Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.
Zero Dark Thirty is a masterfully crafted procedural thriller from Kathryn Bigelow. The plot is methodical and unflinching, tracing the decade-long intelligence hunt with documentary-like rigor. Jessica Chastain delivers a career-defining performance, and the supporting cast is uniformly strong. Cinematography by Greig Fraser is gritty, immersive, and precise — the nighttime Abbottabad raid sequence is technically stunning. The ending raid is one of cinema's most gripping sustained sequences, executed with clinical tension. Novelty is solid but not exceptional; the procedural war-on-terror drama was a familiar post-9/11 form, though Bigelow's execution elevates it above peers.