State of Siege

1972

2h 0m

Mystery & Thriller

Drama

List

75%

Tomatometer

8 Reviews

89%

Audience Score

500+ Ratings

Assigned to work in South America, United States official Philip Michael Santore (Yves Montand) is employed by an agency involved in counterinsurgency tactics. Santore's position makes him a target for a local band of guerrillas, and, before long, he is kidnapped. As a prisoner, Santore undergoes interrogation, shedding light on the violent situation in the country. Once the insurgents are done with their questioning, they must decide whether Santore lives or dies.

Read More

Read Less

Watch on Fandango at Home

Premiered May 27

Buy Now

Fandango at Home

Prime Video

Rent State of Siege on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

Penelope Gilliatt

New Yorker

The picture deliberately hacks away all possibility of plot suspense. The grip of the story is in the possible twists and turns that casuistry can take, and it has two fine, inquiring minds controlling it.

Jan 23, 2024

Full Review

David Wilson

Sight & Sound

Characteristically, Costa-Gavras is unable to resist the opportunist tricks of the skilled exponent of political melodrama.

Mar 18, 2020

Full Review

Noel Murray

The Dissolve

Costa-Gavras captures how it feels to live under martial law, and how even some committed populists will scrap their ideals to protect their comfort and privilege.

Rated: 4/5

Jun 2, 2015

Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Living by the sword always means dying by the same blade...

Rated: FIVE STARS

Mar 29, 2022

Full Review

James Kendrick

Q Network Film Desk

Rather than playing into the prejudices and biases of any one political stripe, State of Siege boldly dares to look at both sides, finding both fault and virtue.

Rated: 3.5/4

Jun 22, 2015

Full Review

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

Purposefully frustrating Yankee-Go-Home pamphlet

Jun 11, 2012

Full Review

Read all reviews

acsdoug D

Purveys the tired leftist trope that a handful of Americans can show up and take a country of millions of people where it doesn't want to go. it wasn't true then, it isn't true now, and it is incredibly insulting to the citizens of those countries. Still, a good story could be told from that viewpoint - Oliver Stone's "Salvador" is a an excellent film. This film, however, lacks nuance, all the members of the government are evil incarnate. It makes for a rather dull two hours.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/29/24

Full Review

Joel C

A very politically driven film about South American guerrillas kidnapping targets who they believe are involved in torture tactics, in particular a US communication specialist. The film moves fast and talks faster, relying on the viewer to keep up. Almost a documentary feel it tells the story well with sometimes hundreds of extras on screen moving with seemingly un-choreographed fashion.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/20/21

Full Review

Audience Member

Loved it! Such a great dramatic history of covert US interference in repressive puppet regimes of South America

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/23/23

Full Review

Audience Member

State of Siege has the usual rhythm of any other Gavras affair, but fails in comparison to Z and The Confession for its emotional nakedness and considerable lack of tension in comparison.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Neatly put together from realistic events. Another great political thriller, in the vein of corrupted government and the revolutionare "spanish" coffee terrorists.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Costa-Gravas political thrillers are based on true stories. The incident dramatized here is the kidnapping of an American (Yves Montand) who supposedly works for an American aid agency but the plot slowly reveals that he is a CIA (the agency is never aimed) sent to train police and military officials in an unnamed Latin American country counter-insurgency techniques. The kidnapping is undertaken by a leftist urban guerrilla force. The politics of the film are very left-wing. Costa-Gravas is not entirely sympathetic with the methods of the terrorists but the film illustrates how Montand's character and the people he trained have undermined democracy in the country, employing agent-provocateurs, illegal torture techniques, and extra-legal death squads. In the end, the trappings of democracy are done away with and martial law is declared. It is based on events that occurred in Uruguay in 1970 and was filmed in Chile in 1972; in the next year Chile's democratically elected left wing government would be overthrown in a military coup (the subject of Costa-Gravas' later film Missing). Costa-Gravas has always been sympathetic with the oppressed of the world and had previously done over the Greek military junta in Z and the Stalinist thugs who crushed the Prague Spring in The Confession. Its a French film presented in French with English subtitles. If you thought Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's foreign policy in the Americas was (to quote David Eisenhower) "swell," avoid watching this film.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Costa-Gavras

Director

Yves Montand

Philip Michael Santore

Renato Salvatori

Captain Lopez

O.E. Hasse

Carlos Ducas

Jacques Weber

Hugo

Jean-Luc Bideau

Este

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

75%

50%

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

69%

66%

The Boys From Brazil

82%

82%

Straw Dogs

97%

83%

Wake in Fright

100%

65%

Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

View more photos

Synopsis

Assigned to work in South America, United States official Philip Michael Santore (Yves Montand) is employed by an agency involved in counterinsurgency tactics. Santore's position makes him a target for a local band of guerrillas, and, before long, he is kidnapped. As a prisoner, Santore undergoes interrogation, shedding light on the violent situation in the country. Once the insurgents are done with their questioning, they must decide whether Santore lives or dies.

Director: Costa-Gavras
Screenwriter: Franco Solinas, Costa-Gavras
Genre: Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Streaming): May 27, 2015
Runtime: 2h 0m

Most Popular at Home Now