--- title: "Unsane" year: 2018 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/unsane" fi1m_id: "unsane" imdb_id: "tt7153766" tmdb_id: 467660 wikidata_id: "Q39071240" fi1m_score: 64 critics_score: 64 critics_reviews: 20 published: "2026-09-09" updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:53.365638+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." --- # Unsane (2018) Directed by Steven Soderbergh · 1h 38m · MPA R · Horror, Thriller ## Identity Unsane - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/unsane - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** unsane - **IMDb ID:** tt7153766 - **TMDB ID:** 467660 - **Wikidata ID:** Q39071240 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7153766/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/467660, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39071240 **Fi1m score: 64** · Critics 64 from 20 reviews *In a sentence:* Claire Foy is told to calm down for 98 minutes and we cannot fault her for declining > Soderbergh shoots a woman’s committal on a phone, and for an hour the cheap, sickly image is exactly right. Claire Foy is furious and superb throughout. Then the script settles which film it is, and picks the sillier one. ## Synopsis Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) has moved to a new city and a new job at a bank to get away from a man who would not leave her alone. She is sleeping badly, snapping at colleagues and at a date (Colin Woodell), and seeing his face in strangers. She books a session with a counsellor at a private clinic, signs the forms she is handed, and finds she has agreed to a voluntary stay she cannot cut short. On the ward she meets Nate (Jay Pharoah), who has a theory about why nobody leaves on time, and Violet (Juno Temple), who takes against her at once. Then an orderly walks in whom Sawyer is certain she recognises. Steven Soderbergh directs, shoots and edits, on an iPhone. ## Review Steven Soderbergh has shot a thriller on an iPhone about a woman nobody will believe, and for about an hour the two things suit each other. Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) has moved cities to get away from a stalker, taken a job at a bank, and booked a session with a counsellor because she is still not sleeping. She signs some forms. Minutes later she is on a ward she cannot leave, and not long after that she sees, in an orderly’s uniform, the face she moved to escape. *Unsane* runs 98 minutes. It is good for around sixty of them, and Foy is good throughout. Foy plays Sawyer as a woman who ran out of patience some time before the film began. She is short with a date (Colin Woodell), short with her boss (Marc Kudisch), short with the counsellor, and none of it is illness. When the doors lock she does what a sane person would do, which is shout, and the shouting is what gets her held down. Her voice cracks, her hands do not know where to go, and she keeps arguing her case in full sentences to people who have stopped listening. Here is where the film had us. Sawyer asks for her phone back and a nurse tells her, quite kindly, that she signed for a voluntary stay. Foy’s face does the arithmetic, ours did too, and we felt something close to nausea. Soderbergh is credited as his own cinematographer and editor, and the phone is a choice rather than a stunt. Its lens is wide and he sits it low and close, so the ward’s ceilings press down and any face near the edge of the frame stretches slightly out of true. Under the strip lights everything turns the yellow-green of an old bruise. April Lasky’s hospital is beige walls, plastic chairs and a common room with a bolted-down television; it looks as if it cost nothing, which is the point, since this place is a business. Susan Lyall keeps Sawyer in the same work blouse for days. David Wilder Savage’s score is a low electronic pulse that stays under the scenes and rises only when something is about to go wrong. Jay Pharoah is the calmest thing in the film and the best written. His Nate has been on the ward a while, and over a plastic table he explains that the hospital keeps you for exactly as long as your insurance pays, then declares you cured. Juno Temple’s Violet is the ward bully, all hair and hiss, played several sizes larger than anything around her. Amy Irving, as Sawyer’s mother Angela, telephones people and is put on hold. Joshua Leonard plays David Strine with a soft voice and wet eyes, and he is frightening because he never raises it. The screenplay, by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer, has two good ideas. One is the tagline: is she or isn’t she. The other is Nate’s, that the ward is a scam and the doctors are salesmen. The film spends the first idea fast, settling the question well before the halfway mark, and once settled the doubt has nowhere to go. It then largely forgets the second idea, which is the more interesting one. The last half hour takes a turn we will not describe, except to say that it is borrowed from cheaper films than the one we had been watching, and that nobody who runs the hospital behaves like a person who has ever met a lawyer. By then we were not frightened. We were counting the exits the script had left open, and irritated that the film was not. Soderbergh has done this better. [*Side Effects*](https://film.one/film/side-effects) (2013) also asked whether to believe a troubled woman, and kept its answer back until it was ready; *Unsane* gives its early and carries on as if it had not. The film is at its best when the phone is the point, unflattering and close and unable to make anyone look well, and it looks merely cheap once the plot takes over. Worth an evening if you can bear being shouted at, and better at home, where the image looks less like an experiment and more like footage someone should not have. It carries a 15 and it is over in 98 minutes. Read the forms. *Fi1m score 64, published 9 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics agree on one thing: Claire Foy. Nearly every review, whether it likes the film or not, singles out her jittery, committed performance as the reason to keep watching. Steven Soderbergh’s decision to shoot on an iPhone divides opinion more sharply. Many find the coarse, spidery images right for a story about a woman locked in a psychiatric ward and disbelieved, and several read the film as timely about women whose accounts of harassment are ignored. Others find the look cheap and suspect the director is having more fun than the audience. The reservations cluster in the second half, where plot holes widen and the film slides towards lurid horror; even admirers note a silly climax. The spread is wide. The Telegraph finds the characters do not add up, The Hollywood Reporter calls it pedestrian, and /Film dismisses the script as exploitative, while Deadline calls it smart and bone-chilling and Slant enjoys even its most ridiculous moments. ## Straight answers **Is Unsane worth watching?** *Unsane* is worth an evening for anyone who can bear 98 minutes of Claire Foy being told to calm down and refusing, and we scored it 64. The first hour, shot on an iPhone in a sickly yellow-green, is properly unsettling; the last half hour borrows from cheaper films and squanders its best idea. Foy is superb throughout. **How long is Unsane, and what is it rated?** *Unsane* runs 1h 38m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a horror and thriller film. **Where can I watch Unsane in the US?** *Unsane* is available to rent from Apple TV from $4.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Unsane, and is it suitable for children?** *Unsane* carries a UK 15 and a US R, and is not for children. It is frightening chiefly through dread rather than gore: a woman locked on a psychiatric ward, held down when she shouts, and stalked by a man who never raises his soft voice. The later stretch turns nastier in a way we will not describe, and the squeamish should expect it. **What should I watch after Unsane?** After *Unsane*, try [*Side Effects*](https://film.one/film/side-effects) (2013, Fi1m 70): Soderbergh’s earlier thriller about a woman, a doctor and whom to believe; tighter plotting. Then [*Shock Corridor*](https://film.one/film/shock-corridor) (1963, Fi1m 80): Samuel Fuller’s asylum picture: a reporter gets himself committed and the ward gets him; and [*Repulsion*](https://film.one/film/repulsion) (1965, Fi1m 88): Polanski locks Catherine Deneuve in a flat and lets the walls do the work. ### Reviews we read (29) - **Slant Magazine**, Steve Macfarlane (85/100, inferred): Soderbergh's down-and-dirty film uses institutionalization to probe mental health mores in privatization-mad America, with Foy gamely inhabiting the role; even its most ridiculous moments coast on the energy of the director's aesthetic gamesmanship and iPhone experimentation. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/unsane/) - **Empire**, Dan Jolin (80/100, inferred): Soderbergh's lo-fi iPhone-shot thriller is a raw, lean and abrasively effective take on trauma, stalking and gaslighting, closer in spirit to Get Out than his usual glossy style. Claire Foy gives a blistering, unleashed performance that keeps the film compelling throughout. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/unsane-review/) - **Vulture** (80/100, inferred): The critic admires how Soderbergh and Foy commit to showing the world through the eyes of a traumatized, difficult woman whose reality is toyed with, finding it an unnerving switchback ride that resonates in the #MeToo era despite a cheesy climax. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2018/03/unsane-steven-soderbergh-movie-review.html) - **IndieWire**, Ben Croll (75/100, inferred): The critic finds it a satisfying genre trip and delicious satire of modern technology in which the boundary between reality and fantasy is suspect, praising the iPhone-shot thriller's fun ride and Claire Foy's performance. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/unsane-review-steven-soderbergh-iphone-1201931358/) - **Evening Standard**, Charlotte O'Sullivan (70/100, inferred): Claire Foy delivers a standout, multifaceted performance as the jittery protagonist in this experimental psycho-thriller. The film has inventive shots and timely themes but can feel like schlock therapy in the third act, though it is ultimately worth sticking with. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/unsane-review-claire-foy-is-queen-of-this-psycho-thriller-a3797386.html) - **The AV Club**, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (B-): Soderbergh commits to the crazy premise and cheap iPhone imagery in this art-brut not-quite-thriller, drawing parallels between profit-driven healthcare and gaslighting, but the intentional crudity exposes plot holes and the film veers into silliness. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/steven-soderbergh-commits-himself-to-the-crazy-premise-1823909267) - **Little White Lies**, Matt Thrift (4/3/2): Formal ambition aside, there is nothing out of the ordinary about this iPhone psychodrama; the director appears to be having more fun than the audience. A committed performance from Claire Foy stands out amid a familiar narrative that unravels thematically and mechanically. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/unsane) - **The Times**, Tom Shone (★★★): Filmed on an iPhone, Unsane is a sharp thriller at least at first, thanks to its spidery cinematography and Foy’s gutsy, live-wire performance with alternating gusts of fury and fragility. It is the slighter of the two films reviewed but gets under your skin. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/theatre-dance/article/film-review-steven-soderbergh-claire-foy-unsane-and-a-wrinkle-in-time-oprah-winfrey-5tbfztbtf) - **The Guardian** (55/100, inferred): Claire Foy delivers a jangly, abrasive tour de force in Soderbergh’s ragged iPhone-shot psychological thriller. The propulsive force of her performance allows one to overlook the derivative story and gaping plot chasms for a time, but the film ultimately fails on basic logic. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/25/unsane-review-steven-soderbergh-claire-foy) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (50/100, inferred): The review finds the iPhone-shot look coarse rather than velvet and views the story as a farrago, though it admires Soderbergh's experimentation. Claire Foy emerges with credit from the proceedings, with Jay Pharoah's understated performance also noted. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/unsane-and-gemini) - **The Independent** (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film too demented after a promising start, with poor lighting choices from the iPhone shoot turning it into sub-par thriller territory. Claire Foy's exceptional performance as the trapped protagonist maintains interest despite the flaws. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/unsane-review-steven-soderbergh-claire-foy-the-crown-a8221956.html) - **The Telegraph**, Tim Robey (2/5): Claire Foy gives an impressively committed performance as the captive inmate, but she cannot save Soderbergh’s rough, provisional and half-hearted psychothriller. The characters do not add up and the story scarcely seems bothered with half of them. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/unsane-review-claire-foy-cant-save-steven-soderberghs-shoddy/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney (30/100, inferred): The critic calls it a dispiritingly pedestrian woman-in-peril shocker with contrived plotting that gives away its game too early and lacks psychological complexity or lurid fun, despite Foy's committed performance and the iPhone gimmick. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/unsane-berlin-2018-1086866/) - **Film Comment**, Michael Sragow: The critic highlights the film's cool, nasty thriller qualities as it exploits contemporary social and sexual paranoia while eviscerating bureaucratic language. Foy's spiky, complex performance as the sharp-witted heroine is singled out as a standout. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/deep-focus-unsane/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Justin Chang: The critic calls the film a diabolically shrewd and spooky psychological thriller that showcases Claire Foy's furious conviction in the lead role. It is the product of Soderbergh's uniquely democratic filmmaking sensibility, shot entirely on an iPhone. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-unsane-review-20180322-story.html) - **Screen Daily**: The film works teasingly at first thanks to a compelling lead performance by Claire Foy, but edges too far into the Gothicly lurid to remain plausible. The iPhone experiment adds artistic heft and the gender politics theme adds urgency, yet it remains a frustratingly tricksy head-wrecker. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/unsane-berlin-review/5126918.article) - **Sight and Sound**, Philip Kemp: The critic calls it an unsettling shocker and ingenious iPhone horror with Claire Foy as its steel core; a woman confined against her will in a sinister mental health ward. Soderbergh brings original twists and well-gauged performances that redeem occasional plot holes. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/film-week-unsane-ingenious-iphone-horror) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis: The critic describes the film as an effectively nasty thriller about a woman involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Soderbergh delivers peril with slyness and jolts, highlighted by Claire Foy's excellent, febrile performance. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/movies/unsane-review-steven-soderbergh-claire-foy.html) - **Variety**: The review sees the iPhone-shot psychothriller as a pulpy genre romp conceived as quick-and-dirty, with Claire Foy lending grit to her strung-out businesswoman role. It fuses Soderbergh's experimental and craftsman sides while holding together B-movie jolts with credibility. [Read](https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/unsane-review-berlinale-2018-1202706233/) - **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (85/100, inferred): The critic finds Unsane a bone-chilling, smart psychological thriller with strong relevance to #MeToo. Claire Foy delivers a sensational performance as the stalked woman whose pleas for help are ignored. [Read](https://deadline.com/2018/03/unsane-review-claire-foy-steven-soderbergh-jay-pharoah-1202351061/) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (B+): The critic sees the film as a timely indictment of ignoring women's accounts of abuse rather than a standard sanity-questioning thriller. Soderbergh's iPhone cinematography grounds the story, supported by standout performances from Claire Foy and Joshua Leonard. [Read](https://collider.com/unsane-review/) - **The Ringer**, K. Austin Collins (80/100, inferred): The critic praises Claire Foy's alive and calculating performance alongside Soderbergh's skillful iPhone-shot technique, which lends the paranoid thriller an intimate, unsettling quality and makes a case for new approaches to filmmaking. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2018/03/23/movies/unsane-film-review-steven-soderbergh-claire-foy) - **The Wrap**, Robert Abele (80/100, inferred): The review calls the film a nerve-wracking, timely thriller that explores how women's voices are ignored amid harassment and institutional indifference. Soderbergh and Foy elevate the iPhone-shot story into a harrowing, intimate reality. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/unsane-film-review-claire-foy-steven-soderbergh/) - **Consequence** (B): The review commends the innovative iPhone photography and Foy's intense lead performance but finds the story hampered by B-movie contrivances and a slide into gratuitous horror clichés in the final act. [Read](https://consequence.net/2018/03/film-review-unsane-is-full-of-unsettling-b-movie-shocks-from-top-to-bottom/) - **The Playlist**, Jessica Kiang (B-): A pulpy, slick and entertaining psych-thriller with a strong central performance from Claire Foy that works well as formulaic genre fare, but feels like a gimmick-driven experiment lacking deeper insight or relevance beyond its iPhone shooting method. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/unsane-review-20180221/) - **/Film**, Josh Spiegel (2/10): An idiotic and exploitative script wastes the premise and Soderbergh's iPhone experiment, resulting in a repugnant film that fails to meaningfully explore its themes of trauma, madness or the medical industry despite some visual ingenuity. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/557023/unsane-review/) - **Den of Geek**, Ryan Lambie (4 out of 5): The review calls it a solid, well-acted thriller with precise yet experimental direction that gives a gritty, dreamlike edge. Foy's portrayal of increasing fear and paranoia is praised, along with effective suspense despite some predictable plot points. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/unsane-review-2/) - **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray: Despite plot credibility issues and loose threads, the film creates effective claustrophobia and terror; Claire Foy delivers a standout edgy, panic-driven performance as the protagonist. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/unsane-2018-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) - **HeyUGuys**, Stefan Pape: The film delivers an engaging unreliable narrator story with strong performances, particularly from Claire Foy, but is undermined by its iPhone-shot visuals that cheapen the presentation and a disjointed conclusion relying on horror tropes. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/unsane-review/) ## Details - **Director:** Steven Soderbergh - **Director:** Steven Soderbergh - **Screenplay:** James Greer, Jonathan Bernstein - **Cinematography:** Steven Soderbergh - **Editor:** Steven Soderbergh - **Music:** David Wilder Savage - **Production design:** April Lasky - **Costume design:** Susan Lyall - **Producer:** Joseph Malloch - **Cast:** Claire Foy as Sawyer Valentini; Joshua Leonard as David Strine; Jay Pharoah as Nate Hoffman; Juno Temple as Violet; Aimee Mullins as Ashley Brighterhouse; Amy Irving as Angela Valentini; Sarah Stiles as Jill; Marc Kudisch as Bank Manager - **Runtime:** 1h 38m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 23 March 2018 - **Genres:** Horror, Thriller - **Budget:** $2 million - **Box office:** $14 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7KZrt_cHH0 ## Where to watch in the US - Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-10.* Also available in: AE, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HU, IE, IL, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PL, PT, SE, TR, UA, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Side Effects* (2013), Fi1m 70: Soderbergh’s earlier thriller about a woman, a doctor and whom to believe; tighter plotting. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/side-effects.md) - *Shock Corridor* (1963), Fi1m 80: Samuel Fuller’s asylum picture: a reporter gets himself committed and the ward gets him. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/shock-corridor.md) - *Repulsion* (1965), Fi1m 88: Polanski locks Catherine Deneuve in a flat and lets the walls do the work. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/repulsion.md) - *Tangerine* (2015), Fi1m 84: Also shot on an iPhone, and the phone makes Los Angeles look alive rather than ill. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tangerine.md) - *The Invisible Man* (2020), Fi1m 76: Elisabeth Moss is stalked by someone nobody believes exists, and the film believes her. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-invisible-man.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/unsane