The Hurt Locker (2008)

All Critics (217) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (215) | Rotten (7) | DVD (17)

Bigelow's film combines an expert management of tension with a sensitive and journalistic attention to detail: she has one eye on the truth and the other on the multiplex.

August 29, 2009 Full Review

Dave Calhoun

Time Out

Top Critic

One of the best movies of the year, with a star-making performance from Jeremy Renner.

July 30, 2009 Full Review | Comments (11)

Richard Roeper

Richard Roeper.com

Top Critic

Like every war before it, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has generated its share of movies. But The Hurt Locker is the first of them that can properly be called a masterpiece.

July 24, 2009 Full Review

Rene Rodriguez

Miami Herald

Top Critic

The question isn't how do you live with the buzz of looming death; it's how do you live without it? No answers are offered, or even suggested.

July 24, 2009 Full Review

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

Like her protagonist, Bigelow is both a meticulous technician and a ballsy showoff. And, like him, she has ice water in her veins.

July 24, 2009 Full Review

Christopher Orr

The New Republic

Top Critic

This beyond-the-headlines war movie, a 'ticking clock' thriller from journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal, is the first Iraq War movie to qualify as more first-rate entertainment than sermon.

July 22, 2009 Full Review

Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Top Critic

When the picture isn't ramping up your heart rate, it switches gears and becomes an intimate character study in what war does to humankind.

February 15, 2013 Full Review

Jeremy Wheeler

TV Guide's Movie Guide

Though the slow-building occasionally drags, for the most part The Hurt Locker is a masterclass in how to build tension.

January 4, 2013 Full Review

Stephen Carty

Flix Capacitor

It's in refusing to plant a flag on one side or the other over the Iraq war debacle that Bigelow may just have made the conflict's defining film: words are cheap, but it's action that matters.

September 29, 2012 Full Review

Ali Gray

TheShiznit.co.uk

I wasn't exactly blown away by it (no pun intended here at all), but it remains an engaging film. There's certainly a great story to be told in here somewhere, it's just not the great film I've been hearing about.

September 24, 2012 Full Review | Comments (2)

Jeff Beck

Examiner.com

It's not delicate by any means, and it gives an intense look into the lives of the American soldiers in Iraq.

July 21, 2012 Full Review

Kevin Carr

7M Pictures

The suspense may just kill you.

October 29, 2010 Full Review | Comments (3)

Katina Vangopoulos

Moviedex

Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is one of the most thrilling action films I've seen in the past few years. It features set piece after pulse-quickening set piece.

October 21, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Simon Miraudo

Quickflix

The decade's best fictional film about its real war, it's a unique perspective on the workplace high of delivering containment from chaos. Some people kick PowerPoint's ass. Sgt. 1st Class William James saves his by defusing bombs.

September 24, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Nick Rogers

Suite101.com

Jeremy Renner as the unhinged James is a revelation.

August 9, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Simon Foster

sbs.com.au

There is something original and distinctive about the film's willingness to admit that for some men (and many moviegoers) war carries an intrinsic dramatic charge.

July 7, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Guy Westwell

Sight and Sound

Equal parts bravado-fueled action and pointed political statement. The best film yet made about the Iraq War, and the best American film about war since Platoon.

June 15, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Ian Buckwalter

DCist

One of the few must watches of the year so far, and certainly one of the most intelligent offerings, The Hurt Locker would likely already be boasting a masterpiece label had it been from a high profile director or studio.

April 15, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Sam Bathe

Fan The Fire

The opening scene alone may well be the most insanely gripping and amazingly constructed cinematic moment you'll see all year.

April 14, 2010 Full Review | Comments (2)

Alice Tynan

The Vine

Combines white- knuckle tension, sizzling dialogue and poignant insight into the lives of the bravest guys in Baghdad.

April 8, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Rebecca Barry

Flicks.co.nz

A tense, occasionally meandering story about bomb defusers in Iraq.

April 2, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

May be to the War on Terror what Apocalypse Now is to Vietnam, and it's almost as hallucinatory a vision.

March 6, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

While Kathryn Bigelow's taut direction is Academy Award-worthy, Mark Boal's script doesn't get far enough beneath the characters' skin.

February 24, 2010 Full Review | Comments (4)

Fr. Chris Carpenter

Movie Dearest

Succeeds where so many others have failed, by crafting a compelling Iraq war film.

February 17, 2010 Full Review | Comments (3)

Giles Hardie

smh.com.au

• 1. Staff Sgt. William James: And the older you get, the fewer things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things.
  – Submitted by Swayamdeep S (32 days ago)
• 1. Sgt J.T. Sanborn: I'm ready to die, James.
  – Submitted by Miguel V (2 months ago)
• 1. Staff Sgt. William James: You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don't ya? Yeah. But you know what, buddy? As you get older... some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you'll realize it's just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And the older you get, the fewer things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one.
  – Submitted by Typhon Q (7 months ago)
• 1. Beckham: That's gangster.
  – Submitted by preciliano B (12 months ago)
• 1. Sgt J.T. Sanborn: But you realize every time you suit up, every time we go out, it's life or death.
  – Submitted by Michael C (20 months ago)
• 1. Staff Sgt. William James: [Speaking to his son] You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don't ya? Yea. But you know what, buddy? As you get older... some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you'll realize it's just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And the older you get, the fewer things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one.
  – Submitted by Ryan S (21 months ago)