The 33

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Patricia Riggen directs. Checco Varese behind the camera. James Horner scores. Michael Tronick cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in Spanish, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Released 11 years ago.
• 2Dialogue crosses 2 languages: Spanish, English.
• 3Directed by Patricia Riggen, shot by Checco Varese. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 4Original score by James Horner. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 5Editor Michael Tronick shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 6Antonio Banderas and Rodrigo Santoro and Kate del Castillo carry the top of the cast.
• 7Marketing tagline: "Hope Runs Deep".
• 8IMDB entry: tt2006295 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 9Released under 10 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography

Checco Varese

Original score

James Horner

Editing

Michael Tronick

Production design

Marco Niro

Costume design

Paco Delgado

Makeup / hair

Ana Lozano

Sound

Mike Prestwood Smith

Runtime

120 min · 2h 0m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Budget

$25,000,000

Box office

$27,972,023

Return

112% of budget

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

PG-13

IMDB

The 33 (2015) ↗

Also by

Patricia Riggen

• 
  La milpa

  2002 · ★ 9.0
• 
  Dopesick

  2021 · ★ 8.0
• 
  Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

  1999 · ★ 8.0
• 
  Under the Same Moon

  2007 · ★ 8.0
• 
  Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

  2018 · ★ 7.7
• 
  Miracles from Heaven

  2016 · ★ 7.5

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  The 33 - Official Trailer [HD]

  Trailer · Official

Community reviews

What people are saying

• Reno2016-03-14
  ★ 9/10

  When the mountain swallowed the 33 men alive... This is one of the greatest movie of 2015, not because of twists and turns, but pleasingly illustrating a true disastrous event. So don't listen to the negative remarks about it, ignore the low scores and just see it already. Like any flick, it definitely had a few flaws, if you focus it properly, you won't be distracted for those faults in the movie. All the above, bringing that 2010's unfortunate mining tragedy on screen was a success, that's the very important. It was not a Marvel's superhero movie or a Disney-Pixar's cute animation that has its own large fan base to support. It is not even a Hollywood, but English language movie from Chile. So that's where the critics steered common people in a wrong direction. But as I'm a movie fanatic, I totally recommend it for all. This was not a simple disaster drama, but had a good amount of emotions, suspense, nationalism, light laughs, brotherhood and ultimately a good entertainment. It is no ones biopic as it was categorised. It is a single real incident based movie, especially the book 'Deep Down Dark'. All the characters had a fair scope and portrayed according to story growth. But it opened by introducing only a few main characters and other supporting ones out of 33 whose story this was based on. On an ordinary day, those miners started their day as usual. For some, it was their first day and for others it was the final days of their job, but everyone had their own reasons to go into the mountain's deep down. But what they did not know was the mountain was tired of being opened its mouth for the centuries. Finally, she decided to close the mouth by swallowing the 33. But those men stood against the chances they had and fought for their survival, which was finely told in this movie. What happened to them, how it concludes was narrated still the last minute with suspense. "That's not a rock, that's the heart of the mountain. She finally broke." To me there was no mystery left in the main theme, because when this thing happened 5 years ago, I closely followed the event. So I know how it ended and I knew how the movie would end, but surprising parts were the families, media, politics and all the other surrounding events composed together which was a quite fresh perspective that helped the movie to help shape well. So I am telling you, if you think you know this story, you probably wrong on that assumption. If I want to discuss about negative, that would the language of the movie. I am very-very disappointed with that choice, it must have been in the Spanish. Those Chilean characters speaking English was kind of jokes with their funny accent. It did not work for me, because Chile never was a commonwealth member. If Indian, Malaysian or Sri Lankan character speaks English would make sense. I know they wanted it to be an International product, so did they chose Internationally recognisable actors like Antonio Banderas and Julliette Binoche. Yes, on that aspect it paid off well. The movie almost got me on its emotional side, I did not show it physically, but surely I felt deep inside me. It also triumphs to tell how important the families are. They are the first ones to react if you are in a real danger to rescue, to shed tears, to standby on the scene looking for your return and to hug tightly. The movie might be categorised in a couple of genres, but it had other mixed ingredients as well. For example, the scenes called the last supper and the circus outside the rescue site. Movies are not all about perfection, sometimes demonstrating its purpose decently would do good enough. So on that facet I got no point to say to skip it. 9/10

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  Phoenix Pictures

  US

Key crew

• ScreenstoryJose Rivera
• BookHector Tobar
• ProducerEdward McGurn
• ProducerMike Medavoy
• Co-ProducerChristopher Trunkey
• Co-ProducerBenjamin Anderson
• Co-ProducerJeff Hoffman
• Executive ProducerCarlos Eugenio Lavin
• Executive ProducerAlan Zhang
• Executive ProducerAndrés Calderón
• Executive ProducerLeopoldo Enriquez
• Executive ProducerJosé Luis Escolar
• Co-Executive ProducerRobert Greenhut
• EditorMichael Tronick
• CastingCarla Hool
• Production DesignMarco Niro
• Art DirectionHector H. Rivera
• Costume DesignPaco Delgado
• Supervising ProducerEduardo Castro
• Assistant CameraRoberto W. Contreras D.
• "B" Camera OperatorMatías Mesa
• Steadicam OperatorMatías Mesa
• First Assistant CameraMauricio Restrepo
• Sound MixerSantiago Núñez

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• mining
• based on true story
• chile
• mining accident
• survival
• woman director

Release history · US

When it landed

• Premiere2015-10-24· Chicago International Film Festival
• Premiere2015-10-25· Miami International Film Festival GEMS
• Theatrical (limited)2015-11-09PG-13· New York City, New York
• Theatrical2015-11-13PG-13
• Physical2016-02-16PG-13· DVD, Blu-ray

Also known as

International titles

• Os 33BR
• Los 33ES
• 地心营救CN
• 33 [The 33 (2014)]RU
• Les 33CA
• 33 (The 33)KR
• The 33 (2015)GB
• 33GB
• Les 33FR
• The 33 (2015)US