White God
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: March 27, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezApr 9, 2015
White God is the rare sort of movie in the era of computer-generated special effects where you can’t believe your eyes, because what you’re looking at is real. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleApr 2, 2015
By turns Dickensian, Marxist and dystopian, it's a movie as deliriously unclassifiable as it is expertly focused in its desire to provoke and entertain. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 2, 2015
The whole production speaks well for the power of film; it’s a serious stunner. Read full review
100
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 26, 2014
Not merely a story of interspecies hierarchy, then, White God also puts forward a simple but elegant metaphor for racial and class oppression, as the outcast (or even outcaste) masses, sidelined in favor of the elite few, band together to assert their collective strength. Read full review
91
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 26, 2014
Overall a triumphantly idiosyncratic film with smarts and visceral impact in equal measure. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 27, 2015
Árpád Halász is the credited “animal trainer for 280 dogs,” Teresa Ann Miller the handler of Bodie and Luke — better actors than half this year’s Academy Award nominees. This is the new gold standard for nature-bites-back movies. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 26, 2015
In classic narrative fashion, Mr. Mundruczo works the setup like a burlesque fan dancer, teasing out the reveal bit by bit. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaApr 10, 2015
White God offers a dark - very dark - take on the way humans exert authority, and superiority, over our fellow creatures. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMar 27, 2015
A brutal but stirring fantasy. Read full review
88
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeMar 25, 2015
White God has been compared to “The Birds,” but there are also echoes of “Lassie Come Home” and even “Dirty Harry.” Director Kornél Mundruczó goes big with allegory, violence, drama and sentiment, and the results are riveting. Read full review
80
The TelegraphMike McCahillFeb 26, 2015
A social conscience movie with real cinematic bite. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamFeb 23, 2015
Who let the dogs out? This is Homeward Bound: The Incredibly Harrowing Journey, with the feelgood payoff arriving after many feel-shit sequences. Well worth it, though. Read full review
80
EmpireDamon WiseFeb 23, 2015
Superbly acted allegorical drama with a climax that is not only breathtakingly exciting but flawlessly handled. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeFeb 23, 2015
If it wasn’t so violent, the simplicity of the metaphor – how the abused and outcast will rise up – would work for young audiences. And you won’t beat it for dog acting. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonMay 26, 2014
The ultimate message may be a little fuzzy, but Mundruczó has crafted a incredibly cinematic canine parable that remains gripping and inventive from its nose to its tail. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 26, 2014
White God works as an ambiguous satire of power relations generally: eventually the lower orders will rise up. The film has a flair and a bite which I have found lacking in Mundruczó's earlier films. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiApr 8, 2015
Blending political allegory with the tropes of teen coming-of-age films, White God begins as a tale about a girl separated from her dog, and ends up being the Battleship Potemkin of canine mutiny. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 9, 2015
What saves the movie are those sequences of massed animals running riot through Budapest, overwhelming squadrons of police sharpshooters, and taking over a student performance of Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.” Hardly subtle, yet the scene yields one shot — of dogs glaring down from the box seats of a fancy concert hall — that’s nearly worthy of Buñuel. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonApr 2, 2015
Amazingly, the filmmakers claim that no CGI was used in the film. The cast of dogs are all real (none was harmed in the making of the film), a tribute not only to Mundruczo’s unique vision and filmmaking skills, but also to animal trainer Teresa Ann Miller, a Hollywood veteran. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyMar 27, 2015
Hackle-raising in its intensity. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 24, 2015
A quote by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke opens White God — “Everything terrible is something that needs our love.” But that goes for the film, too. Who will want to see a movie so focused on dogs, in which they’re brutalized and killed? Read full review
70
The DissolveTasha RobinsonMar 26, 2015
In some moments, White God is a fast-moving thriller... At other times, it’s a standard-issue slasher movie... But when Mundruczó pushes the camera in close on Lili or Hagen, it just becomes a family drama, and a portrait of longing—for freedom, for emotional reciprocity, for comfort. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonMar 24, 2015
When the violence gets unbearable, take comfort in the troop of trainers on the sidelines who prove that, for now, man and beast still make a good team. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 23, 2015
Yet the great thing about White God is that the more you command it to sit and stay — to settle down as a plausible plot, or to cohere as a political fable — the more it slips its leash and runs amok. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanApr 17, 2015
White God holds some fascination. But as an indictment of the evil that men do, it's all bark and no bite. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 9, 2015
Even those who don’t buy in completely to Mundruczo’s parable will be impressed by his canine crowd scenes, staged with ambition, skill and genuinely original vision. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonMay 26, 2014
The premise of this Hungarian/German/Swedish co-production is solid, even if the execution feels a little slack and the running time too long. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Mar 25, 2015
As a curious hodgepodge of ideas, White God gets by. But the releasing-of-the-hounds at the start is a bad omen. The film, like the dogs, mostly goes downhill. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoMar 14, 2015
It affects a general air of artistically inclined realism, but it's mostly concerned with building tension via a steady accumulation of flatly conceived misery. Read full review
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