A young boy, Agu, lives in a small West African village with his parents and siblings, located within a "buffer zone" enforced by ECOMOG troops. The village is informed that the government has fallen and military-aligned rebels have seized control of the country. With rebel forces headed towards the village, many people flee to the country's capital for safety. Agu's father buys safe transport for his wife and two youngest children, but has to stay behind with Agu and his eldest son. Rebel and government forces fight in and around Agu's village. While the rebel soldiers flee, government forces round up the remaining villagers and execute them, but Agu escapes into the jungle.
After wandering for a while, Agu is caught up in a guerrilla skirmish. The Native Defense Forces (NDF), a rising rebel faction in the country, adopt Agu into their ranks. Agu's battalion is led by the Commandant, who takes Agu under his wing. Following a brutal initiation process where Agu hacks an innocent captive to death with a machete, Agu becomes a fully-fledged member of the militia. Agu befriends another young NDF child soldier, Strika, who never speaks. One night, the Commandant summons Agu to his quarters and rapes him. Strika, another of the Commandant's rape victims, comforts him. Preacher, an older soldier, gives Agu brown-brown to lift his mood. Agu and Strika take part in a number of bloody battles and ambushes. During one of the raids Agu, under the influence of brown-brown, mistakes a villager for his mother. He exclaims that he found her and clings to her while the other members of the group declare they want to rape her. The woman does not recognize Agu and he calls her a witch woman. Agu then shoots the woman while she is being raped.
The battalion's many victories earn them a summons to the rebel headquarters, where the Commandant, accompanied by Agu, Strika, and a few other soldiers, go to meet with the NDF leader, Dada Goodblood. Goodblood, who stresses the importance of public image in the wake of the conflict becoming world news, denies the Commandant his promised promotion to General, and removes him from command. The Commandant's lieutenant, Two I-C, will take control of the battalion, and the Commandant will be made Deputy Chief of Security under the leader. The Commandant views this as an insult, and leaves to "celebrate" with his men at a brothel. While the adult soldiers spend the night with the brothel's women, one of the women shoots Two I-C. Two I-C accuses the Commandant of orchestrating the incident before dying, while the Commandant insists it must have been a botched attempt against himself. The prostitute professes that it was an accident, but the Commandant and his men shoot the women and leave the city.
Now on the run from their own faction as well as their enemies, the battalion suffers heavy losses. Air strikes and supply shortages kill Strika and many others. The survivors take shelter at a gold mine for several months, hoping to find gold to pay for supplies. Ammunition runs out, leaving the group with no way to defend themselves from encroaching enemy forces. Following a confrontation between a frustrated Preacher and paranoid Commandant, Agu and the soldiers all abandon the Commandant to surrender, ignoring his warnings that they will merely be thrown in jail and disowned by their families. Shortly after, they are detained by UN troops.
The younger members of the battalion are sent to a missionary school in a safe part of the country, while Preacher and Randy decide to run away to rejoin the war. Agu avoids the other children, who play games and enjoy the comfort and safety of the school. Agu suffers from drug withdrawal and is tormented by what has happened and has nightmares about it. Eventually, Agu tells the school's counselor that he has done some terrible things, which he fears will make her see him as a "beast". Instead he tells of how he used to be a good boy from a family who loved him. The final scene shows Agu finally joining the other boys as they swim and play in the ocean.
Cary Joji Fukunaga directed his own script, after having worked on it for seven years.[4] It was not until after six years of research on the Sierra Leone Civil War that Fukunaga came across the Beasts of No Nation novel. He told Creative Screenwriting, "I read through the novel and I loved the elegant and concise way that Uzodinma Iweala told the story. I felt that would be the best way to enter the subject."[12]
The dialogue in the screenplay is faithful in form to the novel, originally written in a lighter form of Nigerian Pidgin English known as Krio.[13]
On August 20, 2013, Idris Elba joined the cast of the film adaptation.[4] On June 6, 2014, Ghanaian actors Ama K. Abebrese, Grace Nortey and David Dontoh joined the film.[10] Later, Opeyemi Fagbohungbe also joined the cast.[11]
Red Crown Productions was the financier and producer, along with Primary Productions and Parliament of Owls.[4] On May 17, 2014, Participant Media, along with Mammoth Entertainment, came on board to co-finance the film, initially budgeted at $4.3 million but which ultimately cost about $6 million.[2]
Cary Joji Fukunaga at the opening ceremony of the 28th Tokyo International Film Festival
Release
Netflix bought the worldwide distribution rights for around $12 million. The film was simultaneously released theatrically and online through its subscription video on demand service on October 16, 2015,[19] with Bleecker Street handling the theatrical release.[20] Considering the online release a violation of the traditional 90-day release window of exclusivity to theatres, AMC Cinemas, Carmike Cinemas, Cinemark, and Regal Entertainment Group—four of the largest theater chains in the United States—announced that they would boycott Beasts of No Nation, effectively downgrading it to a limited release at smaller and independent theatres.[9][21] The film was also theatrically released in the UK on October 16, 2015, in Curzon Cinemas.[22]
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 92% based on 146 reviews, with an average rating of 7.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Beasts of No Nation finds writer-director Cary Fukunaga working with a talented cast to offer a sobering, uncompromising, yet still somehow hopeful picture of war's human cost."[23] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 79 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[24]
In 2015, Artnet published an article suggesting that Fukunaga had appropriated content without crediting the work of Irish artist Richard Mosse, whose work used infrared film and depicted child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.[26]
Idrissa Akuna Elba is an English actor, rapper, singer, DJ and kick-boxer. He has received a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for three BAFTA Awards and six Emmy Awards. He was named in the Time 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World in 2016. His films have grossed over $9.8 billion at the global box office, making him one of the top 20 highest-grossing actors.
Beasts of No Nation is a 2005 novel by the Nigerian-American author Uzodinma Iweala, that takes its title from Fela Kuti's 1989 album of the same name. The book won the 2005 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. It was adapted as a movie in 2015.
Ama Konadu Abebrese is a British-Ghanaian actress, television presenter and a producer. She was born in Ghana and raised in West London in the United Kingdom. She won the 2011 Best Actress in a Leading Role at the AMAA Awards for her stellar performance in Sinking Sands. Her film credits include Azali, the first Ghanaian nominated for an Academy Award, and the 2015 Netflix movie Beasts of No Nation. She is listed among Africa's Top 20 Actors and Actresses by FilmContacts.com. She is the narrator and a producer on the Blitz Bazawule film The Burial of Kojo, which was acquired by Array and was released on Netflix.
Cary Joji Fukunaga is an American filmmaker. A director of TV and film, he first came to wide prominence by directing the first season of the HBO series True Detective (2014). He is known for directing critically acclaimed films such as the thriller Sin nombre (2009), the period drama Jane Eyre (2011), the war drama Beasts of No Nation (2015) and the 25th James Bond film, No Time to Die (2021). He also co-wrote the Stephen King adaptation It (2017).
Luther is a British psychological crime thriller television series starring Idris Elba as DCI John Luther and Ruth Wilson as Alice Morgan, written by Neil Cross. The detective Luther must make cases against criminals while the murderer Morgan has a complicated relationship with him. The first series is composed of six episodes which ran in May and June 2010. A second series of four episodes aired on BBC One in June and July 2011, and a third was commissioned in 2012 composed of four episodes which aired in July 2013. A two-episode fourth series was broadcast in December 2015, and a fifth series of four episodes premiered on 1 January 2019. BBC Studios handled distribution for the TV series.
Ties that Bind is a 2011 drama film directed by Leila Djansi and starring Kimberly Elise, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde and Ama K. Abebrese. It was filmed in Ghana. It was nominated in 21 categories at the 2011 Ghana Movie Awards, and won 9 awards. It received 7 nominations at the 8th Africa Movie Academy Awards and eventually won the award for the category Achievement in Screenplay.
Abraham Nii Attah is a Ghanaian actor, living in the United States.
The Cursed Ones is a 2015 British film that was directed by Nana Obiri Yeboah and produced by Nicholas K. Lory. The original screenplay was written by Maximilian Claussen. The film tells the story of a disillusioned reporter and an idealistic young pastor, who fights to free a girl accused of witchcraft from the clutches of a corrupt system and superstition in the heart of West Africa.
Michael Sugar is an American film and television producer and principal at Sugar23, best known for producing Spotlight, 13 Reasons Why, Maniac and The Knick.
Nana Means King is a 2015 Ghanaian film directed and produced by Nana Obiri Yeboah.
Maniac is an American black psychological comedy drama television miniseries that premiered on Netflix on September 21, 2018, after being announced in 2016. Patrick Somerville created the series and Cary Joji Fukunaga directed, basing it very loosely on the 2015 Norwegian television series of the same name while drawing inspiration from many more famous films. The 10-episode series stars Emma Stone, Jonah Hill, Justin Theroux, Sonoya Mizuno, Gabriel Byrne, and Sally Field. The plot follows two strangers who connect during a mind-bending pharmaceutical trial set in a retro-future New York City.
The 14th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards were announced on December 7, 2015.
Turn Up Charlie is a British comedy television series created by Idris Elba and Gary Reich. The series stars Elba as a disc jockey who reluctantly becomes the nanny for his famous friend's daughter; Piper Perabo, JJ Feild and Frankie Hervey also star. The series premiered on 15 March 2019 on Netflix. In April 2020, the series was cancelled after one season.
Jude Akuwudike is a Nigerian actor. He has mostly worked in the United Kingdom, on screen and stage.
Laura Conde Bickford is an Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award nominated film and television producer who produced Traffic, Che, Duplicity, Arbitrage, and Beasts of No Nation. She was nominated for an Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Picture for Traffic in 2001 and an Emmy Award for Citizen X in 1996. She has been a member of Producers Branch of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2002. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America and was on the board of the writers and human rights organization PEN USA in Los Angeles from 2012-2018 until their merger with PEN America and is a current member of PEN's LA committee.
The Harder They Fall is a 2021 American Western film directed by Jeymes Samuel, who co-wrote the screenplay with Boaz Yakin. The film stars Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, Lakeith Stanfield, RJ Cyler, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, and Deon Cole. It is one of few Westerns whose principal cast members are all Black. Its characters are based on real cowboys, lawmen, and outlaws of the nineteenth-century American West.
The following is a list of unproduced Cary Joji Fukunaga projects in roughly chronological order. Over the course of his career, American filmmaker Cary Joji Fukunaga has ammased a number of projects he worked on that never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell in development hell or were cancelled, while others were taken over and would see life under a different production team.
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