Popular reviews

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★ 2

  48 years ago today, the following innocent people were murdered by the parachute regiment;

  John 'Jackie' Duddy, aged 17.

  Michael Kelly, aged 17.

  Hugh Gilmour, aged 17.

  William Nash, aged 19.

  John Young, aged 17.

  Michael McDaid, aged 20.

  Kevin McElhinney, aged 17.

  James 'Jim' Wray, aged 22.

  William McKinney, aged 26.

  Gerard 'Gerry' McKinney, aged 35.

  Gerard 'Gerry' Donaghy, aged 17.

  Patrick Doherty, aged 31.

  Bernard 'Barney' McGuigan, aged 41.

  John Johnston, aged 59.

  How can they rest in peace when they have received no justice?

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  Review by Jizzmonkey ★★★★ 6

  It's said that the British Army originally went in to protect the Catholics in the north. But of course they fucked it up. James Nesbitt gives an outstanding performance. Alternative movie title: "Centuries of disruption in another's land, but we'll just show one day."

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  Review by CinemaCl🎃wn ★★★★

  Powerful, provocative & prompting, Bloody Sunday is a meticulously researched, expertly crafted & thoroughly gripping recreation of the Bogside massacre that occurred in the Northern Ireland town of Derry when British troops opened fire on civilians during a protest march, killing 14 and wounding just as many in the process.

  Dramatising the events that led to the tragic incident on January 30, 1972, Bloody Sunday follows a civil right activist named Ivan Cooper who was the central organiser of the peaceful rally against internment that ended when British army paratroopers began firing on the unarmed demonstrators in full view of the public & the press.

  Written & directed by Paul Greengrass, the movie sets its foreboding tone right within the opening segment after which…

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  Review by Florin Scanlon ★★★★½ 5

  Directed by the guy who brought us United 93 and Captain Phillips, this film is made with the same style, same direction and same dedication. Paul Greengrass has a knack for handling these difficult subjects, treating them with the utmost respect while delivering an experience almost as hard to forget as the events they are based on. With Bloody Sunday, based on the 1972 shootings in Derry, Northern Ireland, he does it without any schmaltzy or corny touches, keeping everything gritty, grounded and realistic. This allows for powerful emotions to build up, shock to strike, and finally a gut-wrenching feeling of sadness and frustration to install and take over. The end raises a few questions that any normal person would…

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½

  For many of us who were just simple mortals, mainstream movie watchers, our proper introduction to Paul Greengrass was either the Bourne movies or United 93 - but for the rest, this was it.

  While Michael Mann and Tony Scott have been practicing the handheld camera work for a while, there's no doubt Greengrass took it to a whole new level, for better or for worse. Getting to know Paul has a background as a journalist, this approach seems much fitting. For a movie like this one, this whole style works really good as the intention from the get-go is making the feature play more like a dramatization/docudrama rather than an adaptation. So the sense of shaking makes you feel…

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★★

  Every now and again, I see a film that makes me feel sick and horrible inside and every now and again, it is totally worth it. Bloody Sunday is one of those movies. The real life story of Bloody Sunday, the bloodiest day of the Northern Irish troubles, is told with the utmost urgency and realism. The historical fact of the case is that on the 30th January 1972, the British army committed a war crime by killing 14 unarmed Northern Irish civilians after a civil rights protest march in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The UK government did not acknowledge any wrongdoing until 2010. The film takes place over the 24 hour timespan of that Sunday and is shot with Paul…

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  Review by Larry ★★★★

  Film Number 7 on PinHeadLarry145's 30 Days 30 Countries Film Challenge!

  Ireland, 2002.

  "I'll be alright. It's only a march."

  Oh how I bet you were eating those words. You poor soul.

  Bloody Sunday, for those not familiar, is a film that dramatizes the controversial event of the same name that befell a large group of nonviolent protestors in Northern Ireland in 1972. The march was being put on by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and it ended in a massacre when a specific barricade became a rowdy hotspot.

  Spoiler alert!

  In case you ignored 41 years of history or you couldn't already tell how an event named Bloody Sunday could possibly end.

  The film is shot with an…

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  Review by lonelytree ★★★★

  75

  Confusion and torment with a usual source of tyranny. Bloody Sunday depicts a massacre the likes of which can hardly be fathomed. Boys and men slaughtered without an ounce of justice, instead awards given to the generals whose hands are covered in blood. It’s almost unbelievable.

  “You call that minimum force?”

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★

  Last week marked the 42nd anniversary of one of the most contemptible and horrific acts the British establishment ever made against its own citizens.

  This excoriating dramatic recreation is simply breathtaking and deeply disturbing. Paul Greengrass returns to his documentary film-making roots and places the viewer in the unflinching and unforgiving position of eavesdropper and fly on the wall as it details the events of the day. These may be actors recreating the events, but it never feels like it. It feels all too frighteningly real. And whilst we're on the subject of actors, it's a film that actually sees James Nesbitt do just that; act. His depiction of Ivan Cooper, the politician and civil rights campaigner at the heart…

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  Review by Matthew Christman ★★★★

  This is the first of two Paul Greengrass-directed dramas about horrifying real life events to appear on my list, so let's get it over with: I have no truck with people who complain about Greengrass' handheld camera work. If it makes you nauseated, that's one thing, although if you get a tummy ache from watching a fucking movie, I wonder how the hell you can walk to the mailbox without hurling. Anyway, non-stomach-related complaints can all suck it: the Greengrass approach, more than anything, drains historical events (and, in his Bourne films, the spy genre) of their mythic qualities, cutting everything down to a human scale. The "Bloody Sunday" massacre in Derry, Northern Ireland proved to be the opening shots…

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  Review by Andy Summers 🤠 ★★★★

  Sometimes you have to weigh up the entertainment value in certain movies over the impact of what you are actually watching. Dramatizations of real events can be divisive because no matter how impartial the filmmaker, there will always be aspects that will stir the blood (pardon the pun) in one direction or another.
  The 30th of January 1972 was one of the darkest days in Britain's long list of murderous errors of judgment. A civil rights march in Derry during the hostility caused after "internment" was always going to end in trouble. Forget everything else. Forget the Paras were terrified at the prospect of taking on a large crowd. Forget there were IRA men on the periphery of the march…

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  Review by HeWhoCanDigIt ★★★★

  Z, The Battle of Algiers. Two movies that must have influenced Greengrass before he started shooting this one. A fierce docudrama that basically plunges you in Derry, where a narrative already is underway. Lots of characters to deal with, lead by James Nesbitt, who sometimes gives the impression that he doesn't know he's in a movie, that he doesn't know he's acting. And that's a good thing. It goes for the vast majority of the rest of the cast as well. Natural acting. Everybody. There's no telling who's an an actor and who's not. That's another good thing. One more. The frantic camerawork. Yeah, you know it from all his other films, but that's not important here. This is where…