's "Winter's Bone," but a film all the more magical because we sense that even Zeitlin, as sharp as his eye undoubtably is, will never be able to duplicate it.

December 30, 2012 Full Review

Roger Moore

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Without TREMÉ, BEASTS would not have worked for me, and compared to TREMÉ, BEASTS is little more than a slight, forgettable diversion.

December 28, 2012 Full Review

Jason Gorber

Twitch

Really the lifestyle of these people takes center stage. It's hard not to appreciate their joie de vivre, or the believable performances these non-actors give. They're both "beasts"!

December 10, 2012 Full Review

James Plath

Movie Metropolis

The film with the biggest heart of 2012.

December 10, 2012 Full Review

Clay Cane

BET.com

I doubt anyone is going to watch Beasts of the Southern Wild and understand it immediately... But it's still a fascinating movie.

December 9, 2012 Full Review

Kevin Carr

7M Pictures

Beasts of the Southern Wild looks amazing, but the writers spread the narrative out so much that the film ends up having little impact, making this a visual feast that you'll forget about pretty quickly.

December 6, 2012 Full Review

Jeff Beck

We Got This Covered

The most gallingly overrated film of the year, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a comfortable middle-class fantasy of the moral purity of abject poverty.

December 5, 2012 Full Review

Chuck Bowen

Slant Magazine

This movie has to be seen to be believed, and to be believed, it simply has to be seen.

December 4, 2012 Full Review

CJ Johnson

ABC Radio (Australia)

Fully formed and beautiful whether you like it or not.

December 4, 2012 Full Review

William Bibbiani

CraveOnline

When you live in the city and you buy your meat wrapped in cellophane, it's a pleasant fantasy to believe that people who sleep in the dirt and gut their dinners are possessed of a spiritual richness that you've always felt you're somehow lacking.

December 3, 2012 Full Review

Vincent Mancini

FilmDrunk

The strangest, sweetest coming-of-age flick you'll see all year.

November 29, 2012 Full Review

Matt Glasby

Flicks.co.nz

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• 1. Hushpuppy: Everybody loses the thing that made them. The brave men stay and watch it happen. They don't run!
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• 1. Hushpuppy: When an animal gets sick here, they plug it into the wall.
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• 1. Hushpuppy: I'm recording my story for the scientists in the future. In a million years, when kids go to school, they gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub.
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• 1. Little Jo: As I stand by the bayou, I watch a ship as she disappears. There, she is gone. And we cry for this. But she's not gone. She's just as real as when she left me. And somewhere else, other voices calling out. Here she comes. And that is dying. Here she comes!
  – Submitted by Melissa M (2 months ago)
• 1. Hushpuppy: When you're a small piece of a big puzzle, you gotta fix what you can.
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