Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5

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Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5

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1h 59m

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From Academy Award®-nominated and BAFTA-winning director, Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), Orwell is the definitive feature-length documentary on visionary author George Orwell, with the exclusive cooperation of the Orwell Estate. ‍"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past...," wrote Orwell in his novel, 1984. Today, the "newspeak" of authoritarian rule is alive and well and in unexpected places, from the rise of AI Chatbot to the Russian propaganda machine, from the marketing webs of commercial metaverses to the political banning of books in the Southern United States. Peck's "Orwell" will use George Orwell's life, work and legacy as a maverick iconoclastic writer to jam the signals of the algorithms gone rogue which, in the name of personal freedom, threaten to close our minds to a greater possibility.

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Critics Consensus

Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 is a dense, urgent, and unapologetically blunt documentary that offers a chillingly relevant examination of totalitarianism's enduring appeal and the societal conditions that enable it.

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Christy Lemire

FilmWeek (LAist)

Nov 11

It kind of keeps making [the same] point, but that point is painfully relevant and necessary to hear now.

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Tim Cogshell

FilmWeek (LAist)

Nov 11

I particularly enjoyed the images that Peck would bump up against [Orwell's] text to illustrate what George was talking about. You can build a picture in your mind with words, but a picture doesn't hurt.

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Sarah-Tai Black

Globe and Mail

Oct 8

Despite its unevenness at times, Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 is a sprawling work that offers itself as a frightening historical record. Indeed, it is perhaps the most soberingly didactic of Peck’s works.

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David Walsh

World Socialist Web Site

Dec 12

1/4

One feels that one has crawled in the mind of a discontented, overwhelmed semi-left artist or intellectual, one without an informed perspective on any of the events he introduces, and the results are not happy, to say the least

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Robert Roten

Laramie Movie Scope

Dec 8

B

This documentary shows how some countries, like the U.S. and Israel, are marching towards authoritarianism. There is some hope, according to the documentary, and that lies with the great masses of people, who may still share some common decency.

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Dionar Hidalgo

Algo Más Que Cine

Dec 7

9/10

A furious and essential essay-doc, Orwell: 2+2=5 confronts today’s political nightmare with haunting clarity. Peck’s dense, unsettling montage turns Orwell’s warnings into a blistering call to awareness—and resistance.

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Gregg Y

Oct 18

Informative and visually captivating

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RG

Oct 13

Very intense and very thoughtful. Agreed with much of it, but its so overtly one-sided that detracts a bit from its credibility. Lots of horrors that humans inflict upon one another shown, but no reference to 9/11 or the October 7, 2023 assault by Hamas.

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Vince Q.

@Vincedeq Dec 19

A biopic with a twist, as the filmmaker plucks Orwellian commentary from his literary past and juxtaposes them with current events.

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@JacquesLeslie Dec 13

A powerful movie that is more than the sum of its estimable parts, even if it makes the same vital point over and over again. Orwell was one of the most prescient English-language writers of the 20th century, and this movie shows his relevance to today.

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Michael D

@MichaelX Dec 8

"Orwell: 2+2=5" is one of the most viscerally frightening films I’ve seen in years, not slasher scary, but that slow-boil dread of realizing we’re the frog in the pot and the water has long been simmering. Raoul Peck (whose James Baldwin documentary was luminous) assembles archival footage, Orwell’s own words, and a brisk intellectual biography to show exactly how his warnings in "1984" have seeped into the marrow of modern life. The throughline from Orwell’s vision to our surveillance capitalism, doublespeak, and billionaire techno-authoritarianism lands like a gutpunch. With every movement recorded, every stray thought mined by an algorithm, how did we allow this to happen when visionaries spelled it out for us so clearly? Peck threads together Orwell’s experiences, the Iraq War’s manufactured truth, the unprovoked attack on Ukraine, and the historical rewriting of January 6th with chilling clarity. It’s heavy, frightening, and eye-opening. I can’t stop thinking about it.

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Damien S

Nov 27

Important, rightfully disturbing.

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Raoul Peck

Director

Damian Lewis

Narrator

Raoul Peck

Writer

Alex Gibney

Producer

Blair Foster

Producer

Tamara Rosenberg

Producer

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Orwell: 2+2=5: Trailer 1

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Synopsis

From Academy Award®-nominated and BAFTA-winning director, Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), Orwell is the definitive feature-length documentary on visionary author George Orwell, with the exclusive cooperation of the Orwell Estate. ‍"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past...," wrote Orwell in his novel, 1984. Today, the "newspeak" of authoritarian rule is alive and well and in unexpected places, from the rise of AI Chatbot to the Russian propaganda machine, from the marketing webs of commercial metaverses to the political banning of books in the Southern United States. Peck's "Orwell" will use George Orwell's life, work and legacy as a maverick iconoclastic writer to jam the signals of the algorithms gone rogue which, in the name of personal freedom, threaten to close our minds to a greater possibility.

Director: Raoul Peck
Producer: Alex Gibney, Blair Foster, Tamara Rosenberg, Nick Shumaker, George Chignell, Raoul Peck
Screenwriter: Raoul Peck
Distributor: NEON
Production Co: Closer Media, Anonymous Content, Jigsaw Productions
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 3, 2025, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA): $350.3K
Runtime: 1h 59m

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