Movie · 2019 · Thriller, History, Drama, Action · 2h 3m · R · English
Curator score: 5.8/10 (155.2K ratings)
November 26, 2008… Terror struck the heart of India.
Overview
Mumbai, India, November 26, 2008. While several terrorists spread hatred and death through the city, others attack the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Both hotel staff and guests risk their lives, making unthinkable sacrifices to protect themselves and keep everyone safe while help arrives.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.8/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.70/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Metacritic: 62
TMDB: 7.5/10
Director
Anthony Maras
Production
Xeitgeist Entertainment Group, Screen Australia, South Australian Film Corporation, Arclight Films, Double Guess Productions, ScreenWest
Cast
Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Anupam Kher, Jason Isaacs, Suhail Nayyar, Amandeep Singh, Manoj Mehra, Dinesh Kumar, Kapil Kumar Netra, Amriptal Singh, Mohammad Arafat Sarguroh, Adithi Kalkunte, Angus McLaren, Alex Pinder, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Vipin Sharma, Gaurav Paswala, Naina Sareen
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A harrowing, tightly wound survival thriller that turns a real-world atrocity into an almost unbearable pressure cooker. It’s not easy viewing, but it’s effective, humane in its best moments, and built on relentless suspense rather than spectacle.
Best for
Viewers who want intense, based-on-true-events survival dramas
Fans of claustrophobic siege thrillers
People interested in stories of ordinary courage under extreme pressure
Skip if
You want a light or entertaining thriller
You’re sensitive to graphic violence and mass-casualty terror
You prefer historical dramas with distance, nuance, or broad political context
Overview
Hotel Mumbai is designed to keep you on edge, and it succeeds almost too well. The film drops you into the chaos of the Taj Mahal Palace attack with a punishing immediacy, using the hotel’s layout, the staff’s routines, and the attackers’ movement to build a relentless sense of dread.
Worth noting
What gives it shape is not just the violence, but the acts of care and coordination that push back against it. The hotel staff become the emotional center, and the movie finds its most affecting material in small decisions made under impossible pressure.
Bottom line
It’s also a difficult film to recommend casually, because its subject is so raw and the approach can feel exploitative to some viewers. Still, as a survival thriller, it is expertly controlled, emotionally direct, and often overwhelming in the way a disaster film should be when it’s working at full force.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Buddy O (4.5★) · 808 likes
I've been to the cinema over 900 times in the last 10 years and probably upwards of 1.3k in my life.This is the first movie i've ever walked out of.
This movie is brutal, gets right upfront into the terrorists acts and doesn't hold back.
The first 40 minutes is just a group of terrorists shooting innocent people in point-blank range. It is absolutely heartbreaking and my partner couldn't handle it any more so we made the decision to… more
sofyan (4.5★) · 646 likes
Goddammit! I could barely breathe throughout the film.... That was so fuckin' intense!! Like super intense....
davidehrlich (3★) · 351 likes
If we have to keep making action movies out of the most unspeakably horrifying terrorist attacks of the 21st century (and that’s still up for debate), they might as well be as lucid and humane as Anthony Maras’ “Hotel Mumbai.” A dramatization of the November 2008 ambush on India’s largest city, the film — it should go without saying — is harrowing to the extreme. Almost unbearable, in fact.
However, Maras’ powerful debut feature only deserves so much credit for… more
Jo March (4★) · 307 likes
Dev Patel I am asking you politely to run me over with your car
@Mr. Like🔥🔥🔥 (4★) · 302 likes
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%Metacritic Metascore: 62IMDB: 7.6
83/100
Release Date: 29 March 2019Distributor: Bleecker Street MediaBudget: class="h-100"0MWorldwide Gross: $21.3MTotal Film Awards: 9
Man on the phone: "You feel strong. You feel calm. There is no fear in your heart. Look across at your brothers... and see me in their eyes. You are all like sons to me. I am with you. God is with you. Paradise awaits you. God is great."
First off, this film… more