12 Years A Slave
12 Years a Slave is a 2013 period drama film and an adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free African-American man who was abducted and sold into slavery.
28 August 2003, Houma, Louisiana, USA
11 April 1992, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
24 November 1964, Castro Valley, California, USA
February 26, 2017
Ejiofor's performance is typically unshowy yet subtle, conveying a dignity and humanity that the film needs in the face of such unfathomable injustice.February 26, 2017
McQueen has not only created his finest work to date, but also a potential modern masterpiece.January 07, 2014
The cumulative emotional effect is devastating: the final scenes are as angry, as memorable, as overwhelming as anything modern cinema has to offer.February 26, 2017
Pitiless, heartless and exceptionally intense, 12 Years a Slave is definitely not for the faint-hearted.December 31, 2013
Every scene of 12 Years a Slave, and almost every shot, conveys some penetrating truth about America's original sin.January 13, 2015
In its own saintly manner, it's as exploitative as anything critics accused Django Unchained of being, minus Tarantino's eye for idiosyncrasy and sense of humor.December 10, 2013
The power of McQueen's movie is in its declaratory style: This happened. That is all, and that is everything.December 31, 2013
So overpowering is this film's simple, horrible, and almost entirely true story that it's hard to get enough distance on 12 Years a Slave to poke at its inner workings.February 26, 2017
It is this film's unfortunate paradox that a story with so much at stake, rendered in what could only be good faith, should translate to so little.February 26, 2017
The end result has momentum and meaning, and slides in amidst McQueen's excellent efforts; the only thing missing, particularly from a director known for his primal jolts and punishing journeys, is the visceral reaction.January 13, 2015
It speaks to the courage and resilience of one man, the savagery of many, and the potential, for both good and for ill, in us all.February 26, 2017
12 Years a Slave is a film of searing sincerity and insight, whose central characters are drawn with real complexity. McQueen's third film doesn't just slide slavery under the microscope, it holds it there.