Movie · 2023 · Drama, History, War · 1h 41m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 1.0/10 (33.3K ratings)
Israel, 1973... One woman stood between victory and defeat.
Overview
Set during the tense 19 days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir is faced with the potential of Israel’s complete destruction. She must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet and a complex relationship with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, with millions of lives in the balance. Her tough leadership and compassion would ultimately decide the fate of her nation and leave her with a controversial legacy around the world.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.0/10
IMDb: 6.0/10
Letterboxd: 2.63/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 54%
Metacritic: 48
TMDB: 6.3/10
Director
Guy Nattiv
Production
Piccadilly Pictures, Big Entrance, Embankment Films, Lipsync Productions, Qwerty Films
Cast
Helen Mirren, Camille Cottin, Liev Schreiber, Lior Ashkenazi, Rami Heuberger, Rotem Keinan, Dvir Benedek, Ellie Piercy, Henry Goodman, Ed Stoppard, Dominic Mafham, Ohad Knoller, Emma Davies, Mark Fleischmann, Daniel Ben Zenou, Olivia Brody, Zed Josef, Jaime Ray Newman, Jonathan Tafler, Sara Matin
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A serious, performance-driven political war drama anchored by Helen Mirren, but it’s often criticized for a flat TV-movie style and for handling an intensely contested historical subject in a way that feels one-sided to many viewers. Worth it mainly if you want a sober, procedural account of crisis leadership and are comfortable with a highly political, controversial perspective.
Best for
Viewers interested in political history and wartime decision-making
Fans of restrained, actor-led biographical dramas
People who want a tense cabinet-room crisis story more than battlefield spectacle
Audiences curious about the Yom Kippur War and Golda Meir
Skip if
You want a nuanced, multi-perspective treatment of the conflict
You dislike stagey visuals or a made-for-television feel
You prefer war films with more kinetic action and cinematic scale
You are sensitive to films that feel politically loaded or propagandistic
Overview
Golda is built as a pressure-cooker drama: smoke-filled rooms, clipped phone calls, maps, brief flashes of battlefield chaos, and a leader trying to hold a country together while the ground shifts beneath her. Helen Mirren gives the film its main charge, playing Golda Meir as exhausted, stubborn, and painfully aware of the human cost of every decision.
Worth noting
The movie’s strength is its focus on process and consequence. It treats the 19 days of the Yom Kippur War like a crisis-management thriller, with Henry Kissinger’s diplomacy and the Israeli cabinet’s doubts adding layers of friction. But the direction often feels cautious and visually plain, which keeps the tension from fully igniting.
Bottom line
Its biggest obstacle is not just style but subject matter. The film’s framing of the conflict has been widely viewed as politically selective, and that controversy hangs over every scene. If you approach it as a tightly contained historical drama about leadership under siege, there is craft here; if you want a broader or more balanced account, it will likely frustrate you.
Top Letterboxd reviews
ada (1.5★) · 1097 likes
the word “palestine” is never said in this film.
not as bad as i was expecting for the “golda meir zionist propaganda montage directed by the guy who made skin starring helen mirren with a giant fake nose” movie but if the bar was any lower it’d be a tripping hazard in hell
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ella (1★) · 613 likes
extremely icky. celebrates violence and genocide in a way that’s almost entirely insidious. it makes me scared to think about the real life impacts of this type of propaganda. went in for the meme and walked out feeling disgusted (also because the guy next to me kicked his shoes off immediately after sitting down and proceeded to bite his fingernails and spit them out for about a third of the runtime)
‼️EDIT‼️this review has been gaining significant traction in… more
Regal (5★) · 443 likes
Academy Award for Most Cigarettes winner
Nhway · 363 likes
In the words of @jewishvoiceforpeace :
“Golda Meir was a racist who oversaw war crimes.She’s most famous for vitriol like:"There was no such thing as Palestinians. It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."
Her biopic was released last week. Here’s what you should know:
The film celebrates the former Israeli prime minister as a feminist… more
rai (1★) · 345 likes
zionist propaganda, can’t believe that’s what we’re doing in 2023 fcs