---
title: "Che: Part One"
year: 2008
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/che-part-one"
fi1m_id: "che-part-one"
imdb_id: "tt0892255"
tmdb_id: 8881
wikidata_id: "Q860425"
fi1m_score: 72
critics_score: 68
critics_reviews: 11
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:54.226716+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."
---

# Che: Part One (2008)

Directed by Steven Soderbergh · 2h 14m · MPA NR · Drama, History, War

## Identity

Che: Part One

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/che-part-one
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** che-part-one
- **IMDb ID:** tt0892255
- **TMDB ID:** 8881
- **Wikidata ID:** Q860425
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892255/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8881, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q860425

**Fi1m score: 72** · Critics 68 from 11 reviews

*In a sentence:* Two hours of men in the trees arguing about supply lines, and it turns out that is what a revolution is

> Soderbergh’s first half of his Guevara film is about how a revolution is run: marches, supply, discipline, argument. Del Toro is watchful and commanding, the method is bracing, and the man himself stays just out of reach.

## Synopsis

Steven Soderbergh’s two-part account of Ernesto Che Guevara begins here, with the Cuban campaign. Guevara (Benicio del Toro), an Argentine doctor, meets Fidel Castro (Demián Bichir) in Mexico and joins the small force that sails for Cuba. In the Sierra Maestra the rebels train recruits, treat the sick, argue over discipline and move slowly down from the mountains towards the towns. Cut against this, in black and white, is Guevara in New York in 1964, giving interviews to the journalist Lisa Howard (Julia Ormond) and speaking at the United Nations. Santiago Cabrera, Vladimir Cruz, Elvira Mínguez and Edgar Ramírez play the fighters around him. Soderbergh shot it himself; Peter Buchman wrote the screenplay.

## Review

Steven Soderbergh’s account of the Cuban revolution runs a little over four hours and arrives as two films. This is the first, and it stops before Havana. It opens with Ernesto Guevara, an Argentine doctor, at a table in Mexico with Fidel Castro (Demián Bichir), follows him into the Sierra Maestra, and ends in the streets of Santa Clara. Cut against that is a second strand, in black and white: Guevara in New York in 1964, being interviewed and addressing the United Nations. Peter Buchman’s screenplay is not much interested in what made the man. It is interested in how the war was fought, day by day, and that is the whole film.

Benicio del Toro, who also produced, plays Guevara from the outside. We never see a man deciding to become a revolutionary; we see one who has already decided, wheezing through an asthma attack on a climb, teaching a fighter to read, treating the wounded when the shooting stops. His voice barely rises in 134 minutes. Guevara is in nearly every scene and we learn almost nothing about what he wants for himself, and the performance makes that feel like discipline rather than a gap. There is one scene with a horse that will not go where it is told, and for a few seconds Del Toro’s face does something it does nowhere else.

Soderbergh shot it himself, and the two strands look nothing alike. The Sierra is in colour and wide, green and wet, with the camera at eye level, walking when the column walks and stopping when it stops. New York is grainy black and white, handheld, framed like the television of the period, so that we are watching a public face being asked what it thinks. Antxón Gómez’s camps are a few hammocks, a stove and a radio, and they look as if they could be gone in an hour. Bina Daigeler’s fatigues get dirtier and better fitted as the months pass; you can tell how long a man has been up the mountain by his trousers. Alberto Iglesias’s score is spare and often absent. The loudest thing in the film is rain.

Pablo Zumárraga cuts between the two so that a question put in New York is answered by something done in the hills, or is not answered, and the film lets the gap stand. The fighting comes late, and it is the best stretch. Santa Clara is taken from rooftops and through doorways, a block at a time, the camera down among the men doing the firing, and it is the one place where the film’s patience turns into excitement. We were properly gripped, and a little surprised to be, after an hour and a half of marching.

The cost of the method is that for long stretches the film asks us to be interested rather than moved, and we were interested, and we noticed the difference. Bichir’s Castro is good and sly and does most of the talking. The men around Guevara are another matter. Santiago Cabrera’s Cienfuegos, Vladimir Cruz’s Valdés and Edgar Ramírez’s Redondo are names attached to beards, and forty minutes in we could not have told you which was which. Julia Ormond’s Lisa Howard asks the questions we would ask and gets the answers a politician gives. The film knows what Guevara did after Havana and does not raise it. Part One ends before that argument can start.

Set against the ordinary biopic, this is close to a rebuke. There is no childhood, no wound to explain everything, no scene in which somebody tells Guevara what he means to history. Set against Soderbergh’s own record it is the most patient thing the director of *Ocean’s Eleven* has made, and for most of its length the patience is rewarded.

See it in a cinema if one will show it, where the length works on you and the Sierra is big enough to get lost in. At home it can turn into a documentary you admire from the sofa, which is not quite what it is. It runs 134 minutes and carries a 15. Do not expect to come out knowing the man. Expect to come out knowing how he ran a war, which is the rarer thing.

*Fi1m score 72, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics are on the film’s side, though few love it without reservation. The praise clusters around Benicio Del Toro, whose quiet, matter-of-fact Guevara is repeatedly named as the thing holding the film together, and around Soderbergh’s decision to make a procedural about guerrilla warfare rather than a biopic about a famous man. Several reviews admire the attention to marches, tactics and the daily business of fighting, and Empire singles out the battle for Santa Clara.

The reservations cluster just as tightly: the battle scenes repeat, the film is dry, and Che himself is given almost no inner life. Slant argues that Soderbergh’s professed neutrality drains the emotion from the story, and The AV Club finds it more interesting to think about than to sit through. The spread is wide. Time Out calls it monumental; The Times finds it bogged down in the mechanics of warfare and too respectful of the myth.

## Straight answers

**Is Che: Part One worth watching?**

*Che: Part One* is worth watching for anyone with the patience for two hours of marching, supply lines and argument before the fighting starts, and we scored it 72. Benicio del Toro plays Guevara from the outside and the film never explains the man, so it suits viewers curious about how a guerrilla war is run rather than those wanting a life story.

**How long is Che: Part One, and what is it rated?**

*Che: Part One* runs 2h 14m and is rated NR by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and history film.

**Where can I watch Che: Part One in the US?**

*Che: Part One* is not on any streaming or rental service in the US at the moment. It is available in 16 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Che: Part One, and is it suitable for children?**

*Che: Part One* carries a UK 15 certificate, and its violence is a war film's, arriving late and shot down among the men firing from rooftops and doorways in Santa Clara. It is not frightening and nothing lingers on gore, but the length and the slow hours of camp life will lose most children long before the guns do.

**How does Che: Part One compare to Che: Part Two?**

*Che: Part One* is the warmer and more rewarding of Soderbergh's two Guevara films, following the Cuban campaign from the Sierra Maestra down to Santa Clara, where its patience finally turns into excitement. [*Che: Part Two*](https://film.one/film/che-part-two) applies the same method to Bolivia and turns bleak, with a middle hour that asks more than it repays. Start with this one; go on to the second only if the method has won you over.

**What should I watch after Che: Part One?**

After *Che: Part One*, try [*Che: Part Two*](https://film.one/film/che-part-two) (2008, Fi1m 76): The second half, in Bolivia, where the same method turns bleak and the men grow thin. Then [*The Battle of Algiers*](https://film.one/film/the-battle-of-algiers) (1966, Fi1m 93): Insurgency as procedure, shot like newsreel; the model Soderbergh is plainly working from; and [*Memories of Underdevelopment*](https://film.one/film/memories-of-underdevelopment) (1968, Fi1m 84): Havana after the revolution, seen by a man who cannot decide what he thinks of it.

### Reviews we read (16)

- **Time Out**, Geoff Andrew (5/5): The critic calls it a monumental achievement and a great movie that rewards patience and proper attention. They single out its formal audacity and eschewal of traditional heroics in focusing on the process of revolutionary struggle rather than conventional biopic portraiture. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/che-part-one)
- **The Guardian**, Philip French (80/100, inferred): The critic calls it an intelligent, fast-moving, well-researched film that offers a convincing account of the bitter struggle and a portrait of a great and complex revolutionary. The exciting, adventurous narrative with Guevara in virtually every scene is singled out for praise. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jan/04/che-part-1-review)
- **Empire**, Andrew Male (75/100, inferred): The critic finds Part One a dream-like if frustrating essay on the heroism and claustrophobia of war, perfectly centred by a compelling star performance. They single out the final battle for Santa Clara as a stunning set-piece. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/che-part-one-review/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Sheri Linden (75/100, inferred): The critic praises the film’s resistance to conventional biopic tropes by emphasizing guerrilla strategy and tactics over psychology, singling out its meticulous compositions and the one emotionally naked moment involving a recalcitrant horse. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-dec-12-et-che12-story.html)
- **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): The review praises Soderbergh’s measured approach that eschews grand gestures for an absorbing, thoughtful focus on personalities and political arguments. It highlights Benicio Del Toro’s commanding performance stressing Che the man rather than the hero, while noting the film grips intellectually but may seem dry to general audiences. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/che-part-one/4038770.article)
- **The AV Club**, Noel Murray, Scott Tobias (B-): The four-hour, two-part film contains a surfeit of ideas and amazing scenes but is held together by mush, with lengthy battle sequences that feel slapped-together and a lack of visceral connection. It is fascinating in theory but more compelling as an intellectual exercise than as an actual moviegoing experience. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-a-v-club-at-tiff-08-day-5-1798215043)
- **The New York Times**, A.O. Scott (70/100, inferred): The critic views Soderbergh’s two-part epic as a martial poem focused on arms and the man, praising its scope across insurgencies while noting its austere, repetitive motifs of facial hair, tobacco, and militant rhetoric. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/movies/12che.html)
- **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (60/100, inferred): The review highlights the film’s structure as two separate stories with Part One ending before the triumph in Havana, commending its focus on guerrilla training and deployment in the Sierra Maestra while noting omissions of Che’s later tyrannical actions. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/01/19/ches-way)
- **The Telegraph** (50/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a bold and possibly perverse endeavour, a rangy 'guerrilla biopic' with painstaking fidelity to the factual record of Che's achievements. The arduous trudge of revolutionary warfare is singled out as the core experience, which may enlighten or perplex depending on taste. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/4059701/Che-Part-One-review.html)
- **The Times**, Cosmo Landesman (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film bogged down in repetitive battle scenes due to excessive fascination with the mechanics of guerrilla warfare. The failure to challenge the myth of Che or provide a more intimate look at the man is singled out for complaint. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/che-part-one-the-sunday-times-review-n0tm27r5sx8)
- **Slant Magazine**, Fernando F. Croce: Soderbergh’s professed neutrality toward Guevara’s life and times succeeds mostly in leeching the emotion out of them. Too emotionally dry to embrace but too ingenious to dismiss, it is a fascinating, problematic film of intelligent fastidiousness rather than vivid inspiration. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/che/)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**: The critic finds the two-part biopic a highly worthwhile, professionally accomplished project overall. In its obsessive devotion to precise documentation, however, the film forgets to inspire, with Benicio del Toro's robust yet subtle portrayal singled out as the heart of the work. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/che-film-review-126170/)
- **Paste**, Jesse Jarnow (70/100, inferred): Soderbergh and Del Toro treat Che’s life as a realist epic in an audacious four-hour-plus film focused on the guerrilla struggles. The critic singles out Guevara’s unbendable will, as embodied by Del Toro, and the irreducible language of the marches, rivers, and battles across Cuba in Part One. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/che-the-argentine-guerrilla)
- **Eye for Film**, Chris: The critic finds Soderbergh's approach to Che's role in the Cuban revolution a calm, unspectacular procedural that comes close to documentary in its historical accuracy and focus on the demands of guerrilla warfare. Benicio Del Toro's restrained performance is singled out for praise as sincere and blending seamlessly with the quasi-documentary style. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/che-the-argentine-film-review-by-chris)
- **The Playlist**, Rodrigo Perez: The critic calls the TIFF screening of Part One an unadorned yet impressive achievement, praising its unsentimental, intimate depiction of the Cuban revolution as magnetically engrossing and understated like a tough-minded BBC film. Benicio del Toro's matter-of-fact performance and Soderbergh's efficient, literal documentary-like lens are highlighted for avoiding biopic clichés. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/tiff-review-che-argentine-is-unadorned-20080911/)
- **The Skinny**, Keir Roper-Caldbeck (***): The critic finds Part One a ponderous but detailed procedural on the Cuban Revolution, highlighting the attention to the daily concerns and visual details of the guerrilla fighters while noting the lack of inner life for Che. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/che-parts-one-and-two)

## Details

- **Director:** Steven Soderbergh
- **Director:** Steven Soderbergh
- **Screenplay:** Peter Buchman
- **Cinematography:** Steven Soderbergh
- **Editor:** Pablo Zumárraga
- **Music:** Alberto Iglesias
- **Production design:** Antxón Gómez
- **Costume design:** Bina Daigeler
- **Producer:** Silvana Paternostro, Laura Bickford, Benicio del Toro
- **Cast:** Benicio del Toro as Ernesto Che Guevara; Demián Bichir as Fidel Castro; Santiago Cabrera as Camilo Cienfuegos; Vladimir Cruz as Ramiro Valdés Menéndez; Alfredo de Quesada as Israel Pardo; Jsu Garcia as Jorge Sotus; Kahlil Méndez as Leonardo Tamayo Núñez; Elvira Mínguez as Celia Sánchez
- **Runtime:** 2h 14m
- **Certificate (MPA):** NR
- **Release (the US):** 24 January 2009
- **Genres:** Drama, History, War
- **Budget:** $58 million

## Where to watch in the US

Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check.

Also available in: AT, BR, CL, CO, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IT, MX, NO, PL, SE. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Che: Part Two* (2008), Fi1m 76: The second half, in Bolivia, where the same method turns bleak and the men grow thin. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/che-part-two.md)
- *The Battle of Algiers* (1966), Fi1m 93: Insurgency as procedure, shot like newsreel; the model Soderbergh is plainly working from. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-battle-of-algiers.md)
- *Army of Shadows* (1969): Melville’s Resistance is fear, waiting and paperwork, and nobody makes a speech.
- *Memories of Underdevelopment* (1968), Fi1m 84: Havana after the revolution, seen by a man who cannot decide what he thinks of it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/memories-of-underdevelopment.md)
- *Land and Freedom* (1995), Fi1m 83: Loach’s Spanish Civil War, with the arguments about land held in real time, in a barn. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/land-and-freedom.md)

---
© 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/che-part-one