Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5
Neon | Release Date: October 10, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 2, 2025
Densely packed, the movie is a whirlwind of ideas and images, by turns heady, enlivening, disturbing and near-exhausting. It’s a work of visceral urgency from Peck, who’s best known for his 2017 documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” about James Baldwin. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerOct 6, 2025
The oppression is coming from all angles, but the unifying factor of these methods is that they have all already been described by author George Orwell. In the cutting documentary Orwell: 2+2=5, director Raoul Peck adds all these attacks up, expressing his contemporary horror using Orwell as his voice. Read full review
83
The Film StageDan MeccaOct 6, 2025
Perhaps the saddest, most effective thing about Orwell: 2+2=5 is that it all seems so obvious. The evidence, the crimes, the lies––all of it. So many of these despots lack any nuance or fortitude. Raoul Peck remains a steadfast beacon of truth. In this time when fiction is fact, we need as many of him as we can get. Read full review
83
Original-CinJim SlotekOct 2, 2025
Orwell: 2+2=5 is food for thought for sure, practically an all-you-can-eat buffet of thoughts. As a statement, it is all over the map. But as an experiential representation of Orwell’s warnings-come-true, it is worth seeing. Read full review
80
The TimesKevin MaherApr 2, 2026
In a project that took a full year to edit, with unfettered access to the Orwell estate’s entire archive, Peck proves impossibly adept at layering in seemingly disparate clips, quotes and footage without ever once losing sight of his central message. Much like Orwell, in fact, it’s the clarity of his polemic that impresses most. Read full review
80
ColliderRoss BonaimeOct 3, 2025
It’s entirely possible you won’t see a scarier movie this year than Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearOct 2, 2025
Peck has long cratfed impeccable, politically charged fictions, docs, and docudramas, whether it’s his 2000 biopic on Patrice Lumumba or his peerless portrait of James Baldwin (the aforementioned I Am Not a Negro). With this latest magnum opus, the Haitian filmmaker has given us not just an invaluable, iris-out look at our present moment but the scariest movie of 2025 by a wide margin. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenMay 24, 2025
Peck, who profiled another writer of blistering moral clarity and prescience, James Baldwin, in I Am Not Your Negro, brings a healthy dose of sympathetic rage to his exploration of Orwell’s worldview, and sensitivity to his life story. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrOct 2, 2025
Filmmaker Raoul Peck uses George Orwell’s writings to weave together a biographical portrait of the author and a dispiriting picture of power and truth in the modern world in “Orwell: 2+2=5.” Read full review
75
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 12, 2025
Peck’s genuine admiration for the sharpness and clarity of Orwell’s writing, combined with the rich tonality of Damian Lewis’ narration, gives the author as grandly respectful a presentation as “I Am Not Your Negro” did for James Baldwin. If “Orwell: 2+2=5” gets one more person to discover Orwell’s work for themselves, then its job will have been accomplished. Read full review
75
TheWrapSteve PondMay 24, 2025
Orwell: 2+2=5 is an artful balancing act, one that dips in and out of Orwell’s life and work, but also uses a broad array of reference points as it swings from history to art to the most current of events. Read full review
67
IndieWireWilson ChapmanMay 24, 2025
The result isn’t as riveting as “I Am Not Your Negro” — it feels less personal and more generic, like a term paper someone could have written in undergrad. Still, Peck makes his points well, and accomplishes what he sets out to do by getting your blood pressure rising. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloSep 15, 2025
Director Raoul Peck, no stranger to connecting the past to the present as he did with “I Am Not Your Negro,” collaborates with the Orwell estate to retell the story behind the man who gave the world 1984 and Animal Farm and explore the themes Orwell illustrated in those works to current events to show how Orwell’s warnings have gone unheeded through the years. The result, “Orwell: 2+2=5,” is an ambitious work that is provocative but sometimes convoluted. Read full review
60
EmpireNeil AlcockMar 26, 2026
A bitter howl at the injustice of the modern world, intellectualised through one of literature’s shrewdest figures. Powerful and eye-opening, but Orwell himself might have preferred a less partisan approach. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 26, 2026
This is a serious and worthwhile film, though one that tells you what you know already, and yet somehow perhaps doesn’t tell you enough. Read full review
60
Time OutMatthew SingerMar 25, 2026
In his documentary-cum-video essay Orwell: 2+2=5, director Raoul Peck juxtaposes the British writer’s words with a flood of the same distressing images inundating our social media feeds, from Ukraine to Gaza, South America to the United States. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanOct 3, 2025
2+2 = 5 is a movie that very much leans toward chronicling the brutality and violence of despotic regimes, and is less interested in exploring how they toy with your brain. Read full review
60
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 24, 2025
There’s no denying the film’s urgency, and audiences will certainly leave with plenty to chew over, but Peck doesn’t aid the thinking process by overloading us, where a more focused reading of Orwell’s key ideas could have yielded a much more cogent argument. Read full review
50
The Irish TimesTara BradyMar 27, 2026
The film attempts both an in-depth portrait of the late author and a scattershot meditation on the persistence of his ideas. Read full review
40
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsMar 26, 2026
The filmmaker draws some arresting audiovisual cues into the patchwork of images, but the film lacks some of the goofy wit of British documentarian Adam Curtis, whose own provocative essays at least offer some element of surprise (even when they don’t work themselves). Read full review
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