The Beasts - Movie Reviews (2024)

The Beasts subverts expectations and, despite some scenes and plot points occasionally being too elongated, the overarching tangent of organicity and ferocity make this meaty, bruising thriller a must-watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2024

The Beasts shows that enmity can be subtle and insidious...the film’s distinction resides in its painstaking exploration of a very human drama, a very vivid drama, a drama handled so sensitively and yet with such vigour.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 28, 2024

Sorogoyen constructs a murk portrait of xenophobia and peasant disputes, which never loses its level of tension when exploring the boiling point that condenses in a rural zone filled with violence, intolerance and resentment. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 16, 2024

a gnarly, barbarous thriller that keeps its audiences’ nerves in a perpetual state of fervour.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 8, 2024

Sorogoyen might give lip service to the economic realities underlying the land dispute, but he’s also not afraid to take sides and to entertain.

Full Review | Dec 9, 2023

It becomes unbearably tense, really, really properly tense.

Full Review | Dec 6, 2023

The Beasts is a potent display of the consequences of violence.

Full Review | Dec 6, 2023

Sorogoyen is a master at ratcheting up the suspense, creating an atmosphere more fraught with tension than any recent mainstream thriller you care to mention.

Full Review | Dec 6, 2023

Devastating, piercing, and vigorous, The Beasts is one of the best that Spanish cinema has produced in recent times. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 6, 2023

Sorogoyen handles the tension perfectly, leaving the viewer always expecting what the next move of the terrifying brothers played by the two magnificent Zahera and Anido will be. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 19, 2023

The Beasts is seductive and captivating because Alejandro de Pablo makes a photographic work that is as poetic as it is functional. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 6, 2023

Impressive in its setting, positive outlook, and in its reference to character development. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 5, 2023

...a profoundly upsetting story given a gripping treatment...

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 26, 2023

A slow-burn Spanish thriller hissing with menacing energy and brilliant performances [...] Beautifully shot yet spiritually ugly, [it] plunges us straight into an atmosphere of crackling social tension that never abates.

Full Review | Sep 16, 2023

The Beasts trades on topics so current it feels like watching the news. While not quite a re-enactment, this superb thriller takes inspiration from oh-so-many immigrants who find themselves at the receiving end of the locals’ misplaced anger.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 31, 2023

"As Bestas", its original title in Galician, will do with its deep plot, its extraordinary performances, its leisurely pace and its impeccable cinematography that your blood starts freezing slowly...[Full Review in Spanish}

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 18, 2023

A well-made and eerie thriller.

Full Review | Aug 17, 2023

Sorogoyen based The Beasts on a true-crime story that took place in his native Spain more than a decade ago. But it’s burnished with storytelling flourishes that energize this story of a dispute between an immigrant couple and rural locals.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Aug 11, 2023

For its second half, in the aftermath of a twist that shouldn’t be spoiled, the film takes on an unexpected depth and even a semblance of closure, though it shouldn’t be a surprise that no one fully gets what they want.

Full Review | Aug 7, 2023

A simmering piece of filmmaking (with a gorgeously organic soundtrack) that broods with tension and despair.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2023