Gregory Nussen Screen Rant Oct 13, 2025 9/10

Kinji Fukasaku's dystopian high school-set murder spree is more prescient than ever.

Go to Full Review

Panos Kotzathanasis Asian Movie Pulse Mar 3, 2024 8

Battle Royale” stands as a definite cult movie, from Takeshi Kitano's presence to the way it inspired Tarantino, to the violent portrayal of youth and sociopolitical criticism unfolds against a backdrop of dark humor and an evocative soundtrack.

Go to Full Review

Javier G. Trigales Espinof Nov 27, 2023 3/5

The "groundbreaking" premise of Battle Royale remains a good black comedy diversion that's more conventional than some wanted it to be. [Full review in Spanish]

Go to Full Review

Grant Watson Fiction Machine Jun 29, 2023 9/10

It is not simply satire, but social commentary; not simply a sensational over-the-top movie, but an important one as well.

Go to Full Review

A.S. Hamrah The Baffler Sep 15, 2020

The last half hour is the most successful, a final interlude of generational warfare, then radical anonymous freedom.

Go to Full Review

Ed Travis Hollywood Jesus Mar 31, 2020

Battle Royale is above all a high-concept, action black comedy. Beat Takeshi's performance as Teacher Kitano is one for the record books...

Go to Full Review

Ellie Lucas From the Front Row Aug 6, 2019 3.5/4

Not a face value film, it leaves its audience questioning, reflecting, and debating its hauntingly resonant implications.

Go to Full Review

Tim Brayton Antagony & Ecstasy Dec 11, 2016 9/10

You would never suspect that a 70-year-old man made this film: it positively hums with youthful lust and rage.

Go to Full Review

Sean Axmaker Stream on Demand Apr 10, 2016

This savage social satire revels in the brutality and gore and plays it for dark comedy and gallows humor, a teen melodrama gone feral as cliques fall apart under fire and young love is literally under the gun.

Go to Full Review

Maitland McDonagh Film Journal International May 30, 2012

Before The Hunger Games there was Battle Royale. The bloody spectacle of Japanese schoolchildren being forced into a sadistic game of "last man standing" packs an emotional wallop.

Go to Full Review

Rob Vaux Mania.com May 25, 2012 A

A gloriously entertaining ride, provided you have a taste for dark material and don't mind the occasional poke in the ribs.

Go to Full Review

Sara Stewart New York Post May 25, 2012 3/4

Stylistically it's a beauty, with khaki-uniformed waifs fighting for their lives to a crashing classical score.

Go to Full Review

A.O. Scott New York Times May 24, 2012 3.5/5

Awful deaths (and hysterical reactions to them) punctuate declarations of love and friendship, revelations of treachery and heavily armed expressions of angst.

Go to Full Review

Joshua Rothkopf Time Out May 22, 2012 4/5

Forgive the film its small flaws of histrionic performances and cheap execution for the giddy rush of its banal, Verhoevenesque atmosphere...

Go to Full Review

Eric Hynes Village Voice May 22, 2012

It may suit a certain worldview, but Battle Royale's cynicism is still a form fantasy-a balm as well as a bomb.

Go to Full Review

Film4 Staff Film4 May 22, 2012 4/5

A wonderfully exciting, incredibly idiosyncratic actioner.

Go to Full Review

Maggie Lee The Hollywood Reporter May 22, 2012

3D conversion of a classic teen massacre thriller raises the gore level.

Go to Full Review

Chuck Bowen Slant Magazine May 20, 2012 1.5/4

Maybe Battle Royale's ultimate punchline is its inexplicable ability to fool some people into taking it seriously.

Go to Full Review

Brian Gibson Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Alberta) May 10, 2012

Battle Royale's dystopia reflects a hyper-tech Japan still deeply concerned with social cohesion and the value-gaps between the generations. It's the disturbingly dark social frame, not its bloody canvas, that makes this a battle worth watching.

Go to Full Review

John Beifuss Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) Mar 30, 2012 4/4

Fukasaku's set pieces are dynamic, composed and edited with a neatness that is missing from the shaky-camera esthetic of the movie's successor, 'The Hunger Games.'

Go to Full Review