Movie · 2015 · Drama, Crime · 1h 52m · R · English
Curator score: 7.8/10 (42K ratings)
Greed is the only game in town.
Overview
After his family is evicted from their home, proud and desperate construction worker Dennis Nash tries to win his home back by striking a deal with the devil and working for Rick Carver, the corrupt real estate broker who evicted him.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.8/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 76
TMDB: 6.8/10
Director
Ramin Bahrani
Production
Hyde Park Entertainment, Noruz Films
Cast
Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern, Nicole Barré, J.D. Evermore, Tim Guinee, Noah Lomax, Clancy Brown, Cullen Moss, Wayne Péré, Judd Lormand, Gretchen Koerner, Yvonne Landry, Donna DuPlantier, Jordyn McDempsey, Gus Rhodes, John L. Armijo, Jayson Warner Smith, Ann Mahoney, Juan Gaspard
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, bruising housing-crisis drama that plays like a moral thriller. It’s not subtle, but the urgency, Michael Shannon’s menace, and Andrew Garfield’s desperation make it compelling and timely.
Best for
Viewers who like socially conscious dramas with thriller energy
Fans of tense performances and moral compromise stories
People interested in the 2008 housing crash and its fallout
Audiences who enjoy bleak, propulsive indie realism
Skip if
You want a nuanced villain with lots of ambiguity
You prefer understated, low-key dramas
You’re looking for a hopeful or cathartic story
You dislike melodrama or issue-driven filmmaking
Overview
99 Homes turns the housing crash into a pressure-cooker of shame, greed, and survival. Ramin Bahrani keeps the story moving with the force of a thriller, even as the subject is painfully real: eviction, predatory lending, and the way desperation can make complicity feel like necessity.
Worth noting
Andrew Garfield gives the film its wounded center, playing a man pushed into choices that corrode his self-respect. Michael Shannon, meanwhile, is all shark-like confidence and cold opportunism, an almost mythic embodiment of the system’s cruelty.
Bottom line
The film can be blunt, and it sometimes leans hard on its moral contrasts, but it’s effective because it knows exactly what kind of outrage it wants to provoke. It’s a grim, well-acted, tightly wound portrait of economic collapse as personal catastrophe.
Top Letterboxd reviews
russman (4★) · 665 likes
If you're having mortgage problems I feel bad for you son. I got 99 houses but a ranch ain't one.
Josh Lewis (3★) · 464 likes
This is a solid predatory housing crisis drama but its biggest contribution to cinema history is Michael Shannon vaping.
gaia (3.5★) · 282 likes
these mfs got andrew garfield evicting them and dared to complain? ungrateful fuckers.
andrew evict me.
Pablo Honey ✨ ₊˚ ☾. ⋅ 💫🌌 (3.5★) · 224 likes
Spider-Man: Taking Away Your Home.
davidehrlich (3.5★) · 159 likes
Ramin Bahrani’s Magic Mike – less dick, more dicking over. blistering moral thriller is rote, but righteously clear-eyed. Bahrani is such an old school Ford-ian moralist that it's hard not to just smile and roll with the narrative conveniences that come along with that. and the cast sure is good.