Beasts of No Nation (2015) on Netflix
Agu lives with his family in a West African village. When rebels seize the country and war reaches the village, he flees into the jungle, where a militia takes him in.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.7/1092,273 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
The village where Agu lives sits in a buffer zone patrolled by ECOMOG troops. When word comes that the government has fallen and rebels have taken control, families flee to the capital. Agu's father arranges safe transport for Agu's mother and the two youngest children, but he stays behind with Agu and his eldest son. Fighting reaches the village, and Agu escapes into the jungle. Wandering, he is caught up in a guerrilla skirmish and adopted by the Native Defense Forces, a rebel faction. The Commandant, who leads Agu's new battalion, takes him under his wing, and Agu befriends Strika, another child soldier who never speaks.
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Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Beasts of No Nation (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Beasts of No Nation was the first film to be released directly on Netflix, arriving on the service globally on October 16, 2015 alongside a limited theatrical release by Bleecker Street.
- Seeing the online release as a break of the traditional 90-day theatrical exclusivity window, four of the largest US cinema chains, AMC, Carmike, Cinemark and Regal, boycotted Beasts of No Nation, cutting it to a limited release in smaller and independent theaters.
- An Artnet article in 2015 suggested that director Cary Joji Fukunaga had appropriated content without crediting Irish artist Richard Mosse, whose infrared film work depicted child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Cary Joji Fukunaga spent seven years working on his own screenplay, and only after six years of research into the Sierra Leone Civil War did he come across Uzodinma Iweala's novel.
- The child soldiers' costumes were modeled on the uniforms of the Kamajors, a militia who sewed fabric patches onto their shirts as a form of protection.
