Lebanon
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: August 6, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
A terrifying, absorbing 93 minutes spent in hell. It captures the intensity of warfare in a visceral fashion that recalls Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" and Oliver Stone's "Platoon." Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Lebanon is not just the name of an excellent new Israeli film, it signifies a continuing national obsession that shows no signs of going away. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Never before, not even in the claustrophobic submarine epic "Das Boot," has a physical point of view so completely dictated a philosophical point of view. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
It took writer-director Samuel ''Shmulik'' Maoz nearly 30 years to make this disturbing, visceral, personal film. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Samuel Maoz drew from his own war experiences to write and direct this searing drama, which ranks alongside "Platoon" and "No Man's Land" as an antiwar statement and recalls the claustrophobic despair of "Das Boot." Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It's an uncompromising drama, not easy to watch. And it is one of the year's highlights. Read full review
100
EmpireMark Dinning
With luck The Hurt Locker's recent awards haul should draw audiences to this equally intense and actually more brilliant depiction of war. It marks the arrival of a sensational new talent behind the camera and is a debut that deserves to be seen. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Lebanon is meticulous, nearly clinical in its attention to what happens in war -- specifically what happened in the first days of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 -- but it is also a palpably and intensely personal film.
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Offers a view of war that is anything but epic. Instead of sweeping battles and swooping fighter planes, in Lebanon we are brought into the impossibly claustrophobic world of a lone tank crew. Read full review
100
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Not just the year's most impressive first feature but also the strongest new movie of any kind I've seen in 2010. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazinePam Grady
The performances are spot on and so is the film's ever growing sense of horror. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Lebanon gives us viscerally violent, intensely distressing glimpses into war's annihilation of people, places, and communities. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin Wilson
Although Lebanon is to be congratulated for its bold visual strategy and strong antiwar stance, the film becomes claustrophobic after a while. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Harrowing and grueling, Lebanon ends on a gentle, hopeful note. Read full review
88
Washington PostStephanie Merry
While the title alone may send people into a tizzy, this actually isn't a movie about which side is right or wrong. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Very little gets in the way of Lebanon's apocalyptic mood; if it turns its audience even slightly away from barbarism, it might have done its job. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah Young
The emotional traumas of young Israeli soldiers drafted into the war with Lebanon in the 1980s are recounted through the eyes of a tank crew in this wrenching concentration of raw emotion directed by Samuel Maoz. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
The scoped camerawork is a shrewd tactic; only occasionally does its flat, proscenium effect make the action feel overly staged. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Lebanon isn't as resonant as the haunting mix of autobiography and animation in "Waltz with Bashir," which dealt with the same war. Still, the film's fresh craft promises more from a director who turns the tiniest possible of settings into a sobering metaphor for the madness of a larger world. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
As good as the film is in conveying the feeling of the walls closing in, it has to be said that the script won't win any prizes for subtlety - the director seems to relish ham-fisted ironies. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
An emotionally powerful if somewhat divided experience. The grimness, the sweat, the panic are there in Saving Private Ryan-level intensity. At the same time, you never entirely lose the sense that the movie is a formal and calculated cinematic exercise, something of an illustrated argument. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
There's a soap opera going on inside that tin can with a cannon. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Lebanon is inspired by the director's traumatic days at the front, giving his work a sense of authority. Read full review
70
NPRMark Jenkins
The movie ends powerfully, with a sudden pileup of fright, death and a disconcerting glimpse of beauty. If Lebanon's goal is to keep the viewer on edge and off balance, its final minutes are exemplary. Read full review
70
VarietyDerek Elley
Visceral, torn-from-the-memory filmmaking that packs every punch except one to the heart, Lebanon is the boldest and best of the recent mini-wave of Israeli pics ("Beaufort," "Waltz With Bashir") set during conflicts between the two countries. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Director Samuel Maoz's gripping you-are-there feel does for tanks what "Das Boot" did for submarines, and that chokehold only gets tighter as this taut drama about the 1982 Israeli-Lebanese war goes on. Read full review
50
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottDec 17, 2010
It's the same fine line that so often separates artfulness and "trying too hard" -- a line that Lebanon tramples all over. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The film's visceral assault extends to the sledgehammer script, an amassment of unsubtle ironies and war-is-hell clichés that often reduce it to an amateurish theatrical stunt. Read full review
More From This Movie

85 Critic Reviews

6.4 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL