The Hunger Games (2012)
The Hunger Games is a 2012 science fiction movie directed by Gary Ross, with a running time of 2h 22m. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth.
In the ruined nation of Panem, the Capitol keeps its twelve districts in line with an annual ritual: two teenagers from each are chosen by lottery and forced to kill one another on live television. When her twelve-year-old sister's name is drawn, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place. Jennifer Lawrence plays her as watchful and hard, a hunter from coal-country District 12 thrown into a manicured Capitol that treats slaughter as entertainment. Gary Ross directs this first chapter of Suzanne Collins' saga, balancing survival tension against a slow-building anger at the cameras.
Quick answers
What is The Hunger Games about?
In the ruined nation of Panem, the Capitol keeps its twelve districts in line with an annual ritual: two teenagers from each are chosen by lottery and forced to kill one another on live television. When her twelve-year-old sister's name is drawn, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place. Jennifer Lawrence plays her as watchful and hard, a hunter from coal-country District 12 thrown into a manicured Capitol that treats slaughter as entertainment. Gary Ross directs this first chapter of Suzanne Collins' saga, balancing survival tension against a slow-building anger at the cameras.
When was The Hunger Games released?
The Hunger Games was released on 12 March 2012.
How long is The Hunger Games?
The Hunger Games runs 2h 22m.
Who made The Hunger Games?
The Hunger Games was directed by Gary Ross.
Where can I watch The Hunger Games?
The Hunger Games is available on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads, Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Fandango At Home and Google Play Movies.
Where to watch The Hunger Games
Stream: Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Rent: Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Fandango At Home, Google Play Movies, Plex, YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Fandango At Home, Google Play Movies, YouTube
Official site
Cast
- Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen
- Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark
- Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne
- Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy
- Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket
- Lenny Kravitz as Cinna
- Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman
- Donald Sutherland as President Coriolanus Snow
- Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane
- Toby Jones as Claudius Templesmith
- Alexander Ludwig as Cato
- Isabelle Fuhrman as Clove
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A few thoughts on The Hunger Games
On the page, The Scorch Trials and Thunderhead run the same young-people-against-a-cruel-system engine. For adult takes on engineered cruelty as spectacle, the series Westworld and the game BioShock both build gleaming worlds rotten underneath. Silo swaps the arena for a buried bunker, but its crushing authority feels familiar.
Dystopian young-adult franchises to binge next
The Hunger Games launched a wave of teen-led dystopias, and these are its closest kin. Chosen young heroes rise against rigged societies through faction tests, deadly mazes and hunted rebellions, offering the same mix of survival stakes and slow-burning revolt that carried Katniss out of District 12.
Teenagers forced to survive a brutal system
Katniss volunteers into a televised slaughter to save her sister in The Hunger Games, and these put young people through their own merciless trials. Child soldiers, hunted kids and reluctant fighters face systems designed to break them, spanning science-fiction films and novels where growing up means outlasting the people in charge.
Rebellions rising against a controlling regime
The slow-building anger at the Capitol is the real engine of The Hunger Games, and these follow that spark into open revolt. Ordinary people wake up to the machinery controlling them and start fighting back, across a machine-ruled future, a theme-park nightmare, a buried society and manga about resistance.
Big-screen science-fiction spectacle
Gary Ross stages The Hunger Games between a coal-country district and a gleaming Capitol, and these deliver the same large-scale future-world spectacle. Rolling cities, cyborg gladiators and virtual playgrounds fill the screen, for viewers who came as much for the world-building and scale as for the arena itself.