6.2 (867)20111h 35m

Kill List

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HorrorThrillerCrime

Nearly a year after a botched job, a hitman takes a new assignment with the promise of a big payoff for three killings. What starts off as an easy task soon unravels, sending the killer into the heart of darkness.

Why watch Kill List

A hitman accepts one last job—three names, a fat payday—and descends into a nightmare that makes Killing Zoe look like a warm-up. Neil Maskell's performance is a masterclass in unraveling sanity: you watch a professional's certainty curdle into paranoia and dread, moment by moment, until he's no longer in control of anything, least of all himself.

Kill List operates like a fever dream directed by someone who studied the methodical brutality of Sexy Beast and the folk-horror dread of The Wailing. Director Ben Wheatley strips away genre comfort—this isn't a slick crime thriller but a grimy, handheld descent where violence erupts without warning and the rules keep shifting. The pacing is suffocating; every scene tightens the noose.

What makes this essential is how completely it abandons the hitman-movie contract. By the final act, you're not watching a revenge plot or a heist gone wrong—you're witnessing something older and more primal crawl out from beneath the surface. The film trusts you to sit with moral ambiguity and cosmic wrongness without explanation.

Watch it tonight if you crave horror that doesn't announce itself as such, and if you're ready for an ending that'll haunt you long after the credits roll. The last fifteen minutes alone will have you rewinding and questioning everything that came before.

— The What2Watch desk · US

Where to watch

The story

Nearly a year after a botched job, a hitman takes a new assignment with the promise of a big payoff for three killings. What starts off as an easy task soon unravels, sending the killer into the heart of darkness.

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Reviews & ratings

John Chard
John Chard8.0Nov 2, 2015
Sometimes God's love can be hard to swallow. A super slice of sub-urban horror crafted by Ben Wheatley, Kill List blends a number of classic British films but still remains very much its own beast. And what a beast it is. Part hit-man thriller and part Wicker Man pagan horror, plot spins hit-man for hire Jay (Neil Maskell) out of his troubled domestic funk, into a world of pain and misery. Taking on a job, he, alo…Show more
T
tmdb154355198.0Apr 26, 2021

A bit tough to understand on the first watch, yet gripping and a compelling portrayal of inner demons. But seriously, are the British the only film-makers who can make a decent crime/thriller film??

r96sk
r96sk3.0Sep 11, 2024
Rubbi... Wait, people love this? Before I started my review, I decided to take a quick look at the Letterboxd reviews. I always play a minigame in my head by attempting to guess the average rating, for example for the last film I watched - <em>'Jack the Giant Slayer'</em> - I called it spot on at 2.4. This I genuinely predicted less than 2.0... it's at 3.5! To tell you I was flabbergasted would be an understatemen…Show more