Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?

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Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?

2026

1h 56m

Drama

War

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20%

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10 Reviews

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Fewer than 50 Ratings

Allen Nelson was born into a poor family in New York and joined the Marine Corps at the age of 18 to escape discrimination and poverty. After serving at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, he was sent to the front lines of the Vietnam War in 1966, believing he could become a proud soldier like war heroes seen in the movies. But what awaited him there was not glory. On the grounds that Viet Cong had infiltrated villages, people of all ages were treated as suspects and killed one after another. It was a terrifying and gruesome reality in which he was forced to kill. As Allen accumulated experiences of taking lives, his mind gradually became desensitized. When he returned home at the age of 23, what awaited him were agonizing days and sleepless nights spent haunted by memories of the battlefield. Terrified by loud noises and the dark, his relationships with his family fell apart, and he eventually became homeless. The only thread keeping him connected to the world was Dr. Daniels, a psychiatrist working at a veterans' hospital who provided him with counseling and support.

Jordan Mintzer

The Hollywood Reporter

Sep 6, 2026

Powerful in spots and overwrought in others, Mr. Nelson sits uneasily between two genres, the war-sploitation flick and the on-the-nose afterschool special, never quite managing to reconcile one with the other.

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Siddhant Adlakha

IndieWire

Sep 6, 2026

D+

[Its] artificial texture works on rare occasion, but finds itself infecting the movie’s drama, which ends up awkward at best, and at worst, cacophonous and redundant.

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Jessica Kiang

Variety

Sep 5, 2026

It is rare to come across a film -- especially in a major festival’s competition lineup -- in which not only does so little work, it is given such endless acreage in which to keep not working.

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Mark Schilling

Japan Times

3 days ago

2/5

“Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?” remains baldly simplistic and didactic — far from Tsukamoto’s startlingly original best.

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Ana Yorke

PopMatters

5 days ago

Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? is an excruciating watch that does not sufficiently respect Allen Nelson’s victims or its viewers enough to recognize that there are crimes you cannot come back from, no matter how downtrodden you are about them.

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James Mottram

South China Morning Post

Sep 6, 2026

4/5

Powered by a terrific, haunting performance from Hicks ... the film is a striking but never sentimental psychological portrait from Tsukamoto.

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Nick W

@RT75122006 2 days ago

I’m ashamed to say that I’d never heard of Allen Nelson before seeing this film. His story is the unvarnished truth about war and the terrible and life changing impact it can have on those who are sent to wage it. The film is unsparing in its portrayal of the horrors of the Vietnam War, the atrocities perpetrated by United States forces and Nelson’s story is told in a brutally honest fashion throughout. This is quite simply the best anti-war film I’ve ever seen and I’d urge anybody who gets the chance to see it although it’s definitely not for the faint hearted.

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John H

@JohnHaba 5 days ago

In many ways the best Vietnam War movie ever. No other film has been as honest about what Americans were doing there, the infinite horror they inflicted on the Vietnamese, and what happened to the young and mostly poor American men who did most of the mass killing. Masterful soundtrack contains no music. None would've been adequate.

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Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Director

Rodney Hicks

Allen Nelson

Geoffrey Rush

Dr. Daniels

Lily Franky

Kuroi

Tatyana Ali

Linda

Mark Merphy

Young Nelson

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Synopsis

Allen Nelson was born into a poor family in New York and joined the Marine Corps at the age of 18 to escape discrimination and poverty. After serving at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, he was sent to the front lines of the Vietnam War in 1966, believing he could become a proud soldier like war heroes seen in the movies. But what awaited him there was not glory. On the grounds that Viet Cong had infiltrated villages, people of all ages were treated as suspects and killed one after another. It was a terrifying and gruesome reality in which he was forced to kill. As Allen accumulated experiences of taking lives, his mind gradually became desensitized. When he returned home at the age of 23, what awaited him were agonizing days and sleepless nights spent haunted by memories of the battlefield. Terrified by loud noises and the dark, his relationships with his family fell apart, and he eventually became homeless. The only thread keeping him connected to the world was Dr. Daniels, a psychiatrist working at a veterans' hospital who provided him with counseling and support.

Director: Shin'ya Tsukamoto
Producer: Christopher Frey, Ken Ochiai, Yumiko Takebe, Philippa Frey
Screenwriter: Shin'ya Tsukamoto
Production Co: Kino Films
Genre: Drama, War
Original Language: English
Runtime: 1h 56m

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