--- title: "Jason Bourne" year: 2016 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/jason-bourne" fi1m_score: 61 critics_score: 64 critics_reviews: 25 published: "2026-09-19T09:47:43.910067+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T09:47:45.896787+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." --- # Jason Bourne (2016) Directed by Paul Greengrass · 2h 03m · MPA PG-13 · Action, Adventure, Thriller **Fi1m score: 61** · Critics 64 from 25 reviews *In a sentence:* Two hours of people watching Matt Damon on monitors, which is roughly what we did too > Damon and Greengrass return after nine years with two of the best chases in the series and a story that has nowhere left to go. The Athens riot is worth the evening on its own; the rest is capable people going through familiar motions. ## Synopsis Ten years after he vanished from the CIA’s sight, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is bare-knuckle fighting for cash on the Greek-Albanian border. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), now working with a hacker collective in Reykjavik, breaks into the agency’s servers and pulls the Treadstone files, including something about how Bourne was recruited. She arranges to meet him in Athens on the night of an anti-austerity riot. The intrusion is spotted by Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), who runs the CIA’s cyber operations, and by director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), who sends a hitman known only as the Asset (Vincent Cassel) to close the matter. Dewey has another problem: a quiet surveillance deal with Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), whose social network Deep Dream is about to launch in Las Vegas. ## Review Nine years after *The Bourne Ultimatum*, and one Jeremy Renner detour later, Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass have come back to the man with the memory problem. The question hanging over *Jason Bourne* is whether there was anything left for him to find out. The film’s answer is a file about his father, a villain in a good suit talking about privacy, and two chases of real quality. It is a good action film and a thin Bourne film, and the two facts are related. Greengrass and his editor Christopher Rouse wrote it together, and the script follows the old pattern to the letter: a hack, a leak, a meeting in a crowd, a room in Langley full of people watching it all on screens. The difference is that [*The Bourne Identity*](https://film.one/film/the-bourne-identity) (2002) and [*The Bourne Supremacy*](https://film.one/film/the-bourne-supremacy) (2004) had a man trying to work out who he was, and the answer changed what he did next. Here Bourne already knows his name; the poster says so. What he is handed instead is a piece of family history, delivered in a few grainy flashbacks, and Damon greets each revelation with the same set jaw. He is on screen nearly all the time and speaks, by our rough count, less than anyone else in the cast. In 2002 that silence was a mystery. Here it looks like a man who has been told to keep the plot moving. Athens is the reason to see it. Bourne and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) try to meet in a square that is on fire, with riot police on one side, petrol bombs on the other, and the Asset (Vincent Cassel) on a rooftop with a rifle and the CIA in his ear. Barry Ackroyd shoots it handheld from inside the crowd, so the smoke and the sparks are in the lens with the actors, and Rouse cuts it so that we always know where three people are in relation to each other, which is harder than it looks and is the thing Greengrass does that his imitators cannot. We were properly gripped for twenty minutes, sat forward, the way we were in the Waterloo sequence of *Ultimatum*. It is the best passage in the film and it is over before the half-hour mark. The new faces do what they can. Alicia Vikander plays Heather Lee with a stillness that reads as ambition rather than loyalty, and she is the one performer who seems to be thinking a scene ahead of the script. Tommy Lee Jones plays Dewey as a tired grandfather growling about the greater good; he could do it asleep, and it works, but the film asks him for nothing else. Riz Ahmed’s Aaron Kalloor, the tech founder whose social network has been built with agency money, is the film’s stab at the present day, and it is a fair idea sketched in two scenes and then dropped for a shootout. Cassel is given a grudge, a rifle and no line we could quote back. Then Las Vegas, where the Asset steals an armoured police truck and drives it down the Strip through what feels like a mile of stationary cars, flattening them one after another. It is staged with great skill. We laughed, and we do not think we were meant to. The earlier films fought in bathrooms and stairwells with a rolled-up magazine, and their point was that Bourne was smaller and cleverer than the machine chasing him. Here the machine is the show. Paul Kirby’s production design makes the same argument without meaning to: the CIA rooms are walls of monitors and blue glass, the Vegas hotel is gold and marble, and Bourne, in the grey hoodie Mark Bridges keeps him in for most of the film, looks like a man who has wandered into the wrong picture. John Powell and David Buckley bring back the familiar pulse under the chases, and it does its job of telling us the clock is running. There is no new tune. That is true of the film generally. Against the series it is the weakest of the four with Damon in it, and a long way better than *The Bourne Legacy* (2012), which is a low bar and a real one. It runs 123 minutes and carries a 12A. See it for Athens, and for Vikander, and try to be kind about Vegas. The man in the hoodie has done all of this before, and he did it when it meant something. *Fi1m score 61, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics welcome the reunion of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass and agree the action is the reason to go. The praise clusters on the chases: the pursuit through an Athens riot is named again and again as the film’s high point, and the editing of the set pieces is admired for its precision. Damon’s stoic, physical performance is thought to carry the film, Alicia Vikander is a welcome addition as a CIA operative, and the post-Snowden surveillance material strikes many as timely. The reservations cluster on the story. Many call it familiar and thin, short on inner life, a retread of earlier entries with cyberterrorism buzzwords added, and several rank it the weakest of Damon’s Bourne films. The Las Vegas finale divides them: satisfying to some, ridiculous to others. The spread is wide, from raves to a handful of dismissals. Vulture finds it assaultive and exhausting, with a dull Damon, and Collider calls it a formulaic moneygrab. ### Reviews we read (25) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (Critic’s Choice): The critic praises the film as a tense, propulsive model of mainstream entertainment done right, highlighting how it fuses Damon's empathetic persona with high-octane action while addressing contemporary socio-political concerns. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-jason-bourne-review-20160725-snap-story.html) - **Evening Standard**, David Sexton (80/100, inferred): Welcomes the return of Damon and Greengrass, highlighting Damon's intense performance and the director's skill at delivering gripping, intelligent action sequences. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/jason-bourne-film-review-a-very-welcome-return-from-matt-damon-a3307351.html) - **Radio Times**, Jeremy Aspinall (★★★★): Damon and Greengrass return in top form with superbly sustained tension, immersive action, and a timely post-Snowden surveillance theme; the globe-trotting chases and strong cast deliver Bourne supremacy despite familiar narrative beats. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/jason-bourne-review-matt-damon-is-back-and-its-superbly-sustained-sweaty-palmed-tension-all-the-way/) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (4/5): The critic hails a confident, modern post-Snowden thriller that reunites Damon and Greengrass for visceral, globe-trotting action sequences blending cyber elements with classic Bourne chases. Damon’s physical performance stands out for conveying depth amid the spectacle. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/31/jason-bourne-review-matt-damon-paul-greengrass-tommy-lee-jones) - **The Independent** (4/5): Praises the relentless pacing and bravura action filmmaking but criticizes the film as one-dimensional with little inner life for the characters. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/jason-bourne-film-review-matt-damon-plays-the-lead-with-every-bit-as-much-intensity-as-the-first-a7157651.html) - **Empire**, Jimi Famurewa (75/100, inferred): Calls it a worthy return driven by impressive action set-pieces, strong casting and Greengrass's kinetic style that elevates it above imitators. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/jason-bourne-review/) - **Film Comment**, Michael Sragow (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a solid visceral workout for fans that delivers on action and nods to current events, though it descends into familiar routines. Damon’s stoic performance and Vikander’s electrifying turn as a CIA operative are singled out for praise. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/deep-focus-jason-bourne/) - **Variety**, Peter Debruge (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it a tough, exciting return that reveals more of Bourne’s backstory and delivers globe-trotting thrills with Greengrass’s signature style, though it flags somewhat in the Las Vegas finale. [Read](https://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/jason-bourne-review-1201812257/) - **Screen Daily** (65/100, inferred): Greengrass and Damon expertly go through the motions in an enjoyable but familiar sequel with smooth efficiency and sturdy action pleasures; emotional underpinnings are missing, though Alicia Vikander is a welcome addition as a smart aide. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/jason-bourne-review/5106792.article) - **Sight and Sound**, Henry K. Miller (60/100, inferred): The film struggles to adapt the spy thriller to the age of information overload and surveillance technology, with familiar plot beats, hard-to-follow action sequences, and a lack of memorable dialogue or villains. Despite these issues, the critic admits to enjoying it. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/film-week-jason-bourne) - **The Telegraph**, Robbie Collin (3/5): The review finds the film a crisp but unoriginal return that recycles familiar Bourne elements without enough novelty, though it delivers satisfying set pieces like the Athens and Vegas chases. It lacks the spark of earlier entries in the series. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/07/26/jason-bourne-still-packs-a-punch-but-ends-up-chasing-his-own-tai/) - **Time Out**, Tom Huddleston (3/5): The film is business as usual with a weak paternal plot device that fails to engage, but the bone-rattling action chases in Athens and Las Vegas are thrilling and efficient. These sequences just about justify its existence, though the critic hopes there will be no more. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/jason-bourne) - **Total Film**, Jordan Farley (60/100, inferred): Notes it is leagues ahead of Legacy and still thrilling thanks to Greengrass's action direction but calls it the weakest Damon entry with a story that has run out of steam. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/jason-bourne-review/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (50/100, inferred): The critic finds the film engrossing until a ridiculous Las Vegas chase, praising Greengrass's visceral action sequences and new characters like Vikander and Ahmed, but complains about the flat finish and one-dimensional characters. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/jason-bourne-film-review-912647/) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (50/100, inferred): The critic views the film as abounding in thrills but oddly stifled by self-consciousness and superfluous, noting that much of it smacks of established routine while the Athens riot scenes stand out as a high point. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/08/jason-bourne-and-little-men-reviews) - **RogerEbert.com**, Matt Zoller Seitz (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film disappointing despite the reunion of Damon and Greengrass, noting it feels like fan fiction that reworks familiar elements with added cyberterrorism buzzwords but lacks a satisfying new arc for the character. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jason-bourne-2016) - **Slant Magazine**, Jake Cole (30/100, inferred): The critic notes that while the thematic updates are intriguing, the film buries them in revenge plots and revels in titillating violence rather than visceral action, criticizing the calculated action sequences. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/jason-bourne/) - **Vulture**, David Edelstein (30/100, inferred): The critic praises the jaw-dropping action sequences and Greengrass's style but criticizes the film as assaultive, humorless, with a dull performance from Damon, calling it exhausting due to sensory overload. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2016/07/review-the-sensory-overload-of-jason-bourne.html) - **The Wrap**, Robert Abele (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's kinetic action sequences and Greengrass's direction, noting it as a bruising and exhilarating ride that stands out with mindful moments about violence. They highlight the return of Damon and Greengrass as a welcome revival of the franchise's grittier thrills. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/jason-bourne-review/) - **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (80/100, inferred): The review calls the film an exciting and timely re-invention of the series, commending the spectacular action set pieces and the perfect fit of Damon in the role. It singles out the strong performances and timely cyber elements as keeping the franchise relevant. [Read](https://deadline.com/2016/07/jason-bourne-review-matt-damon-return-paul-greengrass-1201794969/) - **Den of Geek**, Simon Brew (4/5): The film is welcomed as thrilling and ambitious with expert action sequences despite a thin narrative that adds little new to the character. Greengrass’s staging of a chase through an Athens riot is singled out as particularly impressive. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/jason-bourne-review-2/) - **Polygon**, Arthur Gies (65/100, inferred): The film feels like a faded memory of past Bourne entries but succeeds in showcasing Damon's physical capability and Greengrass's kinetic direction in well-shot, fun action sequences. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/2016/7/28/12318966/jason-bourne-review/) - **Digital Spy**, Rosie Fletcher (60/100, inferred): The review notes that the film delivers electric action and spectacular set pieces but lacks novelty or emotional depth in its story. The precise editing of the chases is singled out for praise. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a802665/jason-bourne-review/) - **/Film**, David Chen (5/10): The critic finds it the weakest of the Damon Bourne films, criticizing the thin and repetitive plot that adds nothing new while feeling listless and out of character at times. Some action sequences are staged effectively but overall it feels like a half-hearted retread. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/545641/jason-bourne-review/) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (D): The critic finds the film formulaic and unnecessary, a moneygrab that fails to revitalize the character or add meaningful new elements despite its action set pieces. [Read](https://collider.com/jason-bourne-review/) ## Details - **Director:** Paul Greengrass - **Director:** Paul Greengrass - **Writer:** Paul Greengrass, Christopher Rouse - **Cinematography:** Barry Ackroyd - **Editor:** Christopher Rouse - **Music:** John Powell, David Buckley - **Production design:** Paul Kirby - **Costume design:** Mark Bridges - **Producer:** Matt Damon, Paul Greengrass, Gregory Goodman - **Cast:** Matt Damon as Jason Bourne; Tommy Lee Jones as CIA Director Robert Dewey; Alicia Vikander as Heather Lee; Vincent Cassel as Asset; Julia Stiles as Nicky Parsons; Riz Ahmed as Aaron Kalloor; Ato Essandoh as Craig Jeffers; Scott Shepherd as Director NI Edwin Russell - **Runtime:** 2h 03m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 29 July 2016 - **Genres:** Action, Adventure, Thriller - **Budget:** $120 million - **Box office:** $415 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4gJsKZvqE4 ## Where to watch in the US - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Bourne Ultimatum* (2007), Fi1m 85: The same team when the questions still mattered; Waterloo station remains the model. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-bourne-ultimatum.md) - *Three Days of the Condor* (1975), Fi1m 80: Redford runs from his own agency with a paperback, not a truck. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/three-days-of-the-condor.md) - *Ronin* (1998), Fi1m 80: Frankenheimer’s Paris car chases, shot for real, with De Niro looking tired and dangerous. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ronin.md) - *The Lives of Others* (2006), Fi1m 84: Surveillance as a man in an attic with headphones; slower, sadder, far more frightening. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lives-of-others.md) - *Munich* (2005), Fi1m 80: Spielberg’s assassins learn the cost of the work; the film Bourne keeps gesturing towards. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/munich.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/jason-bourne