Enter a Rotten Tomatoes movie slug to inspect the stored movie, batches, snapshots, and reviews.
Movie ID: 1163
RT slug: 1019441-sorcerer
RT URL: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1019441-sorcerer
Release year: 1977
Runtime: 121 mins
Wide release date: —
Limited release date: —
Festival premiere date: —
Streaming release date: 2014-08-05
Tomatometer final: 84%
Audience score final: 83%
Genres: Adventure, Drama
Directors: William Friedkin
Writers: Walon Green
Producers: William Friedkin
MPAA rating: PG
Executive Producers: —
Created: 2026-08-15 12:42:43
Updated: 2026-08-15 12:42:43
In the small South American town of Porvenir, four men on the run from the law are offered $10,000 and legal citizenship if they will transport a shipment of dangerously unstable nitroglycerin to an oil well 200 miles away. Led by Jackie Scanlon, the men set off on a hazardous journey, during which they must contend with dangerously rocky roads, unstable bridges, and attacks from local guerillas. The four fight for their lives as they struggle to complete their dangerous quest.
Sorcerer, which obstinately motors along on its unpredictable speed, features ambitious sequences of insane white-knuckle tension.
Canonical reviews: 56
Canonical fresh: 47
Canonical rotten: 9
Canonical calculated Tomatometer: 84%
Latest snapshot UTC: 2026-08-15 11:06:10
Snapshot Tomatometer: 84%
Snapshot review count: 56
Snapshot fresh count: 47
Snapshot rotten count: 9
Source note: Imported from manual review paste batch #2798 (full_snapshot)
| Company | Role |
|---|---|
| Universal Pictures | distributor |
| Film Properties International N.V. | production |
| Paramount Pictures | production |
| Billing | Name | Character |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roy Scheider | Jackie Scanlon |
| 2 | Bruno Cremer | Victor Manzon |
| 3 | Francisco Rabal | Nilo |
| 4 | Amidou | Kassem |
| 5 | Ramon Bieri | Corlette |
| Batch ID | Status | Mode | Created | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1179 | processed | — | 2026-08-15 12:42:43 | Processed successfully into movie_id=1163 using update_mode=merge_non_empty. |
| Batch ID | Local Snapshot | UTC Snapshot | Entered % | Entered Count | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2798 | 2026-08-15 06:06:00 (America/Panama) | 2026-08-15 11:06:10 | 84% | 56 | processed | Mode=full_snapshot. Processed 56 row(s); 0 row error(s). Parsed unique reviews in this batch=56, fresh=47, rotten=9, tomatometer=84%. Net new reviews added=56, fresh=47, rotten=9. Current canonical totals=56 reviews, 47 fresh, 9 rotten, tomatometer=84% (83.929%). Entered review count matched parsed batch count (56). Entered tomatometer matched parsed batch value (84%). |
| ID | Critic | Outlet | Fresh? | Score | RT Time Raw | Approx Published UTC | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 243356 | Michael J. Casey | Boulder Weekly | Fresh | 5/5 | 2025-07-11T13:23:19.000Z | 2025-07-11 13:23:19 | Bleak as hell but so expertly made it’s hard not to sit in awe. |
| 243357 | Rudie Obias | Battleship Pretension | Fresh | — | 2025-07-09T06:53:27.000Z | 2025-07-09 06:53:27 | Overall, Sorcerer is William Friedkin’s masterwork, as a storyteller and filmmaker. |
| 243358 | James Kendrick | Q Network Film Desk | Fresh | 4/4 | 2025-07-04T03:22:51.000Z | 2025-07-04 03:22:51 | a masterful evocation of human desperation and the most intense and compelling depiction of mankind battling the elements to his own destruction not directed by Werner Herzog |
| 243359 | Ed Travis | Cinapse | Fresh | — | 2025-06-24T18:30:08.000Z | 2025-06-24 18:30:08 | Sorcerer [is] something special, one of the best films from one of the greatest to ever do it. |
| 243360 | Frank J. Avella | The Contending | Fresh | B | 2025-06-16T18:17:48.000Z | 2025-06-16 18:17:48 | I appreciated that there were no heroes in the story—these men have pretty unforgivable pasts and are seeking some kind of redemption. Green’s script could have probed that notion further. |
| 243361 | Keith Garlington | Keith & the Movies | Fresh | 5/5 | 2025-02-27T16:13:26.000Z | 2025-02-27 16:13:26 | What started as a modest side project evolved into one of director William Friedkin’s very best films and one of the unheralded masterpieces of the 1970s. |
| 243362 | Sean Axmaker | Stream on Demand | Fresh | — | 2024-07-21T05:18:50.000Z | 2024-07-21 05:18:50 | Friedkin gives the jungle a primal quality, an aliveness that makes their journey feel like a trip through an alien world waiting to swallow them up. |
| 243363 | Yasser Medina | Cinefilia | Fresh | 7/10 | 2023-10-31T06:48:02.000Z | 2023-10-31 06:48:02 | A very tense thriller, in which Friedkin narrates, with pulse and atmospheres, the truck voyage of four men who pursue desperate wages in the jungle of perdition. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 243364 | Justin Harrison | The Spool | Fresh | — | 2023-09-22T14:07:00.000Z | 2023-09-22 14:07:00 | It’s simultaneously exciting and utterly unglamorous. |
| 243365 | Kevin Carr | Fat Guys at the Movies | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2023-08-11T23:59:11.000Z | 2023-08-11 23:59:11 | A slow-burn suspense film about the length some will go to escape hell. |
| 243366 | Steve Warren | The Barb (Atlanta) | Fresh | — | 2023-05-05T22:56:39.000Z | 2023-05-05 22:56:39 | It's a nail-biter all the way -- first-class moviemaking. |
| 243367 | Rob Gonsalves | Rob's Movie Vault | Fresh | A | 2022-11-29T20:49:05.000Z | 2022-11-29 20:49:05 | The legendary bridge sequence, in which first one truck and then the other seems to exhale stoically and try its luck over the splintered boards and unlikely ropes of that bridge, can still get us to lean forward in our seats and wince audibly. |
| 243368 | Brian Eggert | Deep Focus Review | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-08-15T02:21:21.000Z | 2022-08-15 02:21:21 | Sorcerer pokes and prods its audience throughout, both viscerally and existentially, forcing our complete emotional involvement and eventual exhaustion. |
| 243369 | Cory Woodroof | 615 Film | Fresh | — | 2022-06-25T22:14:45.000Z | 2022-06-25 22:14:45 | Friedkin is a master of shot composition, and in building that exact shade of gut-wrenching tension that makes you want to yell at the screen. |
| 243370 | Rex Reed | New York Daily News | Fresh | — | 2021-10-26T22:51:45.000Z | 2021-10-26 22:51:45 | I don't know if there's an audience for this kind of grueling, depressing experience, but Sorcerer might bring back the kind of moviegoer who used to cheer Humphrey Bogart. It's tough and unyielding as a pair of brass knuckles. |
| 243371 | Vincent Canby | New York Times | Rotten | — | 2021-02-28T17:21:28.000Z | 2021-02-28 17:21:28 | For moviegoers who are convinced that more is more, "Sorcerer" is a big, fat, satisfyingly shapeless spectacle. For the rest of us it's a walnut of a movie-a good little melodrama surrounded by thick pulp. |
| 243372 | Andrew Collins | Radio Times | Fresh | 4/5 | 2021-02-28T17:21:27.000Z | 2021-02-28 17:21:27 | It's the more reflective human moments that elevate this thriller beyond the generic. |
| 243373 | Peter Keough | Boston Globe | Fresh | — | 2021-02-28T17:11:15.000Z | 2021-02-28 17:11:15 | The director at his most brilliant and original. |
| 243374 | Ruth Batchelor | Los Angeles Free Press | Rotten | — | 2019-10-22T23:52:25.000Z | 2019-10-22 23:52:25 | It's not Papillon and it's not The Freach Connection. It's for people who want to see superhuman macho efforts with futile results. |
| 243375 | Augusto Martínez Torres | El Pais (Spain) | Fresh | — | 2019-08-07T16:20:39.000Z | 2019-08-07 16:20:39 | The existential elements are the main attraction of this movie. [Full Review in Spanish] |
| 243376 | Bernard Drew | Gannett News Service | Fresh | — | 2019-07-09T22:29:21.000Z | 2019-07-09 22:29:21 | Sorcerer is not magical entertainment, as the title might indicate but it is a very well made film. |
| 243377 | Gary Arnold | Washington Post | Rotten | — | 2018-04-23T23:27:14.000Z | 2018-04-23 23:27:14 | One can't help wondering if Sorcerer was awarded a "PG" rating before or after it was screened. |
| 243378 | Robert Martin | Starburst | Fresh | 7/10 | 2017-11-10T00:53:05.000Z | 2017-11-10 00:53:05 | Sorcerer is at times a powerful experience and looks great in this Blu-ray edition. |
| 243379 | Peter Bradshaw | Guardian | Fresh | 4/5 | 2017-11-03T11:27:03.000Z | 2017-11-03 11:27:03 | A fierce, austere and intriguing film: a cinematic concerto of pessimism. |
| 243380 | Allan Hunter | Daily Express (UK) | Fresh | 4/5 | 2017-11-03T02:21:35.000Z | 2017-11-03 02:21:35 | A tense, slow-burning remake of the French classic The Wages Of Fear. |
| 243381 | Ali Catterall | Total Film | Fresh | 3/5 | 2017-10-30T18:26:43.000Z | 2017-10-30 18:26:43 | Contains two of the most astounding sequences in cinema, featuring a dynamited tree and a storm-lashed truck on a splintering rope bridge ... |
| 243382 | Ian Schultz | Little White Lies | Fresh | 5/5 | 2017-10-27T09:45:13.000Z | 2017-10-27 09:45:13 | Sorcerer is a stunning reimagining of a masterpiece, one that crucially doesn't try to replicate what came before. Instead, it follows its own dangerous path. |
| 243383 | Joshua Rothkopf | Time Out | Fresh | 4/5 | 2014-05-28T04:32:15.000Z | 2014-05-28 04:32:15 | By the time Sorcerer gets around to its rain-soaked, rickety-bridge set piece, you'll either be obsessed or fully checked out. Give yourself a chance to pick sides. |
| 243384 | Alan Scherstuhl | Village Voice | Fresh | — | 2014-05-27T13:16:03.000Z | 2014-05-27 13:16:03 | First and foremost a lavish entertainment, no matter its brief examination of oil politics. |
| 243385 | Clayton Dillard | Slant Magazine | Fresh | 4/4 | 2014-05-23T05:59:46.000Z | 2014-05-23 05:59:46 | William Friedkin’s film is a nightmarish vision of the effects of exploitative corporate forces. |
| 243386 | David Nusair | Reel Film Reviews | Fresh | 2.5/4 | 2014-05-04T13:43:05.000Z | 2014-05-04 13:43:05 | ...a palpably overlong drama that's rife with superfluous scenes and subplots... |
| 243387 | Sam Adams | The Dissolve | Fresh | 4/5 | 2014-04-29T14:33:55.000Z | 2014-04-29 14:33:55 | [...] a defiant, mad gesture of a film that features some of the most exhilarating sequences in movie history. |
| 243388 | Mike Scott | Times-Picayune | Fresh | 3/5 | 2014-04-22T10:49:01.000Z | 2014-04-22 10:49:01 | Over the years, a certain mystique has surrounded Friedkin's dark tale, as is so often the case with lost films. Unlike many of them, though, Sorcerer delivers. |
| 243389 | Jeff Beck | Examiner.com | Rotten | 2/5 | 2014-04-21T07:22:21.000Z | 2014-04-21 07:22:21 | Is it any wonder the film slipped into obscurity almost immediately after release? With the number of issues that pile up by the end of these two hours, an incredibly misleading title ends up being the least of its worries. |
| 243390 | Corey Atad | Movie Mezzanine | Fresh | — | 2014-04-08T16:18:09.000Z | 2014-04-08 16:18:09 | It's easy to be repelled by the film's relentless bleakness, but it's even easier to be entranced by its immense scale, impeccable craft and astonishing suspense. |
| 243391 | Josh Slater-Williams | The Skinny | Fresh | 4/5 | 2014-03-06T08:49:27.000Z | 2014-03-06 08:49:27 | Breathtaking in its cinematography, production design and sound work, Sorcerer is a worthy contender for the film with the most suspenseful set-pieces in Hollywood history - if such an arbitrary title existed. |
| 243392 | Richard Schickel | TIME Magazine | Rotten | — | 2011-05-20T16:45:08.000Z | 2011-05-20 16:45:08 | The new movie is handsomely shot and crisply edited. Why, then, does one rather distantly respect it instead of just plain liking it? It is an odd, disappointing feeling to take away from a summertime movie. |
| 243393 | Unknown Critic | TV Guide | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2011-05-20T16:01:38.000Z | 2011-05-20 16:01:38 | Friedkin's Sorcerer is just as gripping and spine-tingling an adventure film as The Wages of Fear and, at times, surpasses the original film with breathtaking photography and a superb use of sound |
| 243394 | Fernando F. Croce | CinePassion | Fresh | — | 2009-09-25T19:49:38.000Z | 2009-09-25 19:49:38 | Friedkin's maldit analysis of The Wages of Fear retains Clouzot's perverse punchline and adds plenty of its own |
| 243395 | Cole Smithey | ColeSmithey.com | Fresh | A | 2009-07-20T20:54:30.000Z | 2009-07-20 20:54:30 | It's rare that a remake lives up to the original upon which it was based, but "Sorcerer" is that exceptional movie. |
| 243396 | Urban Cinefile Critics | Urban Cinefile | Fresh | — | 2008-10-18T03:26:32.000Z | 2008-10-18 03:26:32 | Sorcerer is simply riveting cinema, one of the most enthralling, suspenseful and heart-stopping films I have ever seen. |
| 243397 | Variety Staff | Variety | Rotten | — | 2008-05-16T03:15:21.000Z | 2008-05-16 03:15:21 | William Friedkin's Sorcerer is a painstaking, admirable, but mostly distant and uninvolving suspenser based on the French classic The Wages of Fear. |
| 243398 | Jake Euker | F5 (Wichita, KS) | Rotten | 2/5 | 2007-02-25T20:33:27.000Z | 2007-02-25 20:33:27 | — |
| 243399 | Jeffrey M. Anderson | Combustible Celluloid | Fresh | — | 2006-11-13T03:16:55.000Z | 2006-11-13 03:16:55 | An existential suspense movie, Sorcerer is a masterpiece, and one of Friedkin's best. |
| 243400 | Unknown Critic | Time Out | Rotten | — | 2006-01-26T03:15:44.000Z | 2006-01-26 03:15:44 | Friedkin hints at political themes, but the film suffers most from condescendingly over-emphatic direction, and a generally tedious, relentless grimy realism in the opening half hour. |
| 243401 | Dennis Schwartz | Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews | Fresh | B- | 2005-12-10T15:25:46.000Z | 2005-12-10 15:25:46 | The film could never shake the dark cloud that hung over its head. |
| 243402 | Nicolas Lacroix | EnPrimeur.ca | Fresh | 3/5 | 2005-09-26T11:11:22.000Z | 2005-09-26 11:11:22 | — |
| 243403 | Dan Jardine | Cinemania | Fresh | 83/100 | 2005-08-21T19:41:22.000Z | 2005-08-21 19:41:22 | A damned riveting film, from start to finish |
| 243404 | Thomas Delapa | Boulder Weekly | Fresh | 3/5 | 2005-02-10T16:04:13.000Z | 2005-02-10 16:04:13 | — |
| 243405 | Robin Clifford | Reeling Reviews | Fresh | 3/5 | 2004-04-02T13:49:58.000Z | 2004-04-02 13:49:58 | — |
| 243406 | Unknown Critic | Film4 | Fresh | — | 2003-05-24T08:05:26.000Z | 2003-05-24 08:05:26 | Though not a patch on the Clouzot movie, it is still rather gripping, the photography is superb, there is an excellent use of sound and an eerie electronic score by Tangerine Dream. |
| 243407 | Caffeinated Clint | Moviehole | Fresh | 3/5 | 2002-11-20T21:19:27.000Z | 2002-11-20 21:19:27 | while its narrative is slipshod, the dialogue is problematic and the drive is irresolute - one thing's for sure, the film's few golden moments of awe-inspiring action is simply that - white-knuckle classic thrills |
| 243408 | James Rocchi | Netflix | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2002-11-07T13:22:31.000Z | 2002-11-07 13:22:31 | — |
| 243409 | Philip Martin | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Rotten | 2/5 | 2002-08-29T08:58:11.000Z | 2002-08-29 08:58:11 | — |
| 243410 | Rob Vaux | Flipside Movie Emporium | Fresh | 5/5 | 2002-07-26T19:40:14.000Z | 2002-07-26 19:40:14 | Though not quite as brilliant as the French original, William Friedkin's tale of desperation and colonial exploitation still packs a merciless punch. |
| 243411 | Scott Weinberg | eFilmCritic.com | Fresh | 5/5 | 2002-07-25T23:13:49.000Z | 2002-07-25 23:13:49 | — |
Showing the latest 100 canonical reviews for this movie.