Rarely are directorial debuts so evocative as McQueen's Hunger. Unlike the traditional martyr/cause film, there's no glamor and little glory for anyone involved. Setting the film almost exclusively within the prison serves to shows how futile the efforts of the prisoners have been until the turning point, revealed through a breathtakingly simple yet marvelous extended single shot.

Through Hunger we see there weren't winners or losers, right or wrong. Just a series of escalating injustices with little hope for recourse.