Storyline
A pastor of a small church in upstate New York starts to spiral out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife.
Directors
Writers
Cast
Amanda Seyfried, Cedric the Entertainer, Prudence Wright Holmes, Ethan Hawke, Michael Gaston, Philip Ettinger, Bill Hoag, Frank Rodriguez, Erica Fae, Sue Jean Kim, Victoria Hill, Ronald Peet, Joseph Anthony Jerez, Kristin Villanueva, Ingrid Kullberg-Bendz, Ken Forman, Christopher Dylan White, Gary Lee Mahmoud, Miah Issabella Velasquez, Tyler Bourke, Natalie Woolams-Torres, Van Hansis, Ramon Nuñez, Delano Montgomery, Satchel Eden Bell, Jon Rua, Otis Edward Cotton, Mark Havlis, Juliet Schlefer, Elanna White, Olivia Rose Cohenher, Jake Alden-Falconer, Eric Lockley, Krystina Alabado, Dennis Michael Giammetta, Mahaleia Gray
Trailer
Reviews
91
The movie’s conclusion pits religion against personal desire in remarkably visceral terms.
90
In First Reformed, Paul Schrader courts respectability and leaves it in the dust, getting stoned on excess. But make no mistake: He’s still one hell of a filmmaker.
85
Paul Schrader has always been a faith-based filmmaker in the truest and most challenging sense, and First Reformed is the sort of stimulating work that a writer-director of a certain age can deliver when he returns to his creative sweet spot; rejoice, Schrader fans, rejoice.
83
Full of conviction, First Reformed feels like a lifetime of preoccupations and traumas distilled beautifully, accompanied with a haunting sparseness creating a profound deliverance.
83
The film itself, shot in Academy ratio in the dead of winter, is quieter and more sensitive than anything else Schrader has directed, with Ethan Hawke giving one of his finest and most moving performances in the lead role.
