Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” received the biggest standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival so far on Saturday night.
The world premiere of the 3-hour and 26-minute epic, about an unexplored dark chapter of American history and unrelenting greed, resulted in a nine-minute standing ovation after the credits ended.
Scorsese, returning to the festival for the first time since 1985’s “After Hours,” appeared to have delivered with this reported $200 million story set in northeastern Oklahoma as members of the Osage Nation are murdered in a systematic fashion for sinister ends.
Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, and Jesse Plemons walked the red carpet before the premiere and Gladstone is already being held up as someone deserving of awards attention.
Reviews have already started to pop up, check out some quotes from them below:
“Those heading to a Martin Scorsese movie looking for the electric verve of so many of his past films may initially be disappointed. But as Killers of the Flower Moon seeps in, it shocks, resounds, and haunts.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
“The triple-threat combo of Scorsese, DiCaprio and De Niro, obviously the movie’s main selling point, also comes to feel like its central distraction. Gladstone’s performance… goes a long way toward [keeping] this dynamic in check.” – Justin Chang, The L.A. Times
“Killers Of The Flower Moon is to be savoured as elevated cinema, each frame a picture moving towards a goal. Not just in the more bravura camera sweeps, but the very construction of even the most – deceptively – simply-staged scenes.” – Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International
“In its present form, ‘Killers’ is still a compelling true story… It’s engrossing from the get-go, the palpable tension methodically echoed by Robbie Robertson’s steady-heartbeat score. But it keeps going and going.” – Peter DeBruge, Variety
“The three-and-a-half-hour running time is fully justified in an escalating tragedy that never loosens its grip — a sordid illustration of historical erasure with echoes in today’s bitterly divisive political gamesmanship.” – David Rooney, THR
“This is an utterly absorbing film, a story that Scorsese sees as a secret history of American power, a hidden violence epidemic polluting the water table of humanity” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“The best performance of Leonardo DiCaprio’s entire career… His nuanced and uncompromising turn as the cretinous Ernest Burkhart mines new wonders from the actor’s long-standing lack of vanity” – David Ehrlich, Indiewire
“[A picture] brimming with reverence for a culture that survived a horrible trauma as it is filled with exhilarating flourishes, film history references, and explorations of the faultline between the sacred and profane. And yes: It’s a masterpiece.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone
“A film that sees Scorsese in near aesthetic and sonic control, even if the narrative leaves much to be desired. It’s powerful, even when you’re left wondering if someone else could’ve spread the gospel” – Robert Daniels, The Playlist
“The script, from Forrest Gump’s Eric Roth, begins to meander badly, dropping in and out of the murder narrative and ultimately saddling us with a villain in De Niro who’s not nearly villainous enough and a protagonist in DiCaprio who’s a borderline moron.” – Kevin Maher, The Times
“Perhaps a very good, uneven film rather than an unequivocally great one.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies
Apple and Paramount will release “Killers of the Flower Moon” in theaters with a limited release on October 6th, unfurling to a wide release on October 20th and a debut on Apple’s streaming service at a later unspecified date.
