Nickel Boys (2024)

There's a moment watching Nickel Boys where it stops feeling like a film and starts feeling like something else entirely. An accusation, maybe. A witness statement. Whatever you want to call it, it hits hard, and it doesn't let go.

What makes it so devastating isn't just the story, or the performances, or even the way it's made, though all of those things are exceptional. It's the knowledge sitting underneath every single frame: this happened. Not in some distant, sepia-toned past that we can comfortably file away as "a different era." This is living history. There are people alive right now who survived what's depicted in this film. People who woke up every morning inside that school and had to find a way to keep going. That thought alone is almost too heavy to carry through a two-hour film, and yet here we are being asked to sit with it, and rightly so.

The acting is top notch across the board. Nobody puts a foot wrong, and the script gives the performances the room they need to breathe and to ache. But honestly, what stopped me in my tracks more than once was the cinematography. It's stunning work. The way this film chooses to show you things, what it lingers on and what it withholds, feels like a deliberate and thoughtful choice at every turn. It's not showy for the sake of it. It serves the story, and it serves the people whose story this is.

I'll be honest with you: this is a hard watch. Not hard in the way that some films are hard, where you're bored or confused or just not engaged. Hard in the way that takes a toll on you. You feel it in your chest. You come out the other side quieter than you went in. And I think that's entirely the point. Because if sitting in a comfortable cinema seat watching this story is difficult for me, what does that say about the reality of living it? That contrast, between my mild discomfort and their daily existence, is where the film does its most devastating work.

The soundtrack deserves a mention too. It wraps around the whole thing in a way that never feels manipulative, which is a tightrope to walk with material this heavy. Lesser films lean on the music to tell you how to feel. This one trusts you to feel it yourself, and uses the soundtrack to carry you rather than steer you.

I've seen a fair few films this year that grapple with difficult chapters of history and how they echo into the present. Americana (2023) came at similar territory from a very different angle, and I found that one really stuck with me too. But Nickel Boys feels like it occupies its own space. It's not interested in being a history lesson, even though it teaches you something. It's interested in being human, and in demanding that you extend that same humanity to the people it portrays.

Four stars. See it, but give yourself some time afterwards. You'll need it.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 2024  | Watched: 2025-05-17

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Where to watch

Watch in the US
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · MUBI · MUBI Amazon Channel
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Physical: Amazon US

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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)