After performing an open heart surgery, Steven Murphy, a cardiothoracic surgeon in Cincinnati, meets 16-year-old Martin Lang, whose father died a few years earlier, in a diner. Steven goes home to his wife Anna and their children Kim and Bob. Steven invites Martin to meet his family, and Martin gets along with everyone, especially Kim. That night, Martin invites Steven to his house for dinner the next day.
At Martin's house, after dinner, Martin goes to bed, leaving Steven alone with his mother. Martin's mother begins flirting with Steven, and he leaves.
Martin visits Steven's office, complaining of chest pain, but tests show nothing wrong. Martin invites Steven over again, saying his mother finds Steven attractive, but Steven refuses. Afterward, Martin's demands for Steven's attention grow increasingly frequent and desperate, and Steven stops responding. He is troubled to learn that Martin gave Kim a ride home.
One morning, Bob is unable to move his legs, so Steven and Anna rush him to the hospital. Martin tells Steven that, to "balance things" for his father, who died while Steven was operating on him, Steven must kill a member of his own family. Otherwise, within a few days, Steven's family will all die. Steven has Martin escorted from the hospital. Later, Bob refuses to eat and Steven forces food into his son's mouth.
Bob's condition worsens, but no cause can be found. Kim, who has fallen in love with Martin, collapses while singing in the choir and is also hospitalized. She chokes on a piece of apple and is unable to eat too. Thus Kim and Bob are given feeding tubes. Steven tells Anna of his history with Martin. He also admits to drinking before operating on Martin's father. Martin calls Anna and over the phone tells Kim to stand up, which she does. When he hangs up, she collapses again. Anna confronts Martin about forcing her children to suffer for Steven's mistake. Martin replies it is justice to him since he believes Steven killed his father.
Eventually, Kim and Bob are sent home. After Anna chastizes Steven for his passive way of dealing with the situation, Steven kidnaps Martin and ties him up in his basement. He beats Martin and shoots him in the leg, but Martin is not intimidated. Martin bites Steven's arm as well as his own arm. The children argue over whom their father will kill and try to curry his favor. Steven asks the school principal which of his children is "best". (The principal tells Steven that Bob excels in maths and sciences. Kim strives in literature and history, citing her excellent essay on Iphigenia.) But at the end he says it is impossible to point out the best.
Back home, Anna tends to Martin's wounds and brings the children to see him but fails to elicit any sympathy. She then tells Steven that he should kill one of the children, not her, because she can have another child. Kim fails to persuade Martin to heal her so they can run away together and then tells Steven how much she loves her family and offers her life to save theirs. Finally, hopeless, Anna releases Martin.
When Bob begins bleeding from his eyes, which Martin said would happen a few hours before death, Steven places him, Kim, and Anna in a circle, bound with duct tape, and covers their heads. Steven pulls a woolen hat over his face, spins around, and repeatedly fires a rifle. He narrowly misses Kim and Anna, but the third shot kills Bob.
Some time later, Martin, his face still somewhat bruised, enters the diner where he and Steven used to meet. The remaining Murphys are inside and promptly leave. Martin watches as they go. Steven avoids his gaze, Anna shoots him an icy glare, and Kim, who is healed, glances back before walking out of the door.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer takes its title from part of the story of the ancient Greek tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides.[3][4][5] On 11 May 2016, it was announced that Farrell was set to star in the film, with Lanthimos directing from a screenplay he wrote alongside Filippou.[6] This was the second collaboration between Lanthimos and Farrell, after 2015's The Lobster. Kidman was cast that June,[7] and Silverstone, Cassidy, Camp, Keoghan, and Suljic joined the project in August.[8] The film was financed by Film4 Productions and New Sparta Films along with the Irish Film Board, and was developed by Element Pictures with support from Film4, while HanWay Films served as worldwide sales agent.[2]
The Killing of a Sacred Deer premiered at the 70th Cannes Film Festival on 22 May 2017,[11][12] where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won Best Screenplay.[2][13] In May 2016, A24 acquired North American distribution rights[14] and Haut et Court acquired French distribution rights to the film.[15] It was theatrically released in the United States on 20 October 2017,[16][17] and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 3 November 2017.[18][19]
Reception
Box office
In North America, The Killing of a Sacred Deer made $114,585 from four theaters in its opening weekend, an average of $28,646 per venue.[20][21] It opened to £288,105 and finished on £857,615 in the United Kingdom.[22] The film ultimately grossed $2.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $8.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $10.7 million.[1]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 79% of 281 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10.The website's consensus reads: "The Killing of a Sacred Deer continues director Yorgos Lanthimos' stubbornly idiosyncratic streak — and demonstrates again that his is a talent not to be ignored."[23]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[24]
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing that "The Killing of a Sacred Deer moves with a somnambulist's certainty along its own distinctive spectrum of weird. It's an intriguing, disturbing, amusing twist on something which in many ways could be a conventional horror-thriller from the 1970s or 1980s, or even a bunny-boiler nightmare from the 90s."[25]Mark Kermode of The Observer also gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, describing it as "a typically arch dramatic conundrum, laced with Lanthimos's trademark off-kilter artifice and deadpan humour" and "a Saw movie for the arthouse crowd, an increasingly sickening hunger game driven by an inflexible moral imperative, with a whiff of medical misadventure."[26]
A. O. Scott of The New York Times opined that "Lanthimos is less interested in moral shock therapy or social criticism than in aesthetic estrangement. Sacred Deer feels like a dark, opaque bit of folklore transplanted into an off-kilter modern setting."[27]Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times called the film "a lightly blood-spattered but technically immaculate nightmare of a movie that invites us to cackle alongside its director into the void" and commented, "With a nastiness that seeps into the movie like a slow-acting poison, [Lanthimos] turns a domestic-medical nightmare into a feverish exercise in style."[28]
The Killing of a Sacred Deer was named "one of the best horror movies of the year" by Joey Keogh of Wicked Horror, who called it "horror in its purest, most distilled form, freed from the shackles of jump scares or exposition." Keogh wrote that Keoghan is the film's "ace card", giving "his best, most self-assured performance to date" as Martin, the "supremely frightening yet weirdly charismatic creation who makes even the act of eating spaghetti seem terrifying."[29] Zhuo-Ning Su of Awards Daily wrote that the film is "less complex than [Lanthimos's] previous work but engrosses and unsettles all the same", adding that it "palpably improves" in its second hour. While praising the cast, particularly Kidman, Su added that Keoghan "shines brightest as the plain but charismatic boy who's somehow not quite right", calling his performance "vivid" and "fully realised".[30]
In a mixed review, Nicholas Bell of ION Cinema wrote that the "mysterious, highly metaphorical" film, which he compared to "something from the Old Testament", "finds the director getting a bit too hung up on his own idiosyncrasies." He also criticized Lanthimos's and Filippou's "overtly precise dialogue", which he felt "straitjacketed" the actors, but he praised director of photographyThimios Bakatakis and the "eerie" score. Bell summarized the film as "interesting, but a bit too ambiguous to remain as uncomfortably off-putting as it hopes".[31]
Trace Thurman gave the film a five-star review in Bloody Disgusting, saying it would be "the most unsettling film you see this year" and giving particular credit to Lanthimos's direction and Bakatakis's cinematography, which he said give the film a "surreal, otherworldly quality". Thurman also praised the cast, writing that Farrell and Kidman "deliver their lines with a stilted coldness that sends chills up the spine", and calling the younger actors "equally impressive, with Keoghan being the standout. He gives an eerie performance that you believe to be that of a psychopath".[32] Also writing for Bloody Disgusting, Benedict Seal gave the film a one-star review, stating that it had "none of the escalating intrigue and tension" of The Gift and The Witch, both released in 2015. Seal added that the film plays out "mechanically" after the reveal in the middle and said the visuals were "striking at times" but became "monotonous and garish", before summing up the film as "the biggest bum note yet from one of the most overrated directors in the art-house world" and "an epic embarrassment".[33]
The cinema of Greece has a long and rich history. Though hampered at times by war or political instability, the Greek film industry dominates the domestic market and has experienced international success. Characteristics of Greek cinema include a dynamic plot, strong character development and erotic themes. Two Greek films, Missing (1982) and Eternity and a Day (1998), have won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Five Greek films have received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Thoma Kikis is an American film producer, designer and entrepreneur best known for founding KannaLife Sciences. He was also a founder of Ovie Entertainment.
Dogtooth is a 2009 Greek absurdist psychological drama film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, the film is about a husband and wife who keep their children ignorant of the world outside their property well into adulthood.
Georgios "Yorgos" Lanthimos is a Greek filmmaker. He has received multiple accolades, including a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for six Academy Awards.
Alps is a 2011 Greek psychological drama film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, produced by Athina Rachel Tsangari and Lanthimos, and written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou. It stars Angeliki Papoulia, Aris Servetalis, Johnny Vekris, and Ariane Labed. The film premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Osella for Best Screenplay, and it also won the Official Competition Prize for New Directions in Cinema at the 2012 Sydney Film Festival.
The Lobster is a 2015 dystopian absurdist science fiction romantic dark comedy drama film directed and co-produced by Yorgos Lanthimos, from a screenplay by Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou. It stars Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Barden, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ariane Labed, Angeliki Papoulia, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux, Michael Smiley, and Ben Whishaw. The film follows a newly single bachelor who moves into a hotel with other singletons, who are all obliged to find a romantic partner in 45 days, or else be transformed into animals.
Angeliki Papoulia is a Greek actress and theatre director. In film, she is most notable for her roles in Dogtooth, Alps and The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos, and A Blast and The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea by Syllas Tzoumerkas. For her part in Dogtooth she was awarded with a Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actress.
The 18th British Independent Film Awards nominations were announced on 3 November 2015.
The Favourite is a 2018 historical comedy-drama film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos from a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. A co-production between Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the film stars Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz. Set in early 18th century Great Britain, it examines the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Hill as they vie to be court favourite of Queen Anne.
Sunny Suljic is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Bob in Yorgos Lanthimos's 2017 drama The Killing of a Sacred Deer and as the voice and motion capture actor for Atreus, the son of Kratos, in the 2018 video game God of War, for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Performance in a Video Game and the D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character. He reprised the role in the game's 2022 sequel, God of War Ragnarök, for which he was nominated for Best Performance at The Game Awards 2022, the BAFTA Award for Performer in a Leading Role, and the D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character. Suljic had his first lead role in Jonah Hill's film Mid90s, also in 2018, for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer
Efthimis Filippou, sometimes credited as Efthymis Filippou, is a Greek writer, whose work includes books, plays and screenplays. He is best known for his collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos, with whom he co-wrote the screenplays for Dogtooth (2009), Alps (2011), The Lobster (2015), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) and the upcoming Kinds of Kindness (2024).
Barry Keoghan is an Irish actor. He has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, and has been nominated for an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, he was listed at number 27 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Thimios Bakatakis is a Greek cinematographer. He has served as a cinematographer for various feature films, short films, music videos, and commercials, often collaborating with director Yorgos Lanthimos on his projects.
The 15th Irish Film & Television Academy Awards took place at the Mansion House on 15 February 2018 in Dublin, honoured Irish film and television drama released in 2017. Deirdre O'Kane host the film awards ceremony.
Tony McNamara is an Australian playwright, screenwriter, and television producer. He is also an occasional film director and producer. He is known for his work on the scripts for The Favourite (2018) and Poor Things (2023), two films directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with Deborah Davis for the former and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the latter. On television, he created the comedy-drama series The Great (2020–2023).
Poor Things is a 2023 film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tony McNamara, based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray. A co-production between Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the film stars Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, and Jerrod Carmichael. It focuses on Bella Baxter, a woman in Victorian London who is brought back to life via brain transplant and embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery.
Kinds of Kindness is an upcoming absurdist anthology film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos from a screenplay he co-wrote with Efthimis Filippou. It stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer.
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