12 Years a Slave
Academy Award × 3·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
What critics thought
One of the most acclaimed films of its decade, Steve McQueen's unflinching portrait of Solomon Northup drew near-universal praise for Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance, the visceral direction, and its refusal to soften the realities of slavery. The minority of critical dissent centered not on craft but on framing: whether the film's hero-centered structure and its use of a white rescuer ultimately narrow the story it claims to tell.
“the genius of 12 Years a Slave is its insistence on banal evil, and on terror, that seeped into souls, bound bodies and reaped an enduring, terrible price”
Manohla Dargis·The New York Times
“It's a picture that stays more than a few safe steps away from anything so dangerous as raw feeling. Even when it depicts inhuman cruelty, as it often does, it never compromises its aesthetic purity.”
Stephanie Zacharek·The Village Voice
“12 Years a Slave is constructed as a story of a man trying to return to his family, offering every viewer a way into empathizing with its protagonist. Maybe we need a story framed on that individual scale in order to understand it. But it has a distorting effect all the same. We're more invested in one hero than in millions of victims; if we're forced to imagine ourselves enslaved, we want to imagine ourselves as Northup, a special person who miraculously escaped the system that attempted to crush him.”
Peter Malamud Smith·Slate
“McQueen's film is closer in its storytelling particulars to such 1970s exploitation-exposés of slavery as Mandingo and Goodbye, Uncle Tom. Except that McQueen is not a schlockmeister sensationalist but a remorseless artist”
Richard Corliss·TIME
Genres
Biography, Drama, History
Cast & Crew
DirectorSteve McQueen
StarringChiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano
ComposerHans Zimmer
12 Years a Slave
Academy Award × 3·National Film Registry
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
What critics thought
One of the most acclaimed films of its decade, Steve McQueen's unflinching portrait of Solomon Northup drew near-universal praise for Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance, the visceral direction, and its refusal to soften the realities of slavery. The minority of critical dissent centered not on craft but on framing: whether the film's hero-centered structure and its use of a white rescuer ultimately narrow the story it claims to tell.
“the genius of 12 Years a Slave is its insistence on banal evil, and on terror, that seeped into souls, bound bodies and reaped an enduring, terrible price”
Manohla Dargis·The New York Times
“It's a picture that stays more than a few safe steps away from anything so dangerous as raw feeling. Even when it depicts inhuman cruelty, as it often does, it never compromises its aesthetic purity.”
Stephanie Zacharek·The Village Voice
“12 Years a Slave is constructed as a story of a man trying to return to his family, offering every viewer a way into empathizing with its protagonist. Maybe we need a story framed on that individual scale in order to understand it. But it has a distorting effect all the same. We're more invested in one hero than in millions of victims; if we're forced to imagine ourselves enslaved, we want to imagine ourselves as Northup, a special person who miraculously escaped the system that attempted to crush him.”
Peter Malamud Smith·Slate
“McQueen's film is closer in its storytelling particulars to such 1970s exploitation-exposés of slavery as Mandingo and Goodbye, Uncle Tom. Except that McQueen is not a schlockmeister sensationalist but a remorseless artist”
Richard Corliss·TIME
Genres
Biography, Drama, History
Cast & Crew
DirectorSteve McQueen
StarringChiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano
ComposerHans Zimmer
Rent/Purchase