Starred Up

United Kingdom, 2013

Drama, Crime

Synopsis

The teenage criminal Eric Love seems street-smart enough to navigate the corruption of the British prison system. But after his violent streak sends him to an adult prison, Eric comes face to face with Nev, a career criminal, and his long-lost father.

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Starred Up Directed by David Mackenzie

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Awards & Festivals

International Film Festival Rotterdam

2014

Telluride Film Festival

2013

Village Voice Film Poll

2014 | 2 nominations including: Best Supporting Actor

Indiewire Critics' Poll

2014 | Nominee: Best Lead Actor

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Cast & Crew

Articles from the Notebook

Surviving Desire: The Cinema of David Mackenzie

The films of David Mackenzie envision life as a never-ending whirlwind of experience, a cyclone of emotion spinning out of control.

TIFF 2013. Correspondences #8

Shorts by Rodrigues and Gomes, a beguiling debut and a bruising prison drama are featured in the latest entry of our TIFF 2013 coverage.

Critics reviews

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The truth is that ascribing Starred Up’s success to “palatability” would be a disservice to the movie, which, in many ways, is both more radically unsentimental and more idealistic than Mackenzie’s earlier work.

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

August 27, 2014

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All of Mackenzie’s characters in Young Adam and Asylum andMister Foe are prisoners in one way or another, and his latest is a family drama and a love story dressed in penitentiary grays, a tale about people slamming into each other and into their own limitations, a chain of alliances brutally damaged and tentatively mended. Each punch is felt deeply.

Fernando F. Croce

September 17, 2013

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Compelling for its relentless cycle of violence hitched to Mackenzie’s agile shooting style and performances that are ably up to the task, Starred Up earns its nasty streak, but ultimately succumbs to an almost extravagant level of peripety—something that a little discipline can’t ultimately correct.

Jay Kuehner

September 01, 2013

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What are people saying?

el.'s rating of the film Starred Up
el.

what a beautiful insight into pure naturalism. would not call it perfect, but it has massive character.
September 09, 2019 08:31
- 3
- 0
RBCrickmar's rating of the film Starred Up
RBCrickmar

This was a prison movie that goes entirely against the rudiments and clichés of the genre. Rupert Friend's therapeutic group meetings create a fascinating dramatic dynamic at the centre of a film that is all about empowerment. The only real wrong note in the film was the overly melodramatic ending, as up until this hurried segue into hell the film had been supremely confident at dealing with issues of violence.
September 12, 2019 07:36
- 5
- 0
Anj R's rating of the film Starred Up
Anj R

Sleek, stark brutality masking a humanistic core. Jack O'Connell is phenomenal. Easily one of my favourites from 2014, and perhaps my favourite prison movie.
April 19, 2019 10:14
- 2
- 0
Tiago Batista Santos's rating of the film Starred Up
Tiago Batista Santos

9/10 Best prison film ever? Quite possibly...
September 09, 2019 08:31
- 3
- 0
Mathieu Verbeeck's rating of the film Starred Up
Mathieu Verbeeck

An electrifying, suffocating and brutal prison drama - Jack O'Connell is astonishing.
April 01, 2019 05:06
- 4
- 0
Susana Bessa's rating of the film Starred Up
Susana Bessa

Jack O'Connell, Jack O'Connell, Jack O'Connell!! Where would David Mackenzie be without this mind-blowing rebel-boy turned man turned actor? It is not going to take long until everyone knows who the criminal boy from East London is. If not through this one, let's hope Angelina Jolie knows what's she's doing. Amazing depiction of an emotional struggle within the British prison system. It's one for the books!
April 01, 2019 05:06
- 1
- 0
Tigrão's rating of the film Starred Up
Tigrão

With electrifying performances from young O'Connell and Mendelsohn, "Starred Up" ranks itself high up on my list of best prison movies, along with "A Prophet", "Hunger", "Kiss of the Spider Woman", "Carandiru", "Shawshank", and "Papillon". Intense as hell and masterfully directed by David MacKenzie.
April 01, 2019 05:06
- 1
- 0
J. O.'s rating of the film Starred Up
J. O.

Incendiary performances and a skillful, refined direction make for a wholly engrossing experience. The film never goes beyond the walls of the prison, or beyond the here-and-now of the prisoners. This is an explosive portrait of aggression and savagery (not unlike Alan Clarke's Scum), and its main flaw was not spending enough time exploring fatherly guilt or expanding on the racial tensions.
April 01, 2019 05:06
- 2
- 2