Movie · 2020 · Drama, Western, Adventure · 1h 58m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 4.0/10 (190.8K ratings)
Find where you belong.
Overview
A Texan traveling across the wild West bringing the news of the world to local townspeople, agrees to help rescue a young girl who was kidnapped.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.0/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.23/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Metacritic: 73
TMDB: 6.9/10
Director
Paul Greengrass
Production
Playtone, Pretty Pictures, Universal Pictures, Perfect World Pictures
Cast
Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel, Michael Angelo Covino, Ray McKinnon, Mare Winningham, Elizabeth Marvel, Fred Hechinger, Bill Camp, Thomas Francis Murphy, Gabriel Ebert, Neil Sandilands, Winsome Brown, Chukwudi Iwuji, Christopher Hagen, Stafford Douglas, Michelle Campbell, Clint Obenchain, J. Nathan Simmons, Travis Johnson, Andy Kastelic
Where to watch
Peacock Premium, Peacock Premium Plus
Curator Review
Verdict
A sturdy, old-fashioned Western road movie with handsome craft, strong performances, and a gentle emotional core. It doesn’t break much new ground, but it’s effective if you want a sincere, well-made frontier adventure with heart.
Best for
Viewers who like classic-feeling Westerns with a modern polish
Fans of Tom Hanks in protective, quietly heroic mode
Audiences looking for a scenic, slow-burn adventure
People who enjoy emotional found-family or guardian-child stories
Skip if
You want revisionist Westerns with sharper ideas or more bite
You’re looking for a fast, twisty, or highly original plot
You dislike sentimental storytelling
You prefer Westerns centered on moral ambiguity or violence over warmth
Overview
News of the World is a polished, sincere Western that leans on atmosphere, performance, and movement rather than surprise. Paul Greengrass brings a surprisingly controlled touch to the material, giving the film a steady momentum and a tactile sense of place, while the landscapes and production design do a lot of the heavy lifting in making the journey feel lived-in.
Worth noting
Tom Hanks is exactly the kind of anchor this story needs: calm, weathered, and emotionally legible without becoming bland. His relationship with Helena Zengel gives the film its real pulse, turning a familiar escort narrative into something more tender and watchable than its outline suggests.
Bottom line
The movie is at its best when it trusts the road-movie structure and the physical details of the frontier. It’s less successful when it reaches for broad thematic statements or tidy uplift, but the craftsmanship is strong enough that the film remains easy to recommend to viewers in the mood for a dignified, accessible Western.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Lucy (3★) · 813 likes
more than anything this reminded me that i still need to finish red dead redemption 2
john (2.5★) · 503 likes
I kind of get why this is doing so well this award season. Watching Tom Hanks for two hours is always a treat. Watching Tom Hanks protect a child with his life is even better.
Nakul (3★) · 498 likes
News of the World is a competently made, old-fashioned western road movie. It's predictable, you know where it is going but the subtle & graceful performance of Tom Hanks and the chemistry between him and Helena Zengel is what makes it work. It is Paul Greengrass' most visually striking & heartfelt film without being showy. James Newton Howard’s score was lovely. It's surprisingly timely movie too (the movie opens and ends with mention of meningitis/cholera virus outbreak and the spread of ‘fake news’ being a significant plot point).
David Chen (4★) · 374 likes
Tom Hanks was hosting daily news podcasts 150 years before it was cool.
davidehrlich (3★) · 292 likes
Known for the visceral, “shaky-cam” immediacy of a vérité style that’s proven bracingly chaotic in some movies (“Captain Phillips,” “United 93”) and utterly nauseating in others (“The Green Zone”), director Paul Greengrass might seem ill-suited to direct a Western — to work in that most sweeping and stoic of American genres. But “News of the World” isn’t much interested in telling a story about the way this country tends to burnish its bloodiest chapters into myth.
Adapted from Paulette Jiles’… more