Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Average Rating: 8.6/10
Reviews Counted: 247
Fresh: 230 | Rotten: 17
Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail.
Average Rating: 9/10
Critic Reviews: 46
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 4
Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail.
liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 127,992
My Rating
Movie Info
For a decade, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal: to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Oscar winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for the story of history's greatest manhunt for the world's most dangerous man. -- (C) Official Site
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Cast
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Joel Edgerton
Patrick - Squadron Team... -
Jason Clarke
Dan -
Jessica Chastain
Maya -
Kyle Chandler
Joseph Bradley -
Jennifer Ehle
Jessica -
Harold Perrineau
Jack -
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Zero Dark Thirty Trailer & Photos
All Critics (247) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (232) | Rotten (18) | DVD (3)
What's striking is the absence of triumphalism -- Bigelow doesn't shy away from showing the victims shot down in cold blood in the compound -- and we come away with the overwhelming sense that this has been a grim, dark episode in our history.
Top CriticThis is an instant classic.
Chastain makes Maya as vivid as a bloodshot eye. Her porcelain skin, delicate features and feminine attire belie the steel within.
No doubt Zero Dark Thirty serves a function by airing America's dirty laundry about detainee and torture programs, but in its wake, there's a crying need for a compassionate Coming Home to counter its brutal Deer Hunter.
While "Zero Dark Thirty" may offer political and moral arguing points aplenty, as well as vicarious thrills,as a film it's simply too much of a passable thing.
From the very first scenes of Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow demonstrates why she is such a formidable filmmaker, as adept with human emotion as with visceral, pulse-quickening action.
...a somber, black-winged benediction for what we might count as a lost decade.
Unsettling and unforgettable...challenges the justifications of war's ugly atrocities, without resorting to jingoistic platitudes.
The Blu-ray/DVD release of Zero Dark Thirty is about as boring and bland as the movie itself. Transfer and audio quality is nice, but not reference quality and the features are slim pickens. Unless you love this movie, rent the Blu-ray.
a brilliant high tech treatment of the subject and the classified nature of the disclosures
A film of infectious urgency, questionable accuracy, murky morality and undeniable emotional and intellectual power
Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is a grueling masterpiece that captures the hunt for bin Laden with a daunting amount of realism and efficiency.
Slathered in controversy, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty confidently and forcefully storms onto DVD with an admirable A/V transfer, only hindered by a paltry gathering of extras from Sony.
The direction by Kathryn Bigelow, who won Oscars for Best Film and Best Director in her previous film "The Hurt Locker," is fierce and focused...
Despite what those silly Oscars would have you believe, it was this movie, not Argo, that was the finest of 2012.
Indulges Cheneyian fantasies complete with the bad-movie scene of the prisoner's defiance: "You're just a garbage man in the corporation," shouts the Arab who needs a lesson in manners from the Ph.D. (in torture?) who is racking him.
Bigelow tells the story very well, very efficiently, but doesn't really say much about it, which is ironic given the response to the film in some quarters.
Kathryn Bigelow takes the procedural model and brushes away every unnecessary detail, leaving behind a heavy, blunt object of a film that is also hugely watchable, engrossing and, best of all... highly suspenseful.
Rotten Tomatoes notes that I agree with Tomatometer critics 80 percent of the time, but this is one of those times I have to part ways with them.
Bigelow has directed excellent movies before, but this deserves to be remembered as the film that established her as a master.
You can't deny that what Zero Dark Thirty sets out to do, it does excellently.
An exhilarating and compelling historical document worthy of praise.
Bigelow's latest proves a rewarding piece of filmmaking, one that, in its best moments at least, is as gripping and as troubling as anything the director's ever made.
Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal shape history -- those breaks, big and small, that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden -- into one of the finest fact-based thrillers since "All the President's Men."
A ripping revenge yarn.
Purely as cinematic exercise, Zero Dark Thirty is an exhilarating piece of work. But, beyond its for-the-times subject matter, the work does not linger whatsoever.
Audience Reviews for Zero Dark Thirty
Super Reviewer
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- Maya: I'm the motherfucker who found this place, Sir.
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- Maya: Kind of like Gandalf?
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- Patrick - Squadron Team Leader: Do you realize what you just did?
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- Maya: I don't eat out, it's too dangerous.
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- Dan: This is what defeat looks like, bro. Your jihad is over.
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- Dan: When you lie to me, I hurt you.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Is This Film a Piece of War Propaganda? | 1 day ago | 155 |
| How on Earth can a movie like this get good reviews? | 3 days ago | 273 |
| A message to Kathryn Bigelow | 3 days ago | 109 |
| It's really the consummate soldier. | 6 days ago | 0 |
| Okay Rotten Tomatoes, that's enough. | 17 days ago | 26 |
Latest News on Zero Dark Thirty
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March 19, 2013:
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February 25, 2013:
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Foreign Titles
- Zero Dark Thirty (DE)
- Zero Dark Thirty (UK)
Having not read the full "story" of how bin Laden was allegedly caught & shot, I chose to check out the movie. Being fictionalized doesn't make it worse, at least not for me. While the tracking process of Laden for years by the CIA was quite interesting, I can't say the same for the killing/shooting (of Laden towards the end) process that consumes about half an hour of the movie. Except for that drag, I found the movie worth watching as a thriller. The performances were good in general, but Jessica Chestain was a bit loud. Watch it as a fictionalized version of real events (if at all anything such happened for real), and you'll probably be less disappointed. And of course, not caring for pro-torture or any political issue is bound to enhance the viewing experience. Overall, I'd rate "Zero Dark Thirty" 6.5/10.