--- title: "Black Hawk Down" year: 2001 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/black-hawk-down" fi1m_score: 73 critics_score: 74 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-17T20:13:11.690881+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T20:13:34.631838+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." --- # Black Hawk Down (2001) Directed by Ridley Scott · 2h 25m · MPA R · Action, War, History **Fi1m score: 73** · Critics 74 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Ridley Scott gives every bullet our full attention and rather fewer soldiers a personality > *Black Hawk Down* is gripping when Ridley Scott concentrates on soldiers trying to survive under fire. Thin characterisation and scant attention to Somali lives are serious limitations, even when the combat filmmaking holds us. ## Synopsis American soldiers fighting in Somalia try to keep their unit together as a military operation becomes a struggle to survive. The film follows the battle from the troops’ perspective, concentrating on the practical business of moving through danger and helping one another under fire. Josh Hartnett plays Eversmann, alongside Ewan McGregor as Grimes, Tom Sizemore as McKnight and Eric Bana as Hoot. Directed by Ridley Scott, with a screenplay by Ken Nolan drawn from Mark Bowden’s book, the story centres on the men caught in the fighting and their efforts to get out alive. ## Review Ridley Scott’s *Black Hawk Down* is worth seeing for the handling of combat, provided we accept how little it explains about the war. Scott concentrates on American soldiers trying to survive a military operation in Somalia, and makes the practical difficulties of that task absorbing. Getting men through the fighting takes precedence over giving them much of a life beyond it. That narrow focus brings force and clarity to the action, but it also sets limits that Ken Nolan’s screenplay makes little effort to overcome. Sławomir Idziak’s colour work is aggressive, and the crowded combat images demand constant attention. Yet we can usually work out what the men are trying to do and what prevents them from doing it. Pietro Scalia’s editing preserves that immediate clarity even when the operation itself is confused. We were frightened by the sustained gunfire, because the cutting keeps returning us to men still having to function inside it. The film gives us enough time to register the difficulty of a task before adding another threat. Production designer Arthur Max makes the streets feel difficult to cross and harder still to get out of. The physical surroundings help us understand why moving men through the battle takes so much effort. Hans Zimmer’s score is effective at giving the fighting an emotional weight that the sparse characterisation cannot always supply. That support matters when so much of our attention is occupied by the next immediate danger. Josh Hartnett’s Eversmann gives us someone to follow, and Hartnett is persuasive at making responsibility look like a burden. Ewan McGregor’s Grimes and Eric Bana’s Hoot bring distinct faces and temperaments, but Nolan leaves too much of the work of separating the men to the cast. Tom Sizemore’s McKnight benefits from a directness that suits the film’s practical business. We need only a little more personal detail to care about each man separately; too often, recognising the actor has to do. The lack of a substantial Somali perspective is harder to forgive. The film pays such close attention to the Americans’ difficulties that the people whose country they are fighting in seldom receive comparable consideration. This matters because Scott asks us to feel the cost of violence while giving us little chance to know those on the other side. A few more lives given comparable attention would have helped, without requiring Nolan to turn the screenplay into a lecture. The battle is seen almost entirely through American military experience. At 145 minutes, the film also tests how much sustained combat can tell us once its central difficulties are clear. Further stretches sometimes repeat the strain without adding much to our understanding of the men enduring it. The editing remains skilful even where a shorter stretch of fighting would have served the film better. Within the war procedural, Scott’s command of logistics gives the film a firm claim on a genre enthusiast’s evening. We recommend it for that audience, with the warning that anyone wanting to understand the conflict will need to look elsewhere. *Fi1m score 73, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics respond favourably to Black Hawk Down, with praise concentrated on Ridley Scott’s direction and the punishing immediacy of the combat sequences. The reviews repeatedly credit the film’s visual control, technical realism and attention to battlefield logistics with conveying the confusion and brutality of warfare. Several also find that its focus on soldiers under pressure conveys camaraderie and suffering without relying on sentimentality or straightforward triumphalism. The disagreement concerns what that immersion leaves out, and whether the American viewpoint becomes jingoism. Total Film sees troops out of their depth and some acknowledgement of Somali suffering; Radio Times sees chest-beating melodrama with the effect of a recruitment film. Reservations recur even in favourable reviews: thin characterisation, scant political context and inadequate attention to Somali perspectives. The spread runs from strong admiration to mixed responses, with technical skill more widely accepted than the film’s treatment of the conflict. ### Reviews we read (14) - **Empire**, Mark Dinning (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the film as an ambitious and frenetic war movie that exposes the tragedy of war through relentless, chaotic intensity rather than jingoism or sentimentality. Scott's direction delivers a gritty, realistic depiction that turns genre conventions on their head. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/black-hawk-review/) - **Total Film** (85/100, inferred): The critic describes it as a grubby, gritty and gruelling war film that avoids jingoism, showing US troops out of their depth while attempting some balance on Somali suffering. It is lauded as a technical tour de force that immerses viewers in the battle without gratuitous violence. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/black-hawk-down-review/) - **Evening Standard**, Gavin Martin (80/100, inferred): The review highlights the film's unflinching portrayal of war's horrors and its focus on soldierly heroism and camaraderie amid chaos. It notes the timely relevance post-9/11 while commending the technical realism and cautionary tone without being purely triumphalist. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/full-military-honours-6331493.html) - **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (3/4): Ridley Scott’s film is a relentless, mind-numbing war procedural that honors the 18-hour mission with gripping battlefield sequences and an effective Hans Zimmer score, though its history is remiss and it offers no emotional face to the Somali side. It is punishing and less entertaining than a usual Bruckheimer dud. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/black-hawk-down/) - **Radio Times**, Andrew Collins (3/5): The film is a noisy, gung-ho war movie that disguises a strategic American mess as chest-beating melodrama despite its basis in real events. Scott's technical skill makes the battle scenes immersive, but it lacks identifiable characters, insight into the conflict, and amounts to little more than a recruitment film in a post-9/11 context. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-ldct1a/black-hawk-down/) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (55/100, inferred): The film turns the 1993 Somalia events into a long, cacophonous action spectacle focused on American soldiers getting out alive, with no real backstory or political context. Scott delivers a pure, ascetic war movie with strong visuals and relentless combat sequences, but it lacks excitement and comes across as macho posturing. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/jan/18/culture.reviews) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan: The critic calls the film a triumph of pure filmmaking, a pitiless and unrelenting war movie that convincingly puts viewers inside the 15-hour battle. He singles out the fluid skill, realism, and vivid adaptation of the source book for creating an exhilarating if tough experience. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-28-et-turan28-story.html) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert: The critic praises the film's accurate and comprehensible depiction of the chaotic battle and its focus on the soldiers' experiences rather than heroics or speeches. He singles out the visual strategy and clear storytelling for making the logistics and events understandable. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/black-hawk-down-2002) - **Screen Daily**: The film offers a visually awesome, gritty and ultra-realistic portrait of men in combat but highlights the limits of visceral cinema with its thin premise and excessive running time focused on gruelling warfare. It succeeds as an epic combat chronicle but fails to develop individual characters or provide vital political context beyond title cards. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/black-hawk-down/407864.article) - **Sight and Sound**, Philip Strick: The film is a technically skilled but biased reconstruction of the Battle of Mogadishu that emphasizes American soldiers as victims of mismanagement while offering little insight into Somali motivations. It delivers visceral battle sequences with spectacular photography but relies on clichés and ends with only slight redemption via a closing title. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/1842/) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias: The film is a viscerally punishing, you-are-there account of modern warfare that focuses intensely on the blow-by-blow logistics of the battle from the American military's point of view. It sidesteps charges of exploitation through its scale and verisimilitude while capturing the close-up brutality of combat, though it leaves moral and political questions off-screen. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/black-hawk-down-1798192841) - **The New York Times**, Elvis Mitchell: The critic notes the film's visual aplomb and how its jingoism feels part of the atmosphere, praising Ridley Scott's talent for establishing mood through pictorial means. He singles out the dazzling color work but criticizes the lack of emotional grounding and proper character development. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/28/movies/film-review-mission-of-mercy-goes-bad-in-africa.html) - **Time Out**, TCh: Scott's film reconstructs the chaotic 15-hour firefight in harrowing detail from the source book, creating an accomplished and credible technical achievement that conveys the confusion and cock-up of the misadventure. It honours the troops but provides grossly inadequate Somali perspectives and zero backstory. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/black-hawk-down) - **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (75/100, inferred): The critic praises Ridley Scott for surpassing himself with the exceptional visual quality of the relentless action sequences. However, the film falters due to indistinguishable characters amid the chaos and questions the value of US intervention in someone else's civil war. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/black-hawk-down-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) ## Details - **Director:** Ridley Scott - **Director:** Ridley Scott - **Screenplay:** Ken Nolan - **Novel:** Mark Bowden - **Cinematography:** Sławomir Idziak - **Editor:** Pietro Scalia - **Music:** Hans Zimmer - **Production design:** Arthur Max - **Costume design:** Sammy Sheldon, David Murphy - **Producer:** Jerry Bruckheimer, Ridley Scott - **Cast:** Josh Hartnett as Eversmann; Ewan McGregor as Grimes; Tom Sizemore as McKnight; Eric Bana as Hoot; William Fichtner as Sanderson; Ewen Bremner as Nelson; Sam Shepard as Garrison; Gabriel Casseus as Kurth - **Runtime:** 2h 25m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 18 January 2002 - **Genres:** Action, War, History - **Budget:** $92 million - **Box office:** $173 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1UV3Vj4z0w ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Apple TV: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-14.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HR, HU, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, TR, UA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2002: Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (won); Best Sound (won) ## If you liked this - *The Battle of Algiers* (1966), Fi1m 93: Urban warfare examined with the political attention Scott largely leaves elsewhere. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-battle-of-algiers.md) - *The Thin Red Line* (1998), Fi1m 84: Combat, fear and soldiers with room to think beyond their next orders. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-thin-red-line.md) - *The Steel Helmet* (1951): A smaller war film with sharper interest in the men carrying rifles. - *'71* (2014), Fi1m 82: Another military operation unravels, with street geography making every wrong turn matter. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/71.md) - *City of Life and Death* (2009): A punishing account of occupation that gives civilians the attention they deserve. --- © 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/black-hawk-down