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The Selfish Giant
Directed by
Clio Barnard
R
2013
90m
Drama
7.3
98%
81%
Watch Free
Two thirteen-year-old working-class friends in Bradford seek fortune by getting involved with a local scrap dealer and criminal.
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Cast of The Selfish Giant
Conner Chapman
Arbor
Shaun Thomas
Swifty
Sean Gilder
Kitten
Lorraine Ashbourne
Mary
Ian Burfield
Mick Brazil
Steve Evets
Price Drop Swift
Siobhan Finneran
Mrs. Swift
Ralph Ineson
Johnny Jones
Rebecca Manley
Michelle 'Shelly' Fenton
Rhys McCoy
Daniel
Elliott Tittensor
Martin Fenton
Macy Shackleton
Swift Child
Joseph Priestly
Road Race Spectator
Robert Emms
Phil the Barman
Rachael Sampson
Student
Vicki Hackett
WPC Hayward
Clio Barnard
Director / Writer
Tracy O'Riordan
Producer
The Selfish Giant Ratings & Reviews
Detroit News
Tom Long
"The Selfish Giant" is a story of dependence, damage and desperation, told with grit and grimy frankness. It's also a portrait of friendship born of need and emptiness, on the road to nowhere.
Seattle Times
Moira MacDonald
Ultimately, it's a sad, tough sit - but worth seeing for its gritty honesty and strong cast.
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
Much of the movie is hard to bear, yet it never drags, thanks to the momentum that Barnard finds in the fable, and, above all, to the energy that she unleashes in her young leads.
Chicago Reader
Ben Sachs
[A] wrenching story of working-poor desperation in northern England.
The New Republic
David Thomson
The Selfish Giant is a film of such power and beauty that there will be no escaping it -- so long as you go to see it in the first place.
Los Angeles Times
Annlee Ellingson
"The Selfish Giant" is devastating social realism in the mode of Ken Loach's "Kes."
Film.com
Kate Erbland
An emotionally punishing experience.
RogerEbert.com
Matt Zoller Seitz
"The Selfish Giant" is easy to admire but difficult to recommend, because the truths it tells about friendship, poverty and desperation are presented without flinching.
New York Magazine/Vulture
Bilge Ebiri
The Selfish Giant never feels predictable. Credit the remarkable young actors, as well as Barnard's observant style: Every moment in this film is alive with possibility, with the chance that everything will go haywire in a new way.
New York Post
Sara Stewart
It is admirably unsparing and gloomily atmospheric. And I looked at my watch a bunch of times.
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
It's so assured and accomplished, so rigorous on both a human and technical level, and so clearly driven by love for this harsh landscape and its hardened people, that I was entirely swept away by its characters and their story.
New York Times
A.O. Scott
The nonprofessional actors who play Arbor and Swifty have an easy, unself-conscious rapport, and convey both the bond between the friends and its gradual fraying.
Washington Post
Mark Jenkins
The original story was for kids; the movie is about kids, but its grim depictions of violence against innocents may be too harrowing even for some adults. Yet the movie is engrossing, and sure to linger long after its poignant culmination.
Film Comment Magazine
Emma Myers
The physicality of the overgrown Swifty and exceptionally runty Arbor make them a particularly endearing odd couple to watch, and their friendship feels real, from start to tragic finish.
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
Both a tender ode to childhood and a wrenching eulogy for lost innocence.
The Dissolve
Noel Murray
The Selfish Giant is never so bleak that it's unwatchable. On the contrary: It's so immediately engaging that it's hard not to watch.
Slant Magazine
Oscar Moralde
The ear for language is paired with an eye for the landscape, and the film finds beauty even in such a seemingly dreary, economically depressed community.
IndieWire
Eric Kohn
Barnard poetically suggests that the absence of good parenting turns childhood into a purgatory that can only end with adulthood's cruel arrival.
Village Voice
Stephanie Zacharek
The Selfish Giant earns all of its emotion the honest way. If it's at times painful to watch, in the end it gives back much more than it takes. It's generous and steadfast, like true friendship itself.
AV Club
Mike D'Angelo
That The Selfish Giant feels familiar rather than groundbreaking makes it seem to some degree a step back for its talented director, but she's avoided the sophomore jinx with aplomb.
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