The Act of Killing
2012 · Movie · NR · 117 min · ★ 7.7 · 94% critics
This chilling documentary follows death-squad leaders from Indonesia decades after a mass purge. They reenact their past atrocities in different film styles, blurring the line between performance and reality as the psychological weight of what they did lingers.
Also known as L'acte de tuer · The act of killing - Directors Cut · Watch The Act of Killing: The Director's Cut
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Details
- Years
- 2012
- Release date
- 2012-11-08
- Language
- Danish
- Rated
- NR
- Runtime
- 117 min
- Max quality
- HD
- Critic score
- 94/100
- TMDB rating
- 7.7/10 (758 votes)
- Budget
- $1,000,000
About
You’ll likely like it if you want an unflinching, surreal look at guilt and self-deception in documentary form; Not for you if you want a purely victims-first perspective like The Look of Silence, or if you’re sensitive to graphic, real-world atrocities.
Pros: genre-mixing approach; hypnotic candor; haunting impact | Cons: extremely disturbing content; slow pacing for some; unsettling moral discomfort
Themes
- corruption
- indonesia
- genocide
- indonesian genocide
- political documentary
- social & cultural documentary
Awards & recognition
- European Film Award — Best Documentary · 2013
- Academy Award — Best Documentary Feature Film · 2014 · nominated
- European Film Award — Best Documentary · 2013 · nominated
Cast & crew
- AC
Anwar Congo
as Self - Executioner in 1965
- HK
Herman Koto
as Self - Gangster & Paramilitary Leader
- SA
Syamsul Arifin
as Self - Governor of North Sumatra
- IS
Ibrahim Sinik
as Self - Newspaper Publisher
- YS
Yapto Soerjosoemarno
as Self - Leader of Pancasila Youth
- SP
Safit Pardede
as Self - Local Paramilitary Leader
- JK
Jusuf Kalla
as Self - Vice President of Indonesia
- AZ
Adi Zulkadry
as Self - Fellow Executioner in 1965
- SU
Suryono
as Self - Anwar's Neighbor
- HM
Haji Marzuki
as Self - Member of North Sumatra Parliament
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer