Average Rating: 8.9/10
Reviews Counted: 38
Fresh: 38 | Rotten: 0
An existential suspense classic, The Wages of Fear blends nonstop suspense with biting satire; its influence is still being felt on today's thrillers.
Average Rating: 8.8/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0
An existential suspense classic, The Wages of Fear blends nonstop suspense with biting satire; its influence is still being felt on today's thrillers.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.4/5
User Ratings: 7,333
Together with Diabolique, The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) earned Henri-Georges Clouzot the reputation as a "French Hitchcock." In truth, Clouzot's ability to sustain suspense may have even exceeded Hitchcock's; when originally released, Wages ran 155 tension-filled minutes. Based on the much-imitated novel by Georges Arnaud, the film is set in Central America. The Southern Oil Company, which pretty much rules the roost in the impoverished village of Las Piedras, sends out a call for
Unrated, 2 hr. 28 min.
Jan 1, 1953 Limited
Jan 26, 1999
Janus Films
All Critics (39) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (41) | Rotten (0) | DVD (8)
A significant influence on Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, this grueling pile driver of a movie will keep you on the edge of your seat.
A harrowing odyssey of four derelicts inching two trucks loaded with nitro-glycerine over a tortuous terrain puts this in the strong meat department with a downbeat theme of fear and its manifestations.
Top CriticThe excitement derives entirely from the awareness of nitroglycerine and the gingerly, breathless handling of it. You sit there waiting for the theatre to explode.
The kind of motion picture for which commonplace phrases like 'white-knuckle tension ride' have been coined.
An expertly directed, personally felt film.
The film's extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema.
Hitch's bomb-under-the-table suspense formula burnished to an expert sheen.
The Wages of Fear contains tension-fraught stretches of "pure cinema" that probably gave even the Master cold sweats.
"The Wages of Fear" is as much about manufactured fear as it is about the folly of courage that feeds on it.
When contrabandists become businessmen and human life is blown away as simply as the tobacco in a half-rolled cigarillo, heroism and grace are notions that wither in the heat
An extraordinarily gripping thriller from Henri-Georges Clouzot that establishes and maintains a level of tension rarely equalled elsewhere in cinema.
A white-knuckled introduction to the concept of action-movie existentialism, The Wages of Fear makes for a pummeling black-and-white Blu-Ray.
Now seems much less like Salt of the Earth-as-a-potboiler and a lot more like the spiritual godfather to every testosterone-fuelled thrill ride since.
A classic suspense film...also the screen equivalent of a classic existentialist drama...The chemical reaction Clouzot gets from these genres is pure dynamite. [Blu-ray]
"Wages of Fear" is an uncompromising parable about money, greed, and man's jealous desire for that which he can never have. Yves Montand is outstanding in this gritty and unrelentingly suspenseful picture.
One of the best existential thrillers ever made, Clouzot's 1952 film, which won the Cannes Fest Palme d'Or, is just as fresh, suspenseful, gritty and haunting today as it was decades ago; good companion piece to Clouzot's Diabolique.
A nail-biting drama that's a must-see.
A perfect blend of suspense and social satire.
A reeking bandana movie, with all the expected thrills, but a vision of men as scurrying insects with no redeeming features.
Engaging both on a base, visceral level ... and an emotional one.
[An] existential suspense classic.
The Wages of Fear is a frantic, vicious, existentialist howl that still manages to laugh; it goes grinning into the void.
A visually striking and immensely intense thriller from Clouzot. Stranded in a desolate Central American town, a group of down and out Europeans are feverishly in pursuit of making some kind of living.When an American oil company (SOC) needs four non-union scabs to transport volatile explosives across some very
July 4, 2011Super Reviewer
Extremamente assustador e fantastico. Uma obra prima inesquecÃÂvel, um filme perfeito que envolve o espectador atà (C) o final.
May 6, 2011Super Reviewer
| 35% | The Hangover Part II |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 81% | Kung Fu Panda 2 |
| 44% | Cowboys & Aliens |
| 83% | Rise of the Planet of the Apes |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 88% | Lady and the Tramp |
| 69% | A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas |
| 21% | Fireflies in the Garden |
| 45% | The Rebound |
Journey 2 Not Worth the Trip
What are his 10 best movies ever?
See the all-new action-packed trailer!
Five new Marvelous pictures