The second entry in an ambitious, dark, and thrilling trilogy of interlinking films set in Yorkshire in the 1970s and 80s. 1980: The “Ripper” has tyrannized Yorkshire for six long years and with the local police failing to make any progress, the Home Office sends in Manchester officer Peter Hunter to review the investigation. Having previously made enemies in the Yorkshire force while investigating a shooting incident in 1974, Hunter finds himself increasingly isolated when his version of events challenges their official line on the “Ripper”.
James Marsh is a director of both documentary and narrative feature films. His most recent dramatic film, Red Riding: 1980, was released by the IFC in 2010. Marsh’s documentary Man on Wire premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Jury Prize and the Audience Award, and garnered the Academy Award for best documentary the following year. Marsh’s earlier work includes the feature film The King (Un Certain Regard, 2005 Cannes International Film Festival) and the documentary hybrid Wisconsin Death Trip. –Sundance
A marathon viewing of the trilogy leaves one with an oppressive feeling of bricks on your chest, trapped in darkness... which doesn't sound inviting but it is an engrossing journey. The first and third by themselves are a little weak, but this strong second act elevates the whole; it is the series' moral compass, although there are other reluctant heroes along the way. Considine as Hunter is a revelation.
Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times on The Red Riding Trilogy: "From one film to another — 1974, 1980, 1983 — stories overlap, contexts shift
Winter wears on, and again, most of the more interesting openings of the week are local, beginning, almost inevitably, New York. Michael
"Tony Grisoni adapted 1974 [directed by Julian Jarrold] from the first novel in David Peace's Red Riding Quartet, named for a Grimm's fairytale
Back in March, the UK's Channel 4 broadcast a three-part series based on four books by David Peace known as the Red
Ridley Scott is set to combine the three stories into one film, set it in Pennsylvania, and create an Americanized version. Whatever comes as a result of that will end up being a completely different… read review