First Reformed

    First Reformed
    2018

    Synopsis

    A pastor of a small church in upstate New York starts to spiral out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife.

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    Cast

    • Ethan HawkePastor Ernst Toller
    • Amanda SeyfriedMary Mensana
    • Cedric the EntertainerPastor Joel Jeffers
    • Victoria HillEsther
    • Philip EttingerMichael Mensana
    • Michael GastonEdward Balq
    • Bill HoagJohn Elder
    • Kristin VillanuevaNurse Cindy
    • Ingrid Kullberg-BendzMiddle-Aged Tourist
    • Ken FormanMiddle-Aged Tourist

    Recommendations

    • 91

      IndieWire

      The movie’s conclusion pits religion against personal desire in remarkably visceral terms.
    • 90

      Variety

      In First Reformed, Paul Schrader courts respectability and leaves it in the dust, getting stoned on excess. But make no mistake: He’s still one hell of a filmmaker.
    • 85

      TheWrap

      Paul Schrader has always been a faith-based filmmaker in the truest and most challenging sense, and First Reformed is the sort of stimulating work that a writer-director of a certain age can deliver when he returns to his creative sweet spot; rejoice, Schrader fans, rejoice.
    • 83

      The Playlist

      Full of conviction, First Reformed feels like a lifetime of preoccupations and traumas distilled beautifully, accompanied with a haunting sparseness creating a profound deliverance.
    • 83

      The A.V. Club

      The film itself, shot in Academy ratio in the dead of winter, is quieter and more sensitive than anything else Schrader has directed, with Ethan Hawke giving one of his finest and most moving performances in the lead role.
    • 80

      CineVue

      Hawke's performance is his most mature to date, a masterpiece of a man who cannot work himself out and yet is compelled to try.
    • 80

      Screen Daily

      Thoughtful, moving, overreaching and uncompromising, First Reformed is a tremendously tormented work from writer-director Paul Schrader.
    • 80

      The Telegraph

      First Reformed doesn’t come off as pastiche, or a raking-up of old ideas – largely because Schrader and his cast commit to the project with sharpened and unblinking seriousness, even when the going gets mesmerically weird.

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