--- title: "Beyond the Hills" year: 2012 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/beyond-the-hills" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 76 critics_reviews: 15 published: "2026-09-16T13:29:20.464749+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T13:29:34.373236+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Beyond the Hills (2012) Directed by Cristian Mungiu · 2h 30m · Drama, Romance **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 76 from 15 reviews *In a sentence:* Everyone at the monastery knows what love means, which is part of the trouble > Cristian Mungiu’s monastery drama is patient, painful and worth the time, with two performances that keep its questions about faith personal. The middle section repeats itself, but the women remain difficult to forget. ## Synopsis In present-day Romania, Alina (Cristina Flutur) and Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) struggle to find room for their attachment within a monastery. Alina wants a life in which that love can thrive, but the community’s religious convictions complicate the women’s relationship. The Priest (Valeriu Andriuță) and Mother superior (Dana Tapalagă) have their own understanding of what care requires. As Alina’s demands become harder to accommodate, the women must contend with people who believe they are helping, and who are certain that their beliefs give them the answers. ## Review *Beyond the Hills* is a demanding, deeply affecting drama that takes too long to get where it is going. Cristian Mungiu places two women’s attachment within a Romanian monastery and asks what happens when the people around them think they know how love should be expressed. Nobody needs to think of themselves as cruel for another person to suffer. The film gives those people time to explain themselves, and makes us attend to Alina even when her demands are difficult to like. Cristina Flutur makes Alina’s need for affection difficult to dismiss, even when her demands become hard to bear. We found her longing painful to watch, because her insistence on being loved leaves so little room for Voichita’s own wishes. Cosmina Stratan gives Voichita enough feeling to prevent the relationship becoming a demonstration of opposing beliefs. Their performances keep bringing us back to two particular women whenever the discussion of faith threatens to turn them into examples. Valeriu Andriuță’s Priest and Dana Tapalagă’s Mother superior give the monastery people whose convictions we have to consider. Neither performance encourages us to settle comfortably into contempt. Cristian Mungiu’s screenplay allows the community to take its own beliefs seriously, so that a decision can be comprehensible and still cause alarm. He is especially good at showing how certainty can survive contact with another person’s distress, when we might expect that distress to prompt a question. Oleg Mutu’s cinematography supplies the time this requires. The long takes let discomfort gather around the women, and we are left to decide which claims on their loyalty deserve our sympathy. Production designers Călin Papură and Mihaela Poenaru make the monastery convincing as a place people might choose to belong to, which is essential to the film’s fairness. The setting needs to make sense as a home for its inhabitants before we can understand why they would accept its authority. Mircea Olteanu’s editing is patient with the performances, but the same patience becomes a problem in the middle section. At 150 minutes, the film returns to disagreements whose terms we have already grasped, and several exchanges add duration without deepening our understanding. We began to anticipate another round of the same dispute, which dulled the anxiety the earlier scenes had built. A tighter cut could have kept the difficulty of the choices without making us feel that the discussion had begun again. Religious dramas can make disbelief a comfortable position for the audience, and this one denies us that comfort. Cristian Mungiu lets the women’s relationship remain awkward enough to resist being made into a simple case against the monastery. There is much here to be angry about, but the film makes us examine whom we are angry with and why. Save it for an evening when a difficult film will be welcome, and allow more patience than some of those middle scenes deserve. *Fi1m score 82, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics respond warmly to Beyond the Hills, praising Mungiu’s patient direction and the emotional force of the bond between its two central women. The long takes earn repeated praise for drawing attention to behaviour and building tension without forcing a judgement. The performances are another point of agreement, as is the film’s refusal to reduce its conflicts over faith, love and secular responsibility to a simple case against religion. Its restraint makes the suffering more affecting for many critics. Reservations centre on the length, deliberate pace and repetition in the middle section, including among otherwise favourable reviews. The spread is largely positive, though enthusiasm ranges from admiration for a demanding drama to a stronger emotional response. Paste supplies the clearest dissent: it finds the pacing tedious and the ambiguity frustrating, where other reviews see moral complexity and a welcome reluctance to preach. ### Reviews we read (15) - **Sight and Sound**, Nick Roddick (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Mungiu's measured and powerful monastery drama as a complex work championing love while questioning religion's appropriation of it. The film's restraint and final shot are singled out for their eloquence and skill. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/film-week-beyond-hills) - **The New York Times**, A.O. Scott (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a tough and engrossing work of realism with the shadowy magic of an ancient folk tale. He singles out the intense longing of the two central women for a situation in which their love might thrive as giving the story its suspense and devastating power. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/movies/beyond-the-hills-directed-by-cristian-mungiu.html) - **The Guardian**, Philip French (85/100, inferred): Philip French praises Mungiu's film as a powerful and sombre meditation on faith and friendship in present-day Romania. He singles out the morally adroit portrayal of the difficult protagonist Alina as particularly compelling. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/mar/17/beyond-the-hills-review) - **Evening Standard**, Derek Malcolm (80/100, inferred): The film has power and intensity, is beautifully acted and directed with precision, and is engrossing despite its length and slow pace. It presents a true story of tragedy in a convent without preaching, focusing on trapped emotions and circumstances. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/beyond-the-hills-film-review-8535741.html) - **Little White Lies**, Anton Bitel (4/4/4): The film unfolds its moral dilemmas with disquieting evenhandedness in an understated passion play. It is praised for its searing love story and even-handed portrayal of conflicts between sacred and secular values. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/beyond-the-hills/) - **Time Out**, Dave Calhoun (4/5): Mungiu's cerebral melodrama is steely and brutal in its portrait of religion's lethal potential in the wrong hands. The film's elongated style and exploration of freedom and Romanian society's lingering sorrow are highlighted. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/beyond-the-hills) - **Film Comment**, Joumane Chahine (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film perplexing and not easy to like, with its deliberate pace and demanding material, yet praises how it renders the story fascinating and engaging through moral uncertainty. The rigorous, ascetically masterful execution in long takes is singled out amid its exploration of faith, love, and organized religion. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/festivals-cannes-2012-beyond-the-hills-mungiu-review/) - **IndieWire**, Beth Hanna (70/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a brilliant slow burn to hell that maintains Mungiu's naturalistic style. It highlights the tension built through the monastic setting and the performances of the leads. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/review-cristian-mungius-beyond-the-hills-a-brilliant-slow-burn-to-hell-199112/) - **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): Mungiu's spare, unadorned and strikingly shot film renders a Romanian exorcism case in an unusual way that will split opinions. It is praised for its attention to details and balanced treatment of characters who all believe they are right. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/beyond-the-hills/5042221.article) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Stephen Dalton (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film an austere, serious-minded psychodrama that lacks the bite of Mungiu's previous work but confirms his maturing talent with universal stories. It singles out the director's non-judgmental distance and the lead performance of Cosmina Stratan for praise while noting the slow, repetitive midsection as a drawback. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/beyond-hills-cannes-festival-review-326819/) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (70/100, inferred): The critic praises Mungiu’s patient mastery of the long take and his ability to draw viewers into the passionate souls of the characters. He singles out the film’s refusal to deliver an easy broadside against religious fervor, instead registering a tug of war between old piety and the new rational world. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/mad-about-you) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (B+): The review calls it a powerful, slow-burn drama exploring faith and love as poisons, praising the complex emotional center and long takes, though noting it may lose some viewers due to pace and ambiguity. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/cannes-review-faith-love-collide-in-cristian-mungius-powerful-beyond-the-hills-20120518/) - **Eye for Film**, Anne-Katrin Titze (80/100, inferred): The critic describes it as an important exploration into indifference and the nature of faith and relationships, praising the performances and Mungiu's style of long shots that reveal social truths without exploitation. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/beyond-the-hills-2012-film-review-by-anne-katrin-titze) - **HeyUGuys**, Jamie Neish (4/5): The critic praises the film's examination of the bond between two women and the repercussions of faith, highlighting the long takes and performances, but notes some arduous filler in the middle act. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/lff-2012-beyond-the-hills-review/) - **Paste**, Annlee Ellingson (7.2): The critic describes the film as methodical and meditative in its long-take approach to a sensational true story, but notes that the deliberate pacing can feel repetitive and tedious. It ends on an infuriatingly ambiguous note after building sympathy for all involved. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/beyond-the-hills) ## Details - **Director:** Cristian Mungiu - **Director:** Cristian Mungiu - **Screenplay:** Cristian Mungiu - **Cinematography:** Oleg Mutu - **Editor:** Mircea Olteanu - **Production design:** Călin Papură, Mihaela Poenaru - **Costume design:** Dana Păpăruz - **Producer:** Cristian Mungiu - **Cast:** Cosmina Stratan as Voichita; Cristina Flutur as Alina; Valeriu Andriuță as Priest; Dana Tapalagă as Mother superior; Cătălina Harabagiu as Antonia; Gina Tandura as nun Iustina; Vica Agache as nun Elisabeta; Nora Covali - **Runtime:** 2h 30m - **Release (the US):** 5 December 2012 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance - **Box office:** $124,919 - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajvJo0b4KbE ## Where to watch in the US - AMC+: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: AT, BE, CA, CH, FR, IT, NL, RO, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - International Submission to the Academy Awards 2013: International Submission to the Academy Awards (nominated) - European Film Award for Best Screenwriter 2012: European Film Award for Best Screenwriter (nominated) ## If you liked this - *The Nun* (1966): A young woman’s resistance exposes the coercion beneath a religious community’s care. - *Ordet* (1955), Fi1m 86: Faith and family obligations turn intimate disagreements into matters of frightening consequence. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ordet.md) - *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93: Competing duties and sincere convictions make helping another person a complicated business. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) - *Ida* (2013): Another patient drama in which religious belonging complicates a young woman’s private loyalties. - *Silent Light* (2007): Love and religious duty pull a small community towards decisions nobody can make cleanly. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/beyond-the-hills