Matewan

Matewan (1987)

  • 93% of critics liked it
    (29 reviews)

  • 90% of users liked it
    (3,869 ratings)

Independent filmmaker John Sayles creates one of his more artistic works with this period feature about a volatile 1920s labor dispute in the town of Matewan, West Virginia. Matewan is a coal town where the local miners' lives are controlled by the powerful Stone Mountain Coal Company. The… More

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PG-13,
Directed By
Written By
John Sayles
Genres
Drama
In Theaters
Aug 28, 1987 Limited
On DVD
Nov 23, 1999
Cinecom Pictures

Critic Reviews

  • Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

    In the rich umbers of Haskell Wexler's cinematography, Matewan does look great.

  • Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

    If Sayles's bite were as lethal as his bark, he might have given this a harder edge and a stronger conclusion. But the performances are uniformly fine.

  • Jay Carr, Boston Globe

    In its grave clarity, it's as pure and plaintive as a mountain ballad.

  • Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune

    Sayles must have meant his movie to stir and provoke, but the self-contained look of it yields something else -- a sense of quaintness, of harmless nostalgia.

  • Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times

    When this movie stumbles, it stumbles honestly and sympathetically, but, when it succeeds, it makes history sing.

Read all 17 critic reviews

See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Ken S


    An amazingly authentic film with great performances, photography and production design. Sayles work here is stellar, can't wait to read the book.

  • Tim S


    Caught this on late night cable. Fantastic film on all levels. It looks great and has some amazing performances. It is everything that I love about John Sayles. It seems like every movie he makes is a social studies project (not that it's always a good thing) and you always learn… More

  • Anthony V


    A modern classic.

  • Moe E


    Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones and Mary McDonnell each do a good job in this John Sayles piece on the growth of the labor union into the West Virginia coal mines of the 1920's. But, I may have set my expectations for the film a bit too high. Maybe it was meant as a warm-up for… More

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