Top 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsMost Popular Video GamesMost Popular Music VideosMost Popular Podcasts
    Release CalendarBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersSundance Film FestivalIndependent Spirit AwardsBlack History MonthSXSWSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
Sign In
New Customer? Create account
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
IMDbPro

The Nightingale

  • 20182018
  • RR
  • 2h 16m
IMDb RATING
7.3/10
32K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,976
509
Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale (2018)
A young woman in 1800's Australia seeks vengeance for horrific acts committed against her family.
Play trailer2:20
5 Videos
99+ Photos
AdventureDramaThriller
Set in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her fam... Read allSet in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. On the way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also... Read allSet in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. On the way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.
IMDb RATING
7.3/10
32K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,976
509
    • Jennifer Kent
    • Jennifer Kent
  • Stars
    • Aisling Franciosi
    • Maya Christie
    • Baykali Ganambarr
    • Jennifer Kent
    • Jennifer Kent
  • Stars
    • Aisling Franciosi
    • Maya Christie
    • Baykali Ganambarr
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 407User reviews
    • 180Critic reviews
    • 77Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards

    Videos5

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 2:20
    Watch Official Trailer
    The Nightingale
    Trailer 2:16
    Watch The Nightingale
    The Nightingale
    Trailer 2:20
    Watch The Nightingale
    The Nightingale - Official IFC Films Trailer
    Trailer 2:20
    Watch The Nightingale - Official IFC Films Trailer
    Weekend Box Office: August 2 to 4
    Clip 0:55
    Watch Weekend Box Office: August 2 to 4

    Photos107

    Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale (2018)
    The Nightingale (2018)
    The Nightingale (2018)
    Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale (2018)
    The Nightingale (2018)
    Harry Greenwood in The Nightingale (2018)
    Charlie Shotwell in The Nightingale (2018)
    Baykali Ganambarr in The Nightingale (2018)
    Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr in The Nightingale (2018)
    Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr in The Nightingale (2018)
    Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale (2018)
    Michael Sheasby in The Nightingale (2018)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Aisling Franciosi
    Aisling Franciosi
    • Clare
    Maya Christie
    • Baby Brigid
    Baykali Ganambarr
    Baykali Ganambarr
    • Billy
    Addison Christie
    • Baby Brigid
    Damon Herriman
    Damon Herriman
    • Ruse
    Harry Greenwood
    Harry Greenwood
    • Jago
    Claire Jones
    Claire Jones
    • Harriet
    Ewen Leslie
    Ewen Leslie
    • Goodwin
    Sam Claflin
    Sam Claflin
    • Hawkins
    Charlie Shotwell
    Charlie Shotwell
    • Eddie
    Michael Sheasby
    Michael Sheasby
    • Aidan
    Charlie Jampijinpa Brown
    Charlie Jampijinpa Brown
    • Uncle Charlie
    Eloise Winestock
    Eloise Winestock
    • Luddy
    Magnolia Maymuru
    Magnolia Maymuru
    • Lowanna
    Matthew Barker
    • Goodwin's Ensign
    Charles McCarthy
    • Convict Violinist
    Ben Morton
    • Wallace
    Matthew Burton
    • Outpost Soldier
      • Jennifer Kent
      • Jennifer Kent
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    More like this

    The Babadook
    6.8
    The Babadook
    Pig
    6.9
    Pig
    The Nightingale
    The Nightingale
    The Delivered
    6.2
    The Delivered
    Calibre
    6.8
    Calibre
    The House That Jack Built
    6.8
    The House That Jack Built
    Monster
    6.8
    Monster
    His House
    6.5
    His House
    Compliance
    6.4
    Compliance
    Alice + Freda Forever
    The Stranger
    6.6
    The Stranger
    The Wonder
    6.6
    The Wonder

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      "I've always had a fascination with Tasmania," writer-director Jennifer Kent said. It was considered the most brutal of the Australian colonies, known as 'hell on earth' through the western world at the time. Repeat offenders were sent there; the rapists, murderers, hardened criminals. And severe punishments were devised for them to strike fear in the hearts of those back in Britain, to deter them from crime. Women on the other hand, who'd often committed minor crimes, were sent to Tasmania to even the gender balance. They were outnumbered eight to one. You can imagine what kind of an environment that would set up for women. It was not a good place or time for them. And in terms of the Aboriginal invasion, what happened in Tasmania is often considered the worst attempted annihilation by the British of the Aboriginal people and everything they hold dear."
    • Goofs
      When Billy finds Uncle Charlie shot dead, he is clearly breathing.
    • Quotes

      Clare: You can tell me to shut up. You can threaten me. But it won't do nothing. That girl you raped, whose husband and baby you murdered - that girl died. And you can't kill what's already dead.

      Hawkins: This woman's a lying thief. She's just upset because I caught her trying to steal my horse. I'll have you arrested, you drunken whore.

      Clare: I'm not your whore. I'm not your nightingale, your little bird, your dove. I'm not your anything. I belong to me and no one else!

    • Crazy credits
      " Tasmanian Aboriginal culture is a living culture. The Aboriginal language used in this film is called 'Palawa kani'. It was created by current day Tasmanian Aboriginal people using records of their original languages. Aboriginal actors cast in this film are from mainland Australia. They and we pay our respects to the aboriginal people of Lutruwita (Tasmania) past and present."
    • Connections
      Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: The Nightingale (2019)
    • Soundtracks
      The Nightingale
      Performed by Aisling Franciosi

      Violin by Charles McCarthy

      Written by Ciáran Bourke, Barney McKenna, Ronnie Drew and Luke Kelly

      Published by Logo Songs Ltd

      Administered by Universal Music Publishing MGB Australia Pty Ltd

    User reviews407

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    8/10
    A superb, albeit harrowing drama about colonial violence, misogyny, and racism
    Written and directed by Jennifer Kent, on the surface, The Nightingale is very much a genre picture - a rape/revenge drama set in a pseudo-western milieu. However, as it progresses, it gradually reveals itself as less concerned with hitting genre beats than engaging with issues such as racism, misogyny, the fine line between barbarism and civilisation, and the cathartic potential of revenge (or possible lack thereof). Much as Kent's debut, the exceptional The Babadook (2014), was a horror in name only, its genre serving as a means to a thematic end, so too with The Nightingale. Brutally violent (but never gratuitously so), extremely unpleasant, and downright nihilistic at times, it's not going to pack them in at the multiplex, but this is an important, relevant, and mature study of mans' innate capacity for cruelty.

    Van Diemen's Land, 1825. A British penal colony, the island is in the midst of the Black War, with the British army attempting to eradicate the indigenous Palawa population. In an isolated colony, Clare Carroll (a star-making turn from Aisling Franciosi) and her husband Aidan (Michael Sheasby) are Irish convicts with an infant daughter, indentured to garrison commander Lt. Hawkins (an odious Sam Claflin). Convicted of petty theft in Ireland over seven years prior, Clare has served her sentence and is waiting for Hawkins to sign her long overdue letter of recommendation, which would render her and Aidan free citizens. However, Hawkins, who calls her his Nightingale on account of her beautiful singing voice, responds by raping her, and not for the first time. The following night, Aidan drinks too much and gets into a brawl with Hawkins, the sadistic Sgt. Ruse (Damon Herriman), and the naïve Pvt. Jago (Harry Greenwood). Happening in front of a visiting superior officer who's evaluating Hawkins for promotion, the officer tells Hawkins he won't be recommending him. Infuriated, Hawkins orders Ruse and Jago to accompany him on foot through the treacherous bush to Launceston, where he intends to make an in-person appeal for promotion to army brass. However, before they leave, Hawkins and Ruse rape Clare and brutalise Aidan and the baby. And so, determined to exact revenge, she sets off in pursuit of the trio, hiring "Billy" Mangana (an exceptional debut from dancer Baykali Ganambarr), a Palawa tracker who hates whites as much as Clare hates Hawkins.

    Having spent over five years researching the frontier wars, Kent made The Nightingale in collaboration with Palawa elders, with the story of Clare and Billy serving as Australia-specific synecdoche for the general oppression and violence of British colonialism. Both Clare and Billy have been deeply wronged by colonialists - her as a convict and woman, him as a Palawa. However, one of Kent's masterstrokes is to complicate their dynamic, whereby neither is capable of seeing their similarity to the other. When Clare is first told she'll need a Palawa tracker, she responds, "I'm not travelling with a black. I'll end up in someone's pot of dinner". And in literally the next scene, when Clare tries to hire Billy, his response is, "I'm not working for a bloody white woman." It doesn't matter to him that Clare is in Van Diemen's Land against her will - she's part of the white race that has murdered his people and taken his land. At the same time, her view of him is based on the crudest of colonial stereotypes - that all Aborigines are cannibalistic savages. Indeed, she exerts her authority over him in a not entirely dissimilar manner to how Hawkins exerts his authority over her.

    However, it's not exactly a spoiler to say that much of the film concerns itself with the duo coming to understand the oppression experienced by the other. Indeed, in one of the strongest scenes in the film, their first real connection comes as they sit at an open fire, each cursing their oppressors in their respective native tongue, linguistically rebelling by rejecting the colonial signifiers and codes.

    Hawkins, for his part, is a representative of the worst aspects of British colonialism, not just the kind of jingoistic and xenophobic thinking that made such colonialism possible, but so too the misogyny, racism, and savagery that underpinned it. Crucially, however, he's utterly banal; believing himself destined for greatness, he's incapable of accepting that he's a poor officer, an amoral and mediocre man whose lofty ambitions infinitely outweigh his negligible potential. He's a symbol of the toxic masculinity that engendered colonialism, but so too is he a flesh-and-blood person; he's an irredeemable monster, of course, but he's never a pantomime villain.

    Kent uses these character to examine whether revenge can lead to peace of mind. Does revenge provide fleeting satisfaction, even though it's ultimately futile, or is it a necessary and important part of the healing process? Most troublingly of all, however, she asks, irrespective of one's awareness of the heavy psychological cost of violent revenge, are there acts which are so abhorrent, inhuman, and evil that revenge is the only possible response. And if so, how does one reconcile the futility of revenge with its necessity?

    From an aesthetic point of view, The Nightingale looks exceptional. Kent and cinematographer Radek Ladczuk shot the film in Academy ratio (1.37:1), with the claustrophobic nearly square frame trapping the characters within it. Especially important here are the BCUs of faces, which are the film's roadmap insofar as the violence is never abstract; violence happens to a person, not a depersonalised body, and it has real consequences.

    Speaking of which, much has been made of that violence. At both screenings at the Sydney Film Festival, multiple audience members walked out during the second rape, and North American distributors IFC included a trigger warning independent of the MPAA rating details. Personally, although I found the scenes disturbing, I didn't think they were as bad as has been made out, and if you've survived films such as The Last House on the Left (1972), Lilya 4-Ever (2002), or Irreversible (2002), you'll be fine with The Nightingale. In any case, the violence (whether sexual or otherwise) is never gratuitous, exploitative, or immature - Kent is no Quentin Tarantino; violence in her work has stomach-churning consequences, and when she chooses to show such violence, there is always a point, it's never arbitrary, violence-for-violence's-sake, or worse, violence-for-titillation's-sake.

    In terms of problems, as the Sydney screenings attest, the brutality on display will simply be too much for some. This is a dark, brutal, and unrelenting film and it asks a lot of the audience. Additionally, at 136 minutes, I found the film just a tad too long, and it does lapse into repetition from time to time - if the middle act had been tightened up a bit, cutting maybe 10 or 15 minutes, it would have played better. The dénouement is also somewhat rote, which is disappointing given the strength of the filmmaking leading us to that point. I wouldn't necessarily say it doesn't work, but it's the only part of the where it feels like a genre piece.

    These issues aside, however, this is exceptionally strong filmmaking. With not a hint of sentimentality in its unflinching depiction of the horrors inherent in the subjugation of an entire people, The Nightingale confirms Kent as a major auteur with a distinctive voice and the courage to remain true to her subject-matter, however abhorrent such truth might be.
    helpful•48
    26
    • Bertaut
    • Dec 15, 2019

    FAQ7

    • This film is not available in any theaters in my state, and not available to rent or buy in DVD or streaming. How and where can I watch this?
    • Which variety of Gaelic is spoken in this film?
    • I can't find the movie! where can I buy or watch the movie??how this is possible? the movie disappeared?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 29, 2019 (Australia)
      • Australia
      • Canada
    • Official sites
      • Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund
      • Causeway Films (Australia)
      • English
      • Irish Gaelic
      • Aboriginal
    • Also known as
    • Filming locations
      • Oatlands, Tasmania, Australia
    • Production companies
      • Causeway Films
      • Adelaide Film Festival
      • BRON Studios
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • 2 hours 16 minutes
      • Color
      • Dolby Digital

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale (2018)
    Top Gap
    What was the official certification given to The Nightingale (2018) in Brazil?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2023 by IMDb.com, Inc.