Nickel Boys (2024)
★★★½ — Nickel Boys (2024)
Based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel of the same name, Nickel Boys arrives as one of the more formally adventurous American films of 2024. The story centres on Elwood and Turner, two young Black men whose lives intertwine at the Nickel Academy, a reform school in Florida where the abuse meted out to its pupils was routine, systematic and, for many, fatal. The film draws its power not only from Whitehead's source material but from a documented historical reality: the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, a real institution whose long history of cruelty only came to wider public attention in the early 2010s when researchers began uncovering unmarked graves on the grounds. That context is not background noise. It is the entire point.
Behind the camera is RaMell Ross, whose previous work had been almost exclusively in documentary, most notably his 2018 debut Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a film that earned an Academy Award nomination and established him as someone with a genuinely distinctive visual sensibility. Bringing that sensibility to a narrative feature for the first time, Ross made the striking choice to shoot much of the film in first-person perspective, placing the viewer directly behind the eyes of his characters rather than observing them from the outside. It is a bold structural decision, the kind that either coheres beautifully or collapses under its own weight, and it defines almost everything about how Nickel Boys feels to watch. The film is produced through Plan B Entertainment, Louverture Films and Anonymous Content, running to a substantial 140 minutes. For those who enjoy history films that resist the conventional and the comfortable, my review of Josep and No Dogs or Italians Allowed cover similarly serious territory from other periods and corners of the world.
The principal cast is led by Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson as Elwood and Turner respectively, two performers asked to carry enormous emotional weight, often without the traditional visual grammar of close-up reaction shots to lean on. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, whose screen presence has drawn considerable praise in recent years, appears in a supporting role alongside Hamish Linklater and Gralen Bryant Banks. The ensemble is a relatively modest one by studio drama standards, which suits the film's stripped-back, intimate approach. There is nothing polished but unremarkable about the performances here. The cast are working in service of something genuinely difficult, and it shows in every scene.
It's absolutely heartbreaking that the events here are based on history. And the saddest part about all this is that this is LIVING history. That means people are alive today who had to bear the brunt of this barbaric school. The acting, scripting and soundtrack are all top notch but the cinematography is absolutely stunning. It's a hard watch, in the sense that it takes It's toll on the viewer but the harrowing thought is that the people depicted in this film would have lived this daily and that's almost unbearable to even consider.
That tension between formal artistry and raw subject matter is something I kept coming back to long after the credits rolled. There is a particular kind of film that asks you to sit with discomfort not as a stylistic flourish but as an act of respect toward the people it depicts, and Nickel Boys belongs firmly in that company. I found myself thinking about it in the same breath as other recent films from this decade that take their time and trust their audience, much like Tiger Stripes and Megdan: Between Water and Fire, both of which demand something from the viewer rather than simply delivering sensation. Some films you admire. Some you feel. This one insists on being felt.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2025-05-17
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Nickel Boys (2024) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: MUBI · MUBI Amazon Channel
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · fuboTV · MGM+ Amazon Channel · MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
Related on Movies With Macca
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More history: Apocalypto (2006) · Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury (2013) · Harakiri (1962) · Night and Fog (1956)
