Movie · 2013 · Action, Thriller · 2h · R · English
Curator score: 1.2/10 (462.7K ratings)
When our flag falls our nation will rise.
Overview
When the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President is kidnapped, disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As the national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning's inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President and avert an even bigger disaster.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.2/10
IMDb: 6.5/10
Letterboxd: 2.83/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 49%
Metacritic: 41
TMDB: 6.4/10
Director
Antoine Fuqua
Production
Millennium Media, G-BASE, Nu Image
Cast
Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Finley Jacobsen, Dylan McDermott, Rick Yune, Morgan Freeman, Cole Hauser, Radha Mitchell, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Phil Austin, James Ingersoll, Freddy Bosche, Lance Broadway, Sean O'Bryan, Keong Sim, Kevin Moon, Malana Lea, Robert Forster, Sam Medina
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, AMC+, Philo, BBC America, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A loud, aggressively efficient White House siege thriller with solid momentum and a committed Gerard Butler performance, but also blunt nationalism, uneven visual polish, and a familiar Die Hard-in-the-White-House setup. It works best as a disposable action watch rather than a standout political thriller.
Best for
Viewers who want a fast, no-frills action movie
Fans of siege thrillers and single-location mayhem
People in the mood for a tough, old-school leading man performance
Audiences who can enjoy pulpy patriotism without taking it too seriously
Skip if
You want nuanced politics or realistic geopolitics
You’re sensitive to jingoistic or militaristic storytelling
You need elegant action choreography or top-tier visual style
You’ve already seen and prefer the more polished entries in this subgenre
Overview
Olympus Has Fallen is built like a blunt instrument: simple premise, hard edges, and a relentless push toward the next gunfight or explosion. The appeal is immediate if you like action movies that get in, kick the door down, and keep moving. Gerard Butler gives it a bruised, stubborn energy that helps sell the whole thing, even when the script leans hard into fantasy heroics and patriotic chest-thumping.
Worth noting
The movie’s biggest weakness is that it often looks and feels cheap for something aiming at blockbuster scale. The action can be murky, the politics are crude, and the emotional beats are mostly functional. Still, there’s a certain grim, trashy efficiency to it that makes it easy to understand why it played well with audiences looking for a lean siege thriller.
Bottom line
If you want a smarter or more stylish version of this setup, there are better options. But if your goal is a tense, aggressively straightforward assault-on-the-White-House movie, this delivers exactly that, with very little ornament and no apology.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Mary Conti (5★) · 671 likes
INT. STUDIO WAREHOUSE-NIGHT
We’re in a dark studio warehouse where films go to die. An endless sea of shelves filled with scripts and film reels of movies that never saw the light of day.
In the sea of darkness, we see a flashlight. We reveal three men, a SECURITY GUARD, and two HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVES.
HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVE #1 is holding a tracker.
SECURITY GUARD:You said it went off about a day ago, right?
HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVE #1:Yeah. It rarely happens.… more
George Carmi (3.5★) · 548 likes
I’ve seen everyone’s bad reviews and I’ve decided they’re all wrong. This movie rips.
Josh Lewis (1★) · 400 likes
"... i lost faith"
terrorism literally staged as a home invasion so america can play out its good-guy-with-a-gun fantasy on an explosive scale and so that, instead of meditating on how we actually respond to trauma (like a similarly-premised craven film Red Eye, which is an invasion thriller about assault/trauma with post-9/11 subtext), we understand that the only response to a collective tragedy is to double down on all of america's worst national traits. this is a film that has… more
DirkH (1★) · 176 likes
Every Tuesday evening I go to my local movie theater for the Sneak Preview. There we are shown a film that hasn't premièred yet in the Netherlands and we never know in advance which film we will get. This was today's sneak preview. I list them all here.
Why the hell was this movie made? Are we that much in need of a new enemy? Let's take on those pesky Koreans and have an excuse to wave the flag around… more
Ian Curran (3★) · 156 likes
99% of this movie is brutalist propaganda, while also being 💯% a great action movie.
1998 · Action, Drama, Thriller · 2h 12m · R · Curator 4.8/10 (392.3K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
For viewers who like surveillance-state paranoia and relentless momentum wrapped in a mainstream thriller package.