Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

26 Babylon A.D.
xx Bangkok Dangerous
15 College
82 Dark Knight, The
42 Death Race
15 Disaster Movie
36 Fly Me to the Moon
54 Get Smart
49 Hancock
34 Happening, The
78 Hellboy II: The Golden Army
71 Horton Hears a Who!
55 House Bunny, The
61 Incredible Hulk, The
65 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
79 Iron Man
57 Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
73 Kung Fu Panda
52 Longshots, The
24 Love Guru, The
51 Mamma Mia!
43 Meet Dave
35 Mirrors
31 Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The
64 Pineapple Express
53 Rocker, The
53 Sex and the City: The Movie
63 Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
36 Space Chimps
35 Star Wars: The Clone Wars
51 Step Brothers
47 Swing Vote
60 Traitor
71 Tropic Thunder
70 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
93 WALL-E
64 Wanted
47 X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
54 You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

85 Alexandra
40 America the Beautiful
66 American Teen
74 Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
64 August Evening
xx Bachna Ae Haseeno
62 Baghead
58 Beautiful Losers
xx Beer for My Horses
47 Before the Rains
80 Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
56 Bottle Shock
75 Boy A
55 Bra Boys
61 Brick Lane
64 Brideshead Revisited
xx Burn After Reading
61 Bustin' Down the Door
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
54 CSNY: Déjà Vu
xx Cthulhu
86 Edge of Heaven, The
66 Elegy
52 Elsa & Fred
80 Encounters at the End of the World
26 Everybody Wants to Be Italian
64 Fall, The
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
82 Frozen River
71 Girl Cut in Two, A
62 Girls Rock!
xx Goal II: Living the Dream
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
54 Hamlet 2
25 Hell Ride
44 Henry Poole is Here
74 I Served the King of England
72 I.O.U.S. A
63 In Search of a Midnight Kiss
46 Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
67 Jellyfish
62 Kabluey
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
78 Last Mistress, The
50 Last Stop for Paul
70 Love Songs
61 Man Named Pearl, A
89 Man on Wire
61 Mister Foe
85 Momma's Man
74 Mongol
46 My Mexican Shivah
80 Order of Myths, The
66 Patti Smith: Dream of Life
54 Ping Pong Playa
77 Pool, The
72 Priceless
61 Red
71 Roman de gare
78 Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
51 Savage Grace
55 Save Me
73 Secret, A
57 Sixty Six
58 Sukiyaki Western Django
xx Surfer, Dude
83 Tell No One
56 Then She Found Me
71 To the Limit
72 Transsiberian
80 Trouble the Water
83 U2 3D
86 Up the Yangtze
79 Visitor, The
61 Wackness, The
54 What We Do Is Secret
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
67 XXY
54 Year of the Fish
xx Young People F**king
75 Young@Heart

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Stop Loss
Paramount Pictures


6.3

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 43 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for graphic violence and pervasive language

Starring Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ciarán Hinds, Timothy Olyphant, Victor Rasuk, and Rob Brown

Sgt. Brandon King fought for America. He fought for freedom. He fought for his family. He gave everything, and then he came home to begin his life anew. But now his superiors want more: They want him back. (Paramount Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| War
WRITTEN BY:	Mark Richard Kimberly Peirce
DIRECTED BY:	Kimberly Peirce
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 8, 2008 Theatrical: March 28, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	113 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Stop-Loss is a human story first and foremost, and Peirce and her stellar young cast ensure that the message never gets in the way of the storytelling.

TV Guide Ken Fox

It's a richly textured, psychologically acute film that takes an unblinking look at the tattered life of the returning soldier, and it's boosted by two powerful performances from Phillippe and the increasingly impressive Tatum, a former underwear model who has somehow turned into a fine actor.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Even when the script slips into sentiment, Peirce sticks with her troubled, questing soldiers, and through this raw and riveting movie, they stick with us.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Stop-Loss carries the emotional force and propulsive drama of the quintessential soldier's story.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

There's little time for nuance in Stop-Loss, and it doesn't deny any of the film's power to wish Peirce would occasionally slow things down enough to let her audience ponder what they're seeing.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Clearly, Peirce's motives are pure. She's not using the "stop-loss" issue as a wedge to make the government or the administration look bad. She's using it to dramatize an injustice and to advocate on behalf of the soldiers.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Stop-Loss is a film that does it right.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It’s ironic that Stop-Loss loses its momentum when the characters go on the road. Yet Rasuk--the star of "Raising Victor Vargas"--gives a stunning performance.

The New Yorker David Denby

Stop-Loss is not a great movie, but it’s forceful, effective, and alive, with the raw, mixed-up emotions produced by an endless war.

Time Richard Schickel

A relentlessly grim film.

Washington Post John Anderson

It's a remarkably entertaining movie, thanks in part to a first-rate cast and a director who knows you can't make a point without calling everyone to attention.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Phillippe does a dark, searing turn with a character that could have easily been little more than Taps-era hubris, and Gordon-Levitt, as one of King's more fragmented former charges, is riveting and convincingly small-town Texas.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A painfully polite Iraq war drama pitched at the MTV generation.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

While there are good things about it, Stop-Loss is nothing spectacular.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

What we're left with is outrage in a vacuum. It's impossible to separate out the stop-loss tactic from the misadventures of the war itself, and that's what this film, to its discredit, accomplishes.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Pierce never pulls these pieces together satisfyingly, and the result is a botched effort to put a human face on a genuinely alarming situation.

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

While Stop-Loss doesn’t pack anything like the emotional wallop of her previous film, the movies do share Peirce’s clear-eyed refusal to answer difficult questions with simplistic answers.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Someone watching Stop-Loss with younger eyes might feel the heat of the main soldier's dilemma more than I did, but I couldn't help thinking director Kimberly Peirce was presenting us with abstract ideas in the forms of half-realized characters.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Despite several attempts, we're still waiting for the drama that convincingly captures the experienc of soldiers who've fought in Iraq. Stop-Loss" isn't that film, but at the very least its efforts are honorable.

USA Today Claudia Puig

It's an uneven experience, with some evocative moments and others that don't resonate as much as they should.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

In the end, Stop-Loss's evening-news topicality proves both an asset and a liability--an irresolvable structural conundrum. Simply put, the film so effectively reconstitutes those Vietnam-homecoming touchstones that we can anticipate its every move well before it makes them.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Ms. Peirce’s movie, which she wrote with Mark Richard, is not only an earnest, issue-driven narrative, but also a feverish entertainment, a passionate, at times overwrought melodrama gaudy with violent actions and emotions.

The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore

A young cast and hotheaded melodramatic streak make it broadly accessible, perhaps enough so to help the film scrape past boxoffice challenges faced by other Iraq-centered features.

Empire Helen O'Hara

Strong performances from the young cast make a compelling case that the US govt is failing its soldiers, but the film’s a little too much of a blunt instrument.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Stop-Loss is a bit uneven. Mixed messages abound.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

After a strong start, Stop-Loss becomes driven by a series of contrivances before falling prey to bad melodrama and even a little cheesiness.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Heavy metal, alt-pop, southern rock, orchestral swells, wailing Middle Eastern tunes all vie for our attention, but none of this noise drowns out the sound of good intentions twisting themselves into an impotent knot.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Though its intentions are noble, it's hampered by a stock romantic subplot (Phillipe falls for his friend's squeeze, Abbie Cornish), a familiar structure (since The Best Years of Our Lives soldiers invariably come home in threes), and a lack of symmetry (some of Gordon-Levitt's story seems to have wound up on the cutting-room floor).

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

An earnest and well-meaning but disappointing failure.

Variety Joe Leydon

A wildly uneven drama, by turns sincere and synthetic.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

With the release of Stop-Loss, a precedent of sorts has definitely been set. If we've yet to see a brilliant Iraq movie, the wait is over for a bad one – this is it.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

Swamped by clichés, continuity problems, stock characters and very good intentions.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A filmmaker's personal connection to the material doesn't necessarily mean that the resulting picture will be any good, and Stop-Loss is so dramatically tedious that it feels remote instead of resonant.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

What little anti-war critique Peirce presents -- and she has it in her, which makes it all the more dubious -- gets trampled over by jingoistic Rambo porn.

New York Post Kyle Smith

As phony as a re-enactment with finger pup pets.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Steve F. gave it a6:
Not a bad watch. Good acting and direction. Well worth seeing once even if you are Canadian like I am.

Jester M. gave it a5:
Would someone please try to stop the loss of sense of giving a hoot! Not that the movie wasn't well acted, written, directed, and politically correct enough to make its way onto the order counter at Starbucks. But any points the movie may have earned have been overwhelmed by my complete and total ambivalence to the subject matter. I am the apathetic American audience member... and I actually agree with the political sentient expressed here. In fact, it's only when I read the goading reviews of my right wing friends here on this site, do I actually wish this movie had made a bigger impact.

Tyler S. gave it a9:
I thought this movie was truly moving and it kept drawing me in as a viewer, i would highly recommend this movie to any and all!

Patrick C gave it a9:
This movie was great!!! It showed that the president is a freaking dumbass and how they send troops and soldiers back into the war. I say that because i think a troops should have the right for not going back if they don't want to.

Joseph B. gave it an8:
Any movie questioning the most disastrous move made by this reckless, unthinking administration, and Bush/Cheny have made many of them, is to be commended. I get sick to my stomach every time I see Bush in a photo-op with some poor soldier that lost his legs fighting in Bush's personal war, and I can't help thinking how Bush didn't even show up for his National Guard duty half of the time, and how Cheny got no less than five deferments to avoid serving in Viet Nam. Bush has done more damage to this country than any terrorist could ever hope to. But soon, this nightmare will be over and this country will start the healing process to recover from what will go down as the worst administration in the history of this country.

Peter J. gave it an8:
I served my time in the Army between 93-96. Nothing really went on their during my tour, hence no stop loss. I did get to serve months in Haiti. Anyway, my point is you signed up for a certain time, and your contract should be honored. Okay, if a war is going on and your time is up I would be more than willing to keep on keeping on. But if you already got out of the Army, and they call you back. That is absolutely asinine. And I am FOR the war gentlemen. So those who give this movie a low score because you feel it is ANTI-War. Let me assure you that has nothing to do with it. The point is that you have done your time, and lived up to your end of the bargain. The Army should do the same.

Tom S gave it a9:
One of the best war movies of recent years based on soldiers' real accounts. No glorification or papering over the issues that should be faced up to more. It's the people who put young men and women into this kind of no-win situation who are Anti-American. IMO.

Stop Loss Paramount Pictures

Stop Loss
Paramount Pictures