---
title: "Mustang"
year: 2015
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/mustang"
fi1m_score: 84
critics_score: 76
critics_reviews: 22
published: "2026-09-17T08:23:21.223582+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T08:23:21.434941+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."
---

# Mustang (2015)

Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven · 1h 37m · MPA PG-13 · Drama

**Fi1m score: 84** · Critics 76 from 22 reviews

*In a sentence:* Five sisters whose guardians could do with considerably more supervision

> *Mustang* is a moving, angry drama carried by five persuasive young performers. Deniz Gamze Ergüven makes their sisterhood worth caring about before showing it under threat, though the adults are sometimes written too bluntly.

## Synopsis

Lale (Güneş Şensoy) lives with her sisters Nur (Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu), Ece (Elit İşcan), Selma (Tuğba Sunguroğlu) and Sonay (İlayda Akdoğan) in a contemporary village on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. After innocent play is treated as sexual misconduct, the sisters are confined at home, where the adults want them to prepare for marriage. Lale, the youngest, wants to keep the freedom they have shared. As the rules tighten, the sisters draw on each other’s company and resist the future being arranged for them.

## Review

*Mustang* is a forceful, often moving drama whose five young performers make even its blunter passages worth staying with. Deniz Gamze Ergüven follows sisters in a conservative Turkish village as adults turn innocent play into a reason to shut them away. The film gives their pleasure in each other’s company enough attention for us to understand what confinement takes away. We know what they want to keep, beyond the simple right to leave the house.

Güneş Şensoy gives Lale, the youngest, a watchfulness that makes her resistance convincing. She seems to be assessing how much the adults can be challenged, and how much she can get away with. Alongside her, Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu, Elit İşcan, Tuğba Sunguroğlu and İlayda Akdoğan make the sisters’ closeness feel habitual, with the ease of people who have spent years together. We were moved by their enjoyment of one another; the film lets them be funny without treating every laugh as an announcement of courage.

We were angry when innocent play became grounds for locking the sisters away. The punishment is bad enough, but the certainty that it is deserved makes the scene harder to bear. Deniz Gamze Ergüven and co-writer Alice Winocour understand how ordinary behaviour becomes suspect when adults have already decided that young women need controlling. Their screenplay also leaves room for humour in the girls’ resistance, rather than asking them to look frightened in every scene.

Cinematographers Ersin Gök and David Chizallet photograph the sisters at close quarters, letting their shared company fill the image. That closeness helps us understand confinement as a daily experience, rather than something the dialogue has to keep announcing. Türker İşçi’s production design keeps the domestic setting recognisable even as it becomes oppressive. The house remains a place where these girls live together, which makes the restrictions more disturbing than an openly sinister setting would.

Mathilde Van de Moortel’s editing keeps the drama moving between the sisters’ shared energy and the tightening restrictions. The result has the forward pull of a thriller, with ordinary freedom becoming something that has to be planned for. Warren Ellis’s score encourages us to believe in the girls’ resourcefulness, though it sometimes presses a feeling the performances have already supplied. At 97 minutes, the film rarely lets its anger settle into a lecture.

The weakness is the writing of the adults, who can seem assembled to prove a point already made. Deniz Gamze Ergüven and Alice Winocour sometimes press the cruelty so hard that individual motives become difficult to distinguish. There is no need to soften the repression, but giving its enforcers more recognisable human inconsistencies would make it harder to dismiss them as convenient villains. The young performers carry the film through these stretches, although we would have liked comparable care taken with the people controlling their lives.

As a coming-of-age film, *Mustang* is especially good at allowing its young women to remain lively, impatient and funny under pressure. They do not have to become solemn to deserve our concern, and the cast keep that point convincing even when the script grows insistent. We would recommend it for the pleasure of their company, with one warning: that pleasure does not make this an easy evening.

*Fi1m score 84, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics respond warmly to Mustang, with praise centred on the five young actresses and the convincing affection, humour and rebellious energy they bring to the sisters. The reviews credit Deniz Gamze Ergüven with keeping their youthful vitality visible as restrictions tighten around them. Many find the treatment of patriarchal control angry and affecting without becoming relentlessly grim, and several admire the suspense drawn from the sisters’ confinement.

Reservations concern plausibility and how forcefully the screenplay makes its points. Even supportive reviews note contrived incidents, overstatement and uneven character motivation. Empire admires the performances but finds the symbolism heavy-handed and the drift into melodrama damaging. Slant Magazine is the clear negative outlier, arguing that the film sacrifices nuance and believable behaviour to its message. The spread is broad, then, but the disagreement largely concerns the storytelling rather than the strength of the cast.

### Reviews we read (22)

- **Los Angeles Times** (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a singularly excellent and original ode to the wild spirit of five teenage sisters and their sisterhood in the face of repression. It singles out the unbridled energy expressed through the girls' fierce femininity and the damning portrait of patriarchal control. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-mustang-20151120-story.html)
- **Screen Daily** (90/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a stirring and emotional story of female empowerment that captures the buoyancy of adolescence while critiquing Turkish patriarchy. They praise the cast's camaraderie and the director's ability to immerse viewers in the protagonists' mindset. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/mustang-review/5088579.article)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's sensitive observation of the five sisters as normal, emancipated young women whose supposed transgressions are imagined and magnified in the judgmental minds of others. It highlights the understated feminist drama and the quiet power of the story as a suspenseful prison-break narrative. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/mustang-cannes-review-795711/)
- **The New York Times**, Nicolas Rapold (Critic's Pick): The critic praises the film as a stunning debut that captures the resilient strength of five sisters rebelling against patriarchal confinement in rural Turkey. It highlights the director's deft timing, appreciation of beauty, nimble screenplay, and the strong ensemble performances of the young actresses. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/movies/review-in-mustang-turkish-sisters-and-traditions-clash.html)
- **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri (85/100, inferred): The critic praises how Mustang breathes new life into the old trope of escaping arranged marriages by reconnecting it with elemental horror and grasping the perverted idealism behind forced modesty. It singles out the expertly tense narrative and the reimagined motifs of Turkish melodrama that feel thoroughly new. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2015/11/movie-review-mustang.html)
- **The AV Club**, Mike D'Angelo (B+): The critic sees the film as a horror movie about patriarchy that balances bemoaning the characters' fate with celebrating their resilience, delivering an emotionally direct take less poetic than The Virgin Suicides. It singles out the shattering ending and the spiky humor in the prison-movie elements. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/mustang-is-less-a-turkish-virgin-suicides-than-a-horror-1798185716)
- **Film Comment**, Jonathan Romney (80/100, inferred): The critic highlights the film's depiction of five Turkish sisters' solidarity and exuberant rebellion against familial and societal repression in a conservative Black Sea village, framing it as an affirmative fairy-tale-like story of female freedom and resistance. Some overstatement in character and style is noted, along with a glossy international art-cinema approach, but the young actresses' chemistry and directorial brio are praised. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-of-the-week-mustang/)
- **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s debut is an accomplished study of what it means to be young and female in Turkey. The critic highlights the film’s rooted sense of place, rebellious spirit, light touch with shocking material, and enough humour to engage the audience. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/15/mustang-review-women-rural-turkey-oscar-nominated)
- **The Telegraph**, Tristram Fane Saunders (4/5): Ergüven’s debut reveals a distinctive and exciting new voice in a powerful, uplifting portrait of defiance. The critic singles out the lead performance by Günes Sensoy as the indomitable Lale and the uplifting score by Warren Ellis. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/on-demand/2016/05/19/mustang-is-a-powerful-uplifting-portrait-of-defiance---review/)
- **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (70/100, inferred): The review describes the story of five sisters victimized by orthodoxy and locked away after innocent play, noting their rebellion leads to mixed outcomes. It commends the committed performances of the young actresses and the film's effective stoking of anger at repression, while observing the aesthetic lacks originality. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/mustang)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★★☆): Mustang is incendiary and intimate, enraging and sweet, with a lightness of touch and hint of black comedy that never obscures the feminist message. The critic praises its formal prowess and righteous ire while noting some third-act flaws. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/article/mustang-jrqzz23sl)
- **Time Out** (3.5/5): The review highlights the film's portrayal of five sisters resisting conservative pressures and praises the performances and visual style for conveying their struggle for freedom. It notes that the narrative occasionally stumbles with contrived events and insufficient character motivation. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/tr/film/mustang)
- **Variety** (70/100, inferred): The review highlights the beautifully mounted debut about the demonization of young female sexuality in a Turkish village, praising the director's skill with the cast of newcomers and their vibrant bond. It notes the film's West European sensibility and potential for arthouse success while critiquing some heavy-handed elements in the script. [Read](https://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/mustang-review-cannes-1201500486/)
- **Empire**, David Parkinson (60/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a superbly acted study of suppression that's more intent on provocation than plausibility. It praises the insights into Islamic issues with female sexuality and the performances of the largely non-professional cast, but complains of an inevitable descent into melodrama, heavy-handed symbolism, reliance on voiceover, and a sentimental denouement. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/mustang-review/)
- **Slant Magazine**, James Lattimer (35/100, inferred): The critic faults the film's blinkered commitment to its theme, arguing that plausibility and nuance are sacrificed for a marketable message, with contrived episodes and one-dimensional authority figures. It singles out the eye-rollingly improbable football match sequence as emblematic of the approach. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/mustang/)
- **Paste**, Andy Crump (9.1): The critic hails Mustang as one of the standout debuts of its year, praising its intimate yet sweeping portrait of five sisters under patriarchal control. Ergüven’s precise direction and visual style are singled out for creating a film that balances fury and beauty without descending into histrionics. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/mustang)
- **Consequence** (80/100, inferred): The review calls Mustang an impassioned feminist assertion of youthful autonomy and the right to live freely. It singles out the film’s nuanced character work, especially the distinct personalities of the sisters and the youngest’s arc, as a key strength alongside its empathetic portrayal of generational conflicts. [Read](https://consequence.net/2016/01/film-review-mustang/)
- **The Skinny**, Michelle Devereaux (★★★★): The review calls it a stirring coming-of-age drama centered on five teen sisters fighting draconian guardians, praising their youthful verve, joyful defiance, and the film's political aggression against conservative ideas of female propriety. An abrupt plot twist is flagged as somewhat ill-advised, but the overall wish-fulfillment ending feels earned and invigorating. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/cineskinny/reviews/mustang)
- **The Wrap**, Tricia Olszewski (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a spirited celebration of female rebellion in which five oppressed sisters draw strength from their bond. She singles out the natural, joyful performances of the young non-professional cast for praise. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/mustang-review-france-oscar-turkey-academy-awards/)
- **Eye for Film**, Amber Wilkinson (70/100, inferred): The critic praises Ergüven for siding with the young protagonists and telling their story as an energetic fable accessible to younger audiences. The director is singled out for keeping the girls' spirit and unity at the forefront while showing the gradual tightening of repressive rules. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/mustang-2015-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson)
- **HeyUGuys**, Stefan Pape (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a pertinent and impartial study of patriarchal repression and cultural traditions in contemporary Turkey. Praise is singled out for the intimate, candid camerawork capturing the sisters' brief moments of freedom and the standout performance of the youngest sister Lale. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/mustang-review/)
- **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (70/100, inferred): The review calls the debut heartfelt and beautifully performed, offering an insightful view of female suppression in a restrictive Turkish environment. The exuberant life, liveliness and sororal chemistry of the young cast are singled out for praise despite some directorial inexperience. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-heartfelt-beautiful-cannes-directors-fortnight-prize-winner-mustang-20151118/)

## Details

- **Director:** Deniz Gamze Ergüven
- **Director:** Deniz Gamze Ergüven
- **Writer:** Alice Winocour, Deniz Gamze Ergüven
- **Cinematography:** David Chizallet, Ersin Gök
- **Editor:** Mathilde Van de Moortel
- **Music:** Warren Ellis
- **Production design:** Türker İşçi
- **Costume design:** Selin Sozen
- **Producer:** Charles Gillibert
- **Cast:** Güneş Şensoy as Lale; Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu as Nur; Elit İşcan as Ece; Tuğba Sunguroğlu as Selma; İlayda Akdoğan as Sonay; Ayberk Pekcan as Erol; Bahar Kerimoğlu as Dilek; Burak Yiğit as Yasin
- **Runtime:** 1h 37m
- **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13
- **Release (the US):** 20 November 2015
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Budget:** $1 million
- **Box office:** $5 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_JXyi1EGJk

## Where to watch in the US

- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $1.99, sd
- Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $7.99, sd
- Apple TV: buy $12.99, sd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, CH, CL, CO, DE, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IT, JP, LT, NL, NO, NZ, PA, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 2016: Best International Feature Film (nominated)
- European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film 2016: European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film (nominated)
- International Submission to the Academy Awards 2016: International Submission to the Academy Awards (nominated)
- European Film Award for Best Film 2015: European Film Award for Best Film (nominated)
- European Film Award for European Discovery of the Year 2015: European Film Award for European Discovery of the Year (won)
- Lux Prize 2015: Lux Prize (won)

## If you liked this

- *Wadjda* (2012), Fi1m 80: Another resourceful girl tests the rules adults insist are for her benefit. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/wadjda.md)
- *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: A child’s watchfulness makes adult authority feel strange, distant and quietly frightening. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md)
- *Our Little Sister* (2015): Sisterhood gets gentler treatment here, with room for affection and everyday irritation.
- *Girlhood* (2014): Young women find protection in each other, though belonging brings its own demands.
- *The Magdalene Sisters* (2002): Institutional cruelty and female solidarity, handled with considerably less tenderness towards the authorities.

---
© 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/mustang