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12 Years a Slave is a 2013 period drama film and an adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free African-American man who was abducted and sold into slavery.
26 December 1970
28 August 2003, Houma, Louisiana, USA
2 April 1977, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany
5 November 1968, Greenville, Mississippi, USA
1 March 1963, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
6 June 1967, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
13 November 1958, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
24 November 1964, Castro Valley, California, USA
1 March 1983, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico
10 July 1977, Forest Gate, London, England, UK
26 April 1959, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
17 November 1966, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
18 December 1963, Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA
February 26, 2017
Ejiofor's performance is typically unshowy yet subtle, conveying a dignity and humanity that the film needs in the face of such unfathomable injustice.
January 07, 2014
The cumulative emotional effect is devastating: the final scenes are as angry, as memorable, as overwhelming as anything modern cinema has to offer.
December 31, 2013
So overpowering is this film's simple, horrible, and almost entirely true story that it's hard to get enough distance on 12 Years a Slave to poke at its inner workings.
January 13, 2015
It speaks to the courage and resilience of one man, the savagery of many, and the potential, for both good and for ill, in us all.
December 31, 2013
Every scene of 12 Years a Slave, and almost every shot, conveys some penetrating truth about America's original sin.
February 26, 2017
12 Years a Slave is a film of searing sincerity and insight, whose central characters are drawn with real complexity. McQueen's third film doesn't just slide slavery under the microscope, it holds it there.
February 26, 2017
Pitiless, heartless and exceptionally intense, 12 Years a Slave is definitely not for the faint-hearted.
February 26, 2017
McQueen has not only created his finest work to date, but also a potential modern masterpiece.
February 26, 2017
It is this film's unfortunate paradox that a story with so much at stake, rendered in what could only be good faith, should translate to so little.
February 26, 2017
The end result has momentum and meaning, and slides in amidst McQueen's excellent efforts; the only thing missing, particularly from a director known for his primal jolts and punishing journeys, is the visceral reaction.
January 13, 2015
In its own saintly manner, it's as exploitative as anything critics accused Django Unchained of being, minus Tarantino's eye for idiosyncrasy and sense of humor.
December 10, 2013
The power of McQueen's movie is in its declaratory style: This happened. That is all, and that is everything.
