--- title: "Watership Down" year: 1978 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/watership-down" fi1m_score: 81 critics_score: 70 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-17T06:17:28.404350+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T06:17:40.137987+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." --- # Watership Down (1978) Directed by Martin Rosen · 1h 32m · MPA PG · Adventure, Animation, Drama **Fi1m score: 81** · Critics 70 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Rabbits die in watercolour and the certificate says it is fine for your five-year-old > Martin Rosen’s adaptation of Richard Adams’s novel is a rough, beautiful and frightening film that has never had any interest in being reassuring. The drawing wobbles and the plot is squeezed hard into 92 minutes, but it earns every one of its scares. ## Synopsis An English downland warren. Fiver (Richard Briers), small and given to visions, sees the field above his home turned to blood and begs his brother Hazel (John Hurt) to get everyone out. The Chief Rabbit (Ralph Richardson) will not hear of it; men have hammered a notice board into the field’s edge, but the burrows are warm and nobody wants to move. Hazel and Fiver slip away with a handful of others: Bigwig (Michael Graham Cox), a bruiser from the warren’s guard, the timid Pipkin (Roy Kinnear) and the quick-thinking Blackberry (Simon Cadell). Ahead lie a river, a road, a bean field, Cowslip (Denholm Elliott) and his suspiciously comfortable warren, and the high ground Fiver saw. ## Review Martin Rosen wrote, produced and directed this adaptation of Richard Adams’s novel, and the first thing he does is tell us that rabbits die. A prologue in flat ochre shapes, like a cave painting that has learnt to move, has the sun god Frith give the first rabbit a thousand enemies and a pair of fast legs, and the warning the film has carried since 1978 sits right there in the dialogue: all the world will be your enemy, and when they catch you, they will kill you. Then the picture opens out into painted fields and it never softens the terms. A U certificate has rarely covered so much blood. The look is the point and the look is uneven, and we will take both. The backgrounds are watercolour: hedgerows in three greens, a chalk track, a copse with the light coming sideways through it, the kind of countryside you could find on a biscuit tin if somebody had not painted the snares in. Over these the rabbits are drawn as animals rather than toys, long-backed and grey-brown, with ears that flick and faces that hardly move at all. Men are boots, a shovel, a shadow across a burrow mouth. The dog is a set of teeth. Rosen keeps the camera at rabbit height and lets the sky do most of the work. Here is what we felt. Fiver’s vision of the field filling with red, drawn as a smear rather than a picture, frightened us more than most of what passes for horror at any certificate, and we are not five. It is not the blood that does it but the sound and the shape: Richard Briers’s thin, panicked voice over an image that has stopped pretending to be a meadow. When the film later shows what happened to the warren they left, in a survivor’s account of earth, gas and running mouths, we were horrified again, and a little angry at the certificate board on behalf of the parents who trusted it. The voices are the other half of the film, and one of the reviews we read complained that they turn it into a radio play. There is something in that. The faces are so still that the actors are doing the acting, and Rosen knows it and casts accordingly. John Hurt’s Hazel is tired, decent and not at all sure of himself, which is exactly what a leader of frightened animals should sound like. Michael Graham Cox gives Bigwig a parade-ground bark that the film gradually lets crack. Ralph Richardson has two scenes as the Chief Rabbit and fills them with well-fed indifference. Denholm Elliott’s Cowslip is the best of them, courteous and oily and never quite answering the question he has been asked. Malcolm Williamson and Angela Morley share the music credit, and the score is mostly strings and woodwind, pastoral and unhurried, until a drum comes in under a running shot and the strings go tight. The middle of the film stops for a song, *Bright Eyes*, sung by Art Garfunkel, and it is the one place the film allows itself to be soft; we did not mind. Terry Rawlings cuts the rest hard. Ninety-two minutes is not long for a novel of this size, and whole stretches of the journey go past as a river crossing, a road, a night, a morning. It keeps the film moving and it costs it clarity, because half a dozen grey-brown rabbits with English voices are not easy to tell apart at speed, and the film does not stop to help. The drawing has other troubles. Characters change size between shots. Figures slide over the painted grass rather than sitting in it. The mouths move roughly against the dialogue. The female rabbits arrive late and are given almost nothing to say; Mary Maddox’s Clover has a few lines and a hutch. None of this ruins the film, but a viewer raised on the smooth surfaces of the studio animation of the period will notice, and should. What the roughness buys is a countryside that feels like a place where things get killed, which the smooth films never managed. The second half brings the survivors to a warren run like a prison camp, and a fight we will not describe. Show it to a child if you are ready for the questions afterwards. Watch it yourself and you will find it has not aged into charm, which is the highest thing we can say about a film for children. *Fi1m score 81, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics regard Watership Down as a rare thing: a British animated film that treats death, tyranny and the brutality of the countryside without flinching, and is admired for exactly that. The praise clusters on the watercolour animation, the score and the film’s refusal to soften the novel’s violence for a young audience. Several reviews note that it still frightens children, and most count that as a virtue rather than a flaw. The voice cast is mentioned approvingly more than once. The reservations are fewer and mostly about audience: Radio Times finds the film hard to place, too dark for the certificate it carries and better suited to readers of the book than to children. The one outright dissent is Time Out, which finds the animation crude, the camerawork flat and the famous voices turning the whole thing into a radio play. The spread is otherwise narrow and warm. ### Reviews we read (7) - **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★★★): The critic hails the film as a landmark in British animation, a fearless adaptation exploring themes of conflict and civilisation through rabbits, with a legendary voice cast and high-art qualities. They praise its nationally significant status and emotional impact, calling it a giant movie. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/watership-down-1978-review-high-art-animation-and-a-legendary-cast-x626szghv) - **RogerEbert.com**, Matt Zoller Seitz (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the 1978 animated film for its blend of beauty and unflinching exploration of death, suffering, and life's brevity. He singles out the watercolor visuals, score, and recurring motifs of mortality as especially moving. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/30-minutes-on-watership-down) - **Sight and Sound** (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the film as a groundbreakingly honest and visceral depiction of the British countryside and its brutal realities, distinguishing it from more romanticised portrayals in children's stories. The analysis highlights how its raw animation style and themes of power, land and survival influenced later rural dramas. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/more-handmaids-tale-than-peter-rabbit-why-watership-down-remains-terrifying-vision-land) - **The Guardian** (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the 1978 animation retains a bloody force that can still scare young viewers, with its story of rabbits fleeing destruction and confronting tyranny. They single out the simple charm of the animation style, comparing it favourably to a British Studio Ghibli. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/23/watership-down-review-charming-rabbit-animation-still-has-power-to-terrify) - **The AV Club**, Scott MacDonald (70/100, inferred): The critic highlights the film's uncompromising and mature approach to animated storytelling for children, praising its brutal violence and themes of loss and survival as elements that force young viewers to confront harsh realities unlike typical kids' films. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/pixar-movies-look-like-child-s-play-compared-to-watersh-1798239735) - **Radio Times**, Tom Folley (3/5): The review notes the film's box-office success and dark sophistication despite its PG certificate and difficulty fitting the 'kids' movie' label, praising the ambitious naturalistic animation style, impressive voice cast and faithful retelling. It suggests the unique look will appeal to fans of the book. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-u7ddee/watership-down/) - **Time Out**, GB (20/100, inferred): The review dismisses the film as charmless and lacking terror or tension, criticising the objective camera work, crude animation and reliance on famous voices that turn it into a radio play. It contrasts this unfavourably with the source novel's strengths. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/watership-down) ## Details - **Director:** Martin Rosen - **Director:** Martin Rosen - **Screenplay:** Martin Rosen - **Writer:** John Hubley - **Novel:** Richard Adams - **Editor:** Terry Rawlings - **Music:** Angela Morley, Malcolm Williamson - **Producer:** Martin Rosen - **Cast:** John Hurt as Hazel (voice); Richard Briers as Fiver (voice); Michael Graham Cox as Bigwig (voice); John Bennett as Captain Holly (voice); Ralph Richardson as Chief Rabbit (voice); Simon Cadell as Blackberry (voice); Terence Rigby as Silver (voice); Roy Kinnear as Pipkin (voice) - **Runtime:** 1h 32m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 31 October 1978 - **Genres:** Adventure, Animation, Drama - **Budget:** $1 million - **Box office:** $4 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T67u55jjMbY ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, leaving 2026-09-30 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $5.99, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, FI, GB, JP, NO, NZ, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Plague Dogs* (1982): Rosen and Adams again, two dogs on the run, and even less mercy - *Animal Farm* (1954): British animation doing politics with livestock, decades before it was fashionable - *Grave of the Fireflies* (1988), Fi1m 94: Animation about children and death that trusts its audience to bear it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/grave-of-the-fireflies.md) - *The Secret of NIMH* (1982), Fi1m 74: Small animals, a farm, a threat from men, and proper shadows — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-secret-of-nimh.md) - *Kes* (1969), Fi1m 88: The same countryside, live action, and the same refusal to prettify it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/kes.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/watership-down