The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2017 2h 1m EN

👍

7.0

SOLID

🍅

79%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

IMDB

★7.0TMDB · 4,607🍅79%Rotten Tomatoes●73Metacritic★7IMDB · 212,973

DramaThrillerMystery

Synopsis

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Dr. Steven Murphy is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who presides over a spotless household with his wife and two children. Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin, a fatherless teen who insinuates himself into the doctor's life in gradually unsettling ways.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Colin Farrell
Steven Murphy
Nicole Kidman
Anna Murphy
Barry Keoghan
Martin Lang
Raffey Cassidy
Kim Murphy
Sunny Suljic
Bob Murphy
Bill Camp
Matthew Williams
Alicia Silverstone
Martin's Mother
Herb Caillouet
Ed Thompson (Hospital Director)

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writers: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou
Languages: French, English
Countries: United Kingdom, United States of America, Ireland

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $3.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 3.6× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 9 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: French, English.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 3 countries: United Kingdom, United States of America, Ireland.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, shot by Thimios Bakatakis. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman and Barry Keoghan carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Yorgos Lanthimos directs. Thimios Bakatakis behind the camera. Yorgos Mavropsaridis cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United Kingdom, United States of America, Ireland. Dialogue in French, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $3.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Made its money back 3.6× over at the box office.
3Released 9 years ago.
4Dialogue crosses 2 languages: French, English.
5International production across 3 countries: United Kingdom, United States of America, Ireland.
6Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, shot by Thimios Bakatakis. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
7Editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman and Barry Keoghan carry the top of the cast.
9IMDB entry: tt5715874 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 18 themes, including "husband wife relationship", "hostage", "psychopath", "insanity".

The technical file

Cinematography: Thimios Bakatakis
Editing: Yorgos Mavropsaridis
Production design: Jade Healy
Costume design: Nancy Steiner
Makeup / hair: Tina Roesler Kerwin
VFX supervisor: Nicholas Murphy
Sound: Johnnie Burn
Runtime: 121 min · 2h 1m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $3,000,000
Box office: $10,700,000
Return: 357% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Rotten Tomatoes: 79% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 73/100
IMDB rating: 7/10 · 212,973 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

7 wins & 53 nominations total

Also by

Yorgos Lanthimos

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

jessetaylor2017-09-15
★ 9/10
My immediate response as soon as this finished was "MASTERPIECE." Lanthimos is back to Dogtooth-level craziness with this film and I couldn't be happier. The Lobster was a favourite of mine in 2016, but something about this one's hopelessness drew me in more - odd, I know. Lanthimos' films have characters stuck in dead end situations where they are able to make a choice, but the results of the options are bad and worse. It's a dour story and the film is relentlessly unsettling, but this is what I've come to expect and want out of this Greek maestro. Sacred Deer is a suburban Greek tragedy that draws inspiration from Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis - a character even mentions this title in a key scene - and it plays out both as you'd imagine and with great shock and originality. Lanthimos and his writing partner Efthymis Filippou may just be my favourite writing team working today - they haven't let me down yet. The cast is spectacular here with Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell in top form bringing the odd words of Lanthimos and Filippou to life - albeit a very, very strange life. Farrell, having worked with Lanthimos on The Lobster, had nothing but high praise for the director during tonight's Q&A after the screening of the film. He even said they were planning another project to work on together. He's slowly becoming a muse and their relationship is turning into a DiCaprio-Scorsese type partnership (except I look forward to these way, way more). The audience I was in had a hard time with this film - there was audible shock and disgust during the film and the applause as it ended was slight. I think people were genuinely scandalized by this one and that makes me like it even more. Keep shocking audiences, Lanthimos, you Greek bastard. I'll be in line every single time!
Gimly2017-12-10
★ 5/10
I am a big fan of some of Yorgos Lanthimos' earlier work, so The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which I had been told in no uncertain terms would be a straight up horror movie, was well and truly on the agenda for 2017. Unfortunately, I found that not only was Sacred Deer not at all a horror, but more importantly that it lacked the dark whimsy of something truly odd, like the director's previous film, Lobster. Instead it opts for an outright uncomfortable tone. The world is real, boringly so, and it is only the characters who seem unbelievable. Which is a 180 on the sort of absurdism I usually gravitate towards. That said, Sacred Deer still contains some beautiful cinematography, and a couple of the most genuine laugh-out-loud moments I've seen in a movie all year. Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole.
tmdb231566372017-12-23
★ 7/10
Finally got the chance to see this via Amazon. Dogtooth and The Lobster (from the same Greek director, who I must admit has a keen sense of storytelling) did not impress me at all. Very interesting ideas; atrocious presentations. Dogtooth was indecipherable and The Lobster is cruel, ugly, and not humorous in any fashion (I've no idea why it's billed as a black comedy.) However, this latest film is entertaining to me despite it's grim and inky-black nature (based on the ancient Greek play, which is where the title is loosely derived from.) Perhaps it's a bit more straight-forward despite its cryptic nature, a bit more involved in some form of reality we can recognize and less inference as to what the hey is really happening. But I sure watched it w/ more interest than The Lobster (I've no interest in the director's film prior to that one.) A successful heart surgeon (w/ a past history of alcoholism, sober for some time at present) is shown to have an uneasy alliance w/ the teenaged son of a patient who died on the operating table. It's clear the boy has some hold over this surgeon, who seems eager to please him but his heart's not into it (no pun intended.) The boy's true intentions are revealed as events move forward; the surgeon's wife and two children (a few years apart, both intelligent in their own ways) are placed in grave danger as well as dear old Dad, and to reveal just how would spoil it for first-time viewers. The camera-work here is impeccable, as are the jarring soundscapes, found-sounds, and industrial noise which makes for harrowing listening. The actor playing Martin, the teenaged oddball w/ a shared secret, is riveting to watch in a well-suited role. Sacred Deer isn't so much a horror-film as a drama w/ strong elements of dream-like reality, awkward young romance, and assorted chills and cold calculated sex-scenes involving "playing dead" and "the other." My biggest complaints would be as before w/ this director's work: everyone speaks their lines as if hearing them through an ear-piece to parrot back, which makes the cast seem rather stilted and robotic. This director favors a weird tangent of "Mamet-speak." The ending is about what you'd expect, following the matter-of-fact discussions which precede it. Up until that point Sacred Deer does a pretty good job keeping us wondering what will happen next, where will things lead, what is that kid's gift and whereupon was it bestowed; unfortunately the outcome isn't as entrancing or unexpected as I'd hoped. But overall worth my time to watch. Considering how disappointed I was by the previous films by the director I'd watched (great reviews, all of which confounded and puzzled me) this film was much less of a bore and a chore to watch. A pleasant, unpleasant surprise indeed.