X
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Prime Video
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Prime Video
Summary Cora (Thuso Mbedu) and Caesar (Aaron Pierre) escape from a plantation and learn the Underground Railroad is an actual physical underground railway line. But a bounty hunter named Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton) is determined to bring Cora back in this Barry Jenkins adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel of the same name.
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Prime Video
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Prime Video
The Underground Railroad
Season 1 Premiere: May 13, 2021
7.8
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Summary Cora (Thuso Mbedu) and Caesar (Aaron Pierre) escape from a plantation and learn the Underground Railroad is an actual physical underground railway line. But a bounty hunter named Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton) is determined to bring Cora back in this Barry Jenkins adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel of the same name.
Where to Watch
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 37 Critic Reviews
92
97% Positive
36 Reviews
36 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 37 Critic Reviews
92
97% Positive
36 Reviews
36 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
The Underground Railroad treads the line of fictional entertainment and historical reenactment expertly, without ever feeling forceful. It is, in short, yet another masterpiece from Barry Jenkins.
Anything but limited. It’s profoundly expansive and exploratory.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 143 User Ratings
7.8
78% Positive
112 Ratings
112 Ratings
3% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
18% Negative
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 143 User Ratings
7.8
78% Positive
112 Ratings
112 Ratings
3% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
18% Negative
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
A truly great American epic.
I could go through each aspect of this masterpiece but there's no point. It's all spot on from the intense and raw performances to the lighting and music. I just gotta say the acting is next level though, I've never seen such expressions of grief portrayed so powerfully.
At no point did I have the feeling of actors acting or hearing lines that were written down by a writer. I was just in the world with the characters getting emotionally destroyed at every turn.
And no, it's not really woke. Much more historically grounded and nuanced than culture war infected stuff.
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We may not all, or always, be in the mood for yet another lesson in the horrors of the Deep South slavery economy, but in this case it doesn't matter one way or another. You have to stay glued like a binge rat in a wonderful trap due to the sheer quality of this production. Amazing prestige TV.
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The Underground Railroad made me feel things about my own life and personal pain very deeply, while never letting me forget that while I could relate to aspects of this story, it is not my own. ... The show’s achievement is making every episode feel so full as to allow you to watch an individual installment, walk away for a while feeling like you’ve got a complete story, then return when you’re ready for another story featuring some of the same characters.
The series succeeds in anchoring its narrative to the full context of racism throughout centuries. It compels us to reflect both on what happened and where those events have led us – how they continue to shape us and the world we live in.
By Clémence Michallon
FULL REVIEW
Underground Railroad is not a perfect adaptation despite how meticulously crafted it is in certain areas. ... Regardless of its imperfections, Jenkins’ vision is still executed in a thoughtful, incisive way that will hopefully serve as a blueprint for more shows and films like it in the future.
By Kyndall Cunningham
FULL REVIEW
The Underground Railroad is an imperfect take on a painful, sprawling subject. But its emotional highs and lows are stronger than anything you are likely to find on TV this year, just as those images are more gorgeous and nightmarish. Don’t look away.
Awful...A sci-fi fantasy vision of slavery and race relations, the TV version of The Underground Railroad is an incoherent mess of artistic pretension, full of scenes that are not under-lit but un-lit, nonsensical soliloquys with neither symbolic nor literal value (why would a slave recite lines from Gulliver's Travels to a young woman just beaten nearly to death by the plantation owner?) and surreal flashbacks that only further trash what is a very tentative narrative.
It's brutal and beautifully shot. Thuso Mbedu is nothing short of astonishing. She's given one of the best performances by an actor, male or female, that I've ever seen. I think a lot of the lower scores here are by triggered white people. Ignore them. This show is absolutely brilliant.
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Based on the novel by Colson Whitehead, this journey follows one enslaved girl (Thuso Mbedu) thru her harrowing journey to find freedom. When she sees an actual locomotive in a tunnel, it becomes apparent that this story embraces some aspects of an alternate reality. The horrifying and harrowing brutalism is unquestionably real, but it becomes less physical and more mental after the first 3 chapters (if you stomach it that far). While all of the performances are deeply compelling, Mbedu (a South African in her first US role) is continuously astonishing and profoundly heartbreaking. Director Barry Jenkins has fashioned a masterpiece of filmmaking with grand imagery and stunningly gorgeous, sometimes painterly cinematography by James Laxton (who also shot Jenkins’ Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk). Jenkins’ style also has one flaw and that’s his insistence on running every scene longer than needed…drilling down on the beauty of the visuals and the intense agony of emotions. The music and sound design also contribute to the arty angle of the experience. With intense physical and mental cruelty, this film is often hard to handle, but its power comes from the message of human persistence and the undeniable virtuosity of powerful storytelling.
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The first episode is like '12 Years a Slave,' but then the second one's got a little 'Get Out' vibe in there. This is Barry Jenkins' most ambitious project to date, and I'm quite enjoying it so far. And still better than the other Amazon racial-themed show: 'Them,' which is not awful but kind of failed at the end.
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Barry Jenkins has come to deliver his most ambitious, and at the same time most pretentious work of his career so far. This of course can lend itself to different interpretations, but I think many of them will involve personal interpretations of what a story like this implies, especially for the African American community in general.
My vision and opinion are based on the work I saw, and that opinion is based on what Barry Jenkins did as a filmmaker.
I understand that there are different positions on the material, because the're some who consider it a trivialization of black history, but that's the personal criteria of each viewer who may feel this way. The Underground Railroad is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name.
The show it's divided into 10 episodes that follow the same storyline. It's like a huge movie of just over nine hours long.
Each episode has its own theme, and as I said, they follow the same story, this helps because while they're different experiences portrayed on screen, the strength of the full work comes from the sum of all its parts.
Not everything is penetrating or deep in this show, but The Underground Railroad does have its abrasive moments.
Perhaps it can be considered unnecessary to see the flogging of these characters, but the narrative shows it because that happened, not because it's some sort of crucial moment that the narrative constructs as an emotional punch to manipulate audiences.
That would be too cheap for what this miniseries is trying to manifest.
The repercussions and interpretations will be diverse.
Works like this one don't escape controversy, but as I said, that's your own option, and you will have your own conclusions.
I recommend it because I enjoyed it and more importantly, I recommend it because I urge people to see something to comment on it.
Talking about it without seeing it, only elicits worthless comments.
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Production Company:
- Amazon Studios
- Big Indie Pictures
- PASTEL
- Plan B Entertainment
Initial Release Date: May 13, 2021
Number of seasons: 1 Season
Rating: TV-MA
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Online Film & Television Association
• 13 Nominations
International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA)
• 1 Win & 9 Nominations