Witness
Stream
Rent & Buy
While protecting an Amish boy—the sole witness to a brutal murder—and his mother, a detective is forced to seek refuge within their community when his own life comes under threat.
What critics thought
Witness earns its strong reputation as something rarer than a thriller: a film that takes its characters' inner lives seriously, letting the collision between modern violence and Amish quietude generate genuine dramatic tension. Critics were broadly admiring of Harrison Ford's performance and Peter Weir's control of tone, though a dissenting camp found the screenplay's mechanics too predictable and the genre elements too crudely grafted onto the more delicate romance at the film's core.
“at times a gentle, affecting story of star-crossed lovers limited within the fascinating Amish community. Too often, however, this fragile romance is crushed by a thoroughly absurd shoot-'em-up, like ketchup poured over a delicate Pennsylvania Dutch dinner.”
Variety
“It's not really awful, but it's not much fun. It's pretty to look at and it contains a number of good performances, but there is something exhausting about its neat balancing of opposing manners and values”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“Powerful, assured, full of beautiful imagery and thankfully devoid of easy moralizing, it also offers a performance of surprising skill and sensitivity from Ford.”
Time Out New York
“partly a love story and partly a thriller, but mainly a study of cultural collision – it's as if the world of Dirty Harry had suddenly stumbled into a canvas by Brueghel.”
John Ferguson·Radio Times
Accolades
Genres
Crime, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
Peter WeirDirector
Harrison FordJohn Book
Kelly McGillisRachel
Josef SommerSchaeffer
Lukas HaasSamuel
Jan RubešEli Lapp
Alexander GodunovDaniel Hochleitner
Danny GloverMcFee
Brent JenningsCarter
Patti LuPoneElaine
Angus MacInnesFergie
Frederick RolfStoltzfus
Viggo MortensenMoses Hochleitner
Maurice JarreComposer
John SealeCinematographyWitness
While protecting an Amish boy—the sole witness to a brutal murder—and his mother, a detective is forced to seek refuge within their community when his own life comes under threat.
What critics thought
Witness earns its strong reputation as something rarer than a thriller: a film that takes its characters' inner lives seriously, letting the collision between modern violence and Amish quietude generate genuine dramatic tension. Critics were broadly admiring of Harrison Ford's performance and Peter Weir's control of tone, though a dissenting camp found the screenplay's mechanics too predictable and the genre elements too crudely grafted onto the more delicate romance at the film's core.
“at times a gentle, affecting story of star-crossed lovers limited within the fascinating Amish community. Too often, however, this fragile romance is crushed by a thoroughly absurd shoot-'em-up, like ketchup poured over a delicate Pennsylvania Dutch dinner.”
Variety
“It's not really awful, but it's not much fun. It's pretty to look at and it contains a number of good performances, but there is something exhausting about its neat balancing of opposing manners and values”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“Powerful, assured, full of beautiful imagery and thankfully devoid of easy moralizing, it also offers a performance of surprising skill and sensitivity from Ford.”
Time Out New York
“partly a love story and partly a thriller, but mainly a study of cultural collision – it's as if the world of Dirty Harry had suddenly stumbled into a canvas by Brueghel.”
John Ferguson·Radio Times
Accolades
Genres
Crime, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
Peter WeirDirectorHarrison FordJohn BookKelly McGillisRachelJosef SommerSchaefferLukas HaasSamuelJan RubešEli LappAlexander GodunovDaniel HochleitnerDanny GloverMcFeeBrent JenningsCarterPatti LuPoneElaineAngus MacInnesFergieFrederick RolfStoltzfusViggo MortensenMoses HochleitnerMaurice JarreComposerJohn SealeCinematographyStream
Rent & Buy