Prisoners (2013 film)

American film by Denis Villeneuve

Prisoners

Theatrical release poster

Directed by| Denis Villeneuve
Written by| Aaron Guzikowski
Produced by|

* Broderick Johnson
* Kira Davis
* Andrew A. Kosove
* Adam Kolbrenner

Starring|

* Hugh Jackman
* Jake Gyllenhaal
* Viola Davis
* Maria Bello
* Terrence Howard
* Melissa Leo
* Paul Dano

Cinematography| Roger A. Deakins
Edited by|

* Joel Cox
* Gary D. Roach

Music by| Jóhann Jóhannsson

Production
companies

* Alcon Entertainment
* 8:38 Productions
* Madhouse Entertainment

Distributed by| Warner Bros. Pictures
(North America, Australia, Italy and Spain)
Summit Entertainment
(International)

Release dates

* August 30, 2013 (2013-08-30) (Telluride)
* September 20, 2013 (2013-09-20) (United States)

Running time

| 153 minutes[1]
Country| United States
Language| English
Budget| $46 million[2]
Box office| $122.1 million[2]

Prisoners is a 2013 American crime thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Aaron Guzikowski. The film has an ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano.[3]

The film follows the abduction of two young girls in Pennsylvania and the subsequent search for the perpetrator by the police. After police arrest a young suspect and release him, the father of one of the daughters takes matters into his own hands.

Prisoners premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2013, and was released to theaters on September 20, 2013. The film was a financial and critical success, grossing $122 million worldwide against a production budget of $46 million, while receiving generally positive reviews from critics. It was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top 10 films of 2013, and at the 86th Academy Awards, Roger Deakins was nominated for Best Cinematography in addition to receiving a nomination from the American Society of Cinematographers.

## Plot

[edit]

In Conyers, Pennsylvania, the Dover and Birch families celebrate Thanksgiving. After dinner, girls Anna Dover and Joy Birch go missing after playing on a parked RV. Detective Loki responds to a police call about an RV matching the description and arrests the man inside, Alex Jones. During interrogation, Loki realizes Alex's diminished IQ prevents him from planning a kidnapping and learns that his RV contains no forensic evidence of the missing girls. Loki runs down leads on local sex offenders and finds a corpse in the house of priest Patrick Dunn. Dunn admits to killing him after the man confessed to murdering 16 children for his "war on God".

The police release Alex to his aunt, Holly. Convinced of Alex's guilt, Keller Dover, the father of one of the missing girls, assaults him outside the police station, where Alex whispers to him, "They didn't cry 'til I left them." After Loki finds no proof of this, Keller kidnaps Alex, and begins to torture Alex for information about his daughter, in an empty building Keller owns.

At a vigil for the girls, Loki approaches a suspicious man who flees. Loki releases a sketch of him to the community. The suspect sneaks into the Birch and Dover houses. Grace, Keller's wife, hears him and calls Loki. He tails Keller to the empty building, where Keller claims he goes to drink, but Loki does not find Alex. Loki tracks down and arrests the suspect, Bob Taylor, at his house. The walls are covered in maze drawings and Loki opens crates filled with snakes and bloody children's clothes. Loki shows Keller and the Birch parents photos of the bloody clothes, and they identify several as Joy's and Anna's. As Taylor draws detailed mazes, Loki assaults him, demanding the location of the girls. Taylor grabs an officer's gun and kills himself.

Keller continues torturing Alex, who cryptically talks about a maze. Keller visits Holly, learning that Alex's stuttering stems from a childhood accident involving snakes her husband kept. Holly and her husband lost their faith after their son died of cancer, and they adopted Alex as a way to cope. Loki matches the maze pattern in Taylor's drawings to a necklace depicting a maze worn by the corpse in Dunn's house. At Taylor's house, Loki is informed that most of the bloody clothes are store-bought and soaked with pig blood. Below a window outside the Dover house, Loki finds Taylor's footprints and a sock matching Anna's, which Keller had earlier identified.

The drugged Anna and Joy attempt to escape, but only Joy succeeds and is found and hospitalized. When Keller questions a woozy Joy, she remembers little, but tells him, "You were there." He immediately rushes out. Loki gives chase and arrives at Keller's building expecting to find him, but instead finds Alex. Keller goes to Holly's to find Anna. They talk for a while before Holly pulls a gun. She explains that before the disappearance of her husband (implied to be the corpse in Dunn's basement), they abducted children as part of their war on God to avenge their son's death, and to create demons out of the traumatized parents. Alex was their first abduction, and Taylor was their second. Holly imprisons Keller in a hidden pit in her yard, where he finds his daughter's whistle.

Loki enters Holly's house to inform her that Alex has been found, but instead finds a photo of her late husband wearing the maze necklace. Realizing that Holly is the kidnapper, he searches and finds her giving Anna an injection. In a shootout, Loki kills Holly but is grazed in the head. He rushes Anna to the hospital while fighting unconsciousness.

A recuperating Anna and Joy visit a bandaged Loki in his hospital room to thank him. Later, Loki wanders the crime scene at Holly's house, when he faintly hears a whistle blowing.

## Cast

[edit]

* Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover
* Jake Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki
* Viola Davis as Nancy Birch
* Maria Bello as Grace Dover
* Terrence Howard as Franklin Birch
* Melissa Leo as Holly Jones
* Paul Dano as Alex Jones
* Dylan Minnette as Ralph Dover
* Zoë Soul as Eliza Birch
* Erin Gerasimovich as Anna Dover
* Kyla-Drew Simmons as Joy Birch
* Wayne Duvall as Captain Richard O'Malley
* Len Cariou as Father Patrick Dunn
* David Dastmalchian as Bob Taylor
* Brad James as Officer Carter
* Dennis Christopher as Mr. Jones (uncredited)

## Production

[edit]

Aaron Guzikowski wrote the script for the 2009 Annual Black List, and based on a short story he wrote, involving "a father whose kid was struck by a hit-and-run driver and then puts this guy in a well in his backyard". That short story was partially inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".[4]

After he wrote the spec, many actors and directors entered and exited the project, including actors Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio and directors Antoine Fuqua and Bryan Singer.[4] Once Denis Villeneuve was brought onto the project, Timothée Chalamet unsuccessfully auditioned for a role; Villeneuve and Chalamet would later work together in Dune and Dune: Part Two.[5]

Ultimately Guzikowski would credit producer Mark Wahlberg for getting the project on its feet, stating, "He was totally pivotal in getting the film made. That endorsement helped it get around."[4] Principal photography began in Georgia in February 2013.[6]

## Release

[edit]

### MPAA rating

[edit]

Prisoners premiered at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival and was released theatrically in Canada and the United States on September 20, 2013. It was originally rated NC-17 by the MPAA "for substantial disturbing violent content and explicit images"; after being edited, it was re-rated R "for disturbing violent content including torture, and language throughout".[7]

### Box office

[edit]

Prisoners opened in North America on September 20, 2013, in 3,260 theaters and grossed $20,817,053 in its opening weekend, averaging $6,386 per theater and ranking #1 at the box office. After 77 days in theaters, the film ended up earning $61,002,302 domestically and $61,124,385 internationally, earning a worldwide gross of $122,126,687, above its production budget of $46 million.[2]

## Reception

[edit]

### Critical response

[edit]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 81% based on 254 reviews, with a rating average of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Prisoners has an emotional complexity and a sense of dread that makes for absorbing (and disturbing) viewing."[8] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9]

Christopher Orr of The Atlantic wrote: "Ethical exploration or exploitation? In the end, I come down reservedly on the former side: the work done here by Jackman, Gyllenhaal, and especially Villeneuve is simply too powerful to ignore."[10] Ed Gibbs of The Sun Herald wrote: "Not since Erskineville Kings, in 1999, has Hugh Jackman appeared so emotionally exposed on screen. It is an exceptional, Oscar-worthy performance."[11] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that Gyllenhaal was "exceptional" and that "Villeneuve takes his unflashy time building character and revealing troubled psyches in the most unlikely of places."[12]

The film was a second runner-up for the BlackBerry People's Choice Award at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, behind Philomena and 12 Years a Slave. Gyllenhaal received the Best Supporting Actor of the Year Award at the 2013 Hollywood Film Festival for his "truly compelling, subtly layered" performance as Detective Loki.[13]

In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 121.[14]

Not all reviews were positive, however. Writing in The New Republic, David Thomson declared that the film was "weary after ten minutes" and furthermore "hideous, cruel, degrading, depressing, relentless, prolonged, humorless, claustrophobic, and a mockery of any surviving tradition in which films are entertaining".[15] A mixed review came from Sheila O'Malley of RogerEbert.com, who gave the film 2.5 stars out of a possible 4. She wrote that Jackman's performance grew "monotonous" and that the film sometimes verged on pretentiousness, but was redeemed by a few excellent suspense sequences and Gyllenhaal's performance, whose "subtlety is welcome considering all the teeth gnashing going on in other performances".[16]

### Audiences

[edit]

Audiences polled by CinemaScore initially gave the film a grade "B+" on an A+ to F scale, but Warner Bros asked for a recount by the service and later said the film received a grade "A−".[17][18]

### Top ten lists

[edit]

Prisoners was listed on various critics' top ten lists.[19]

* 1st – Nigel M. Smith, Indiewire[20]
* 2nd – Rex Reed, The New York Observer
* 5th – Justin Robar, BridgewatersFinest
* 6th – Kyle Smith, New York Post
* 7th – James Berardinelli, Reelviews
* 7th – Barbara Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
* 9th – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
* Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

### Accolades

[edit]

Award  | Date of ceremony  | Category  | Recipient(s)  | Result

|
|
|
|

Academy Awards | March 2, 2014 | Best Cinematography | Roger Deakins | Nominated
American Society of Cinematographers | February 1, 2014 | Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases | Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association | December 16, 2013 | Best Cinematography | Nominated
Critics' Choice Movie Awards | January 16, 2014 | Best Cinematography | Nominated
Empire Awards | March 30, 2014 | Best Thriller | Nominated
Hollywood Film Festival[13] | October 21, 2013 | Best Supporting Actor  | Jake Gyllenhaal | Won
Key Art Awards[21] | October 24, 2013  | Best Teaser – Audio/Visual  | "Ticking"  | Bronze
Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards[22] | February 15, 2014  | Best Contemporary Make-Up  | Donald Mowat and Pamela Westmore | Won
National Board of Review | December 4, 2013 | Best Cast | Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano and Dylan Minnette | Won
Top Ten Films | Won
People's Choice Awards | January 8, 2014 | Favorite Dramatic Movie  | Nominated
San Diego Film Critics Society | December 11, 2013 | Best Cinematography | Roger Deakins | Nominated
Best Performance by an Ensemble | Nominated
Best Original Screenplay | Aaron Guzikowski | Nominated
Satellite Awards | February 23, 2014 | Best Cinematography | Roger Deakins | Nominated
Best Editing | Gary D. Roach and Joel Cox | Nominated
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture | Jake Gyllenhaal | Nominated
Saturn Awards | June 26, 2014 | Best Make-up | Donald Mowat  | Won
Best Supporting Actress | Melissa Leo | Nominated
Best Thriller Film  | Nominated
Toronto International Film Festival | September 15, 2013 | People's Choice Award  | Denis Villeneuve | 3rd Place
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association | December 9, 2013 | Best Ensemble | Nominated

## Soundtrack

[edit]

Main article: Prisoners (soundtrack)

The Prisoners soundtrack, composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson, was released on September 20, 2013.[23][24]

## See also

[edit]

* The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), an Argentine-Spanish film which includes a theme of suspect kidnapping

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "PRISONERS (15)". E1 Films. British Board of Film Classification. September 13, 2013. Archived from the original on September 26, 2013. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
2. ^ a b c "Prisoners (2013)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Archived from the original on June 6, 2016. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
3. ^ "Hugh Jackman to Star in Vigilante Thriller PRISONERS for November 2013 Release". Collider.com. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
4. ^ a b c Giroux, Jack (September 20, 2013). "Interview: The Back-to-Basics Brutality of 'Prisoners'". Archived from the original on July 28, 2017. Retrieved July 28, 2017.
5. ^ Holub, Christian (October 13, 2021). "Doing Dune right: Inside the making of the long-awaited (and star-packed) adaptation". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on October 13, 2021. Retrieved September 15, 2024.
6. ^ "Production Begins on Denis Villeneuve's PRISONERS, Starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal". Collider. February 20, 2013.
7. ^ Keogh, Joey (November 18, 2015). "Not Quite Horror: Prisoners (2013)". Wicker Horror. Archived from the original on July 13, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
8. ^ "Prisoners (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Archived from the original on May 11, 2021. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
9. ^ "Prisoners (2013)". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on July 2, 2017. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
10. ^ Orr, Christopher (September 20, 2013). "Prisoners: Moral Exploration or Exploitation?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on February 18, 2022. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
11. ^ Gibbs, Ed (October 12, 2013). "Prisoners review: Dream performances enliven every parent's worst nightmare". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on March 3, 2021. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
12. ^ Travers, Peter (September 19, 2013). "Prisoners". Rolling Stone.
13. ^ a b Feinberg, Scott (September 23, 2013). "Jake Gyllenhaal to Receive Acting Honor at Hollywood Film Awards (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
14. ^ "Readers Choose Their Top Movies of the 21st Century". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2025.
15. ^ Thomson, David (September 23, 2013). "'Prisoners' and the Rotten State of Hollywood". The New Republic.
16. ^ O'Malley, Sheila. "Prisoners movie review & film summary (2013) | Roger Ebert". rogerebert.com/.
17. ^ McClintock, Pamela (October 18, 2013). "CinemaScore in Retreat as Studios Turn to PostTrak". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on April 1, 2019. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
18. ^ "Cinemascore :: Movie Title Search". Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
19. ^ "2013 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
20. ^ IndieWire Staff (December 25, 2013). "Indiewire's Editors and Bloggers Pick Their Top 10 Films (and In Some Cases TV Shows) of 2013". Archived from the original on September 15, 2020. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
21. ^ "Catalog: Audio/Visual – Winners". Key Art Awards. Archived from the original on December 13, 2013. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
22. ^ Giardina, Carolyn (February 15, 2014). "Dallas Buyers Club, Bad Grandpa Win at Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Awards". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
23. ^ "Prisoners Soundtrack". SoundtrackMania.com. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
24. ^ "Prisoners Soundtrack". Soundtrack.Net. Archived from the original on September 6, 2013. Retrieved August 1, 2014.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prisoners (2013 film).

* Official website
* Prisoners at IMDb
* Prisoners at Box Office Mojo
* Prisoners at Metacritic
* Prisoners at Rotten Tomatoes

* v
* t
* e

Denis Villeneuve

Feature films|

* August 32nd on Earth (1998)
* Maelström (2000)
* Polytechnique (2009)
* Incendies (2010)
* Prisoners (2013)
* Enemy (2013)
* Sicario (2015)
* Arrival (2016)
* Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
* Dune (2021)
* Dune: Part Two (2024)
* Dune: Part Three (2026)

Short films|

* Cosmos (1996)
* 120 Seconds to Get Elected (2007)
* Next Floor (2008)

* v
* t
* e

National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble Cast

* Prêt-à-Porter (1994)
* The Usual Suspects (1995)
* The First Wives Club (1996)
* The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
* Happiness (1998)
* Magnolia (1999)
* State and Main (2000)
* Last Orders (2001)
* Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
* The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
* Closer (2004)
* Mrs Henderson Presents (2005)
* The Departed (2006)
* No Country for Old Men (2007)
* Doubt (2008)
* It's Complicated (2009)
* The Town (2010)
* The Help (2011)
* Les Misérables (2012)
* Prisoners (2013)
* Fury (2014)
* The Big Short (2015)
* Hidden Figures (2016)
* Get Out (2017)
* Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
* Knives Out (2019)
* Da 5 Bloods (2020)
* The Harder They Fall (2021)
* Women Talking (2022)
* The Iron Claw  (2023)
* Conclave (2024)

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template