Argo

2012 Directed by Ben Affleck

The movie was fake. The mission was real.

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

Ben Affleck Bryan Cranston Alan Arkin John Goodman Victor Garber Tate Donovan Clea DuVall Scoot McNairy Rory Cochrane Christopher Denham Kerry Bishé Kyle Chandler Chris Messina Zeljko Ivanek Titus Welliver Keith Szarabajka Bob Gunton Richard Kind Richard Dillane Omid Abtahi Page Leong Farshad Farahat Sheila Vand Karina Logue Ryan Ahern Bill Tangradi Jamie McShane Matthew Glave Roberto Garcia Show All…

Alternative Titles

Operacja Argo, آرگو, 아르고, Epiheirisi: Argo, Epixeirisi: Argo, Argo: Nebezpečný útek, ARGO 救參任務

drama thriller

120 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Nakul ★★★½ 8

Thinking about why in this movie Ben Affleck added a shot of him just flexing his abs in the mirror, for no apparent reason.
Review by Frandi Peralta ★★★★½ 2

Lester:"If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit."
Suspenseful and entertaining film. Ben Affleck is a fantastic director.
Review by DirkH ★★★★½ 26

This is Ben Affleck's film all the way and I have to say I am more than impressed. I'm glad that he seems to have discovered what he is really good at. As an actor he was never really convincing. And even though he gives a great understated, albeit a bit one-note, performance here, it is in the director's chair where he excels.
This bizarre 'truth is stranger than fiction' tale has all the hallmarks of being turned into an over-stylized and over-dramatized political thriller. This is anything but that. Much like his performance, Affleck decided to take away the frills, leaving behind a film that is reminiscent of the political thrillers of yesteryear. Solid, made with craftsmanship and more…
Review by Travis Lytle ★★★★★ 9

From the opening Warner Brothers logo, to its end credits, "Argo" is a fully-engrossing and remarkably accomplished piece of filmmaking. Director Ben Affleck assembles a film that pays attention to the smallest of details while delivering on a grand dramatic scale.
With both cinematography that adds a patina of grain to its naturalistic color palette and the film's immersive design details, the look of "Argo" is historically appropriate and eye-catching. The cast, led by a stoic Affleck and more-than-solid turns by Alan Arkin and Bryan Cranston, is pitch-perfect.
The script and story of "Argo" are just as strong as its look and performances. Its dialogue is equally serious, knowing, and humorous. Its economical story is harrowing, affirming, and thematically rich.
Masterfully tense and rewardingly enveloping, "Argo" is a film about hope and responsibility. It is an excellent film.
Review by aflickering ★ 2

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

affleck has the gall to begin argo by drawing attention to the victimisation of the iranian people in the time preceding the iran hostage crisis--sporting a pile of bodies and multiple shots of starving and tortured iranians, no less-- only to segue into a rote (albeit effective) suspenseful patriotic crowdpleaser in the apollo 13 mould--one which insists americans deserve more credit for their ability to use lies to clean up their own messes. not a pinch of irony to be found.
films like argo and silver linings playbook reduce challenging, complicated, disturbing topics into exactly what westerners would desperately like them to be, helping us sweep everything that challenges us under the rug so we can sleep at night. shut…
Review by robyn ★★★★★ 5

The last fourty minutes had me squirming in my seat and trying to tear out my hair.
Review by Rida ★★½ 13

Well, at least they didn't fuck up like Zero Dark Thirty did and have Pakistani locals speak in Arabic.
Argo works well as a thriller. It kept me hooked throughout the running time, and it had enough chuckles along the way to alleviate some of the tension. Affleck's direction is solid, though often veering toward tired cliche. (Another official throwing things in frustration? Come on.) I really liked the 80s aesthetic.
But this film actually won the Best Picture Oscar. It's a solid film, but come on, it can't be the best film made in 2012. Apparently there were several liberties taken with the true story, too. Canada played a much larger role, most obviously. And the slightly silly police-car-chasing-plane…
Review by john ★★★★½

i literally don't have enough will to live in my entire body to go through with something like this. y'all wanna hang me? sure thing!
Review by BrayMitch01 ★★★★ 7

✅82%
2012 Movies List- Click HERE
Best Picture Winners List- Click HERE
Best Picture Project (84/92)
Argo is a very thrilling and engaging movie. I was looking forward to watching this film because I’d read a handful of mixed reviews. I ended up liking this a whole lot more than I expected to, sure there is a few major flaws but this film displays such an engaging and agog tone that makes it easy to feel vastly entertained. The plot is great it’s an incredibly suspenseful and entertaining story. It’s a story that brilliantly deals with themes of responsibility and universally important moral decisions. I went into this film knowing nothing about what actually happened in real life so that all the…
Review by CinemaClown ★★★★ 4

Winner of 3 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Argo is Ben Affleck's finest work as a director, is one of the best films of its year & is quite an accomplished piece of storytelling that expertly recounts the real-life event that took place in Iran during the Iranian Revolution in which 6 US diplomats were rescued by CIA with the help of Canadian government.
Set in 1979 Iran, the story of Argo follows 6 US diplomats who go into hiding when Iranian revolutionaries invade the American embassy in Tehran, taking several of them hostages. In an effort to get its people out of the country, CIA goes through various options & eventually settles with an insane plan; to arrive in Iran for…
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½ 1

69/100
Criticizing this film for its politics is goofy. Argo couldn't care less about U.S. support for the Shah; it just wants to be an unconventional suspense picture, using the Canadian Caper as a very loose template. And it succeeds (a) admirably, as well as (b) in nearly direct proportion to how much it diverges from the facts. Watching the revolutionary guards zoom down the tarmac in pursuit of the Swissair jet, I knew there was no way that chase actually happened, but who the hell cares—it's terrific nail-biter action, more gripping than anything Affleck's best pal ever pulled with Danny Ocean. Are there lost opportunities for a more incisive examination of the events that led to the hostage crisis…
Review by ✨Moviesfan123✨ ★★½ 70

50%🎬
Argo really just was not my thing. It did not appeal to me. It’s really between a 2.5 or a 2 but I have it at a 2 for now because it just didn’t do much for me personally. I found it pretty mediocre. In most cases I’m just not a big fan of political films. I don’t really know why. I guess many just bore me which for the most this did do. I understand liking this or loving this. I really do. What I don’t understand it that it won best picture. Like what? 2012 was a pretty solid year for film so why did they give it to this? They could’ve give it to Django Unchained…

Recent reviews

Review by NEEMTHEMARTIAN ★★

Boring, uninteresting american propaganda. How did this even win best picture like????
There is nothing special or exciting about this.
Argo fuck your self was not giving
Review by Thomas Hwang ★★★★

Ben Affleck is surprisingly a more than solid director who has created an old-fashioned political thriller about one of the strangest rescue missions in CIA history. Apparently this isn’t historically accurate and the truth is I don’t care. If I wanted to know everything that happened with no exaggeration then I would read an article about the event instead of watching a movie based on it. People should stop whining and watch the movie for what it is. While Ben didn’t exactly make an accurate film, he made a consistently intense story. Once the characters get to Iran, the tension builds for the rest of the movie. Any wrong move they make could potentially start a war that will cost thousands of…
Review by Oksobasically ★★½

Kind of surprising that this movie lacks tension for most of the runtime
Review by riley fernando ★★★

ben affleck was good and all but this really won over django, lincoln, SLP, and life of pi? the oscars from 2010 to like 2016 are pretty weird with best picture
Review by TitaniumVulture ★★★★

Argo F*** Yourself. Seriously this was a really good movie, it’s definitely the Oscar bait type film but I loved it all the same.
Review by Wandreer ★★★½

J'ai regardé Argo en téléparty avec des amis, étonnamment on a pu regarder plutôt tranquillement le film.
Le film est tiré d'une histoire vrai, vraisemblablement pas mal romancé, mais on aurait pu croire à une fiction. C'est plutôt classique dans sa narration.
J'ai trouvé qu'il y avait des longueurs dans le début, mais à partir de l'arrivée de l'exfiltreur le récit s'accélère et le film nous scotche.
Un petit défaut je trouve est la mise en contexte pour comprendre la situation. Si on ne connait pas cette partie de l'histoire, on n'a que un pavé au tout début du film qui résume rapidement et sans pause les événements, alors accrochez vous pour profiter du reste si vous n'êtes pas très…
Review by Graham Bertoni ★★½

Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I watched this, and maybe it's unfair of me to take this out on Argo, but I'm just so finished with this kind of movie. It's just a Hollywood-manufactured ego trip for Ben Affleck, a totally unoriginal and uninteresting bore-fest. Yeah, it's well constructed, and yeah, some scenes are pretty fun to watch - it's far from a "bad" movie. But it's also a fair distance from "good," too. I just hate these Oscar-baiting movies that pretend like they're more artsy or interesting than Marvel or Disney. They're not, don't be fooled. It's all just Hollywood.
Watched on HBO Max.
Review by thomasslink ★★★½

I was one Argo fuck yourself away from giving this 3 stars
Review by Carlos ★★★½

Es más inusual de lo que creemos encontrarte con una mirada más bien humana en este tipo de thrillers en los que sucede un conflicto internacional, porque suele abogarse a menudo por el patriotismo de palo que, en mi caso, provoca entre poca o ninguna emoción (y menos si proviene de los putos americanos de los cojones). El drama personal del protagonista no es gran cosa y tampoco emociona, pero al menos no hay un intento de blanqueo por parte de los yankis. La película se limita a narrar lo que sucedió sin dejar de dar palos a EEUU ni hacer ironías ni críticas. Mantiene muy bien el suspense y, aunque algunas resoluciones son dudosas y cae en cosas facilonas, la trama resulta muy entretenida y no pierdes el interés en sus dos horazas de duración. Hum, parece que Batffleck tiene mano.
Review by mbagusbk ★★★½

good movie
but it is very political that it won best picture
Review by Kenn Ruby ★★★★½

What can I say? I loved this movie when I first saw it and finally caught up with it again last night. I don't care what about it is true and what is fiction - that's not why it's so great. It's just a good thriller with some tense moments, good drama, great comedy (Arkin and Goodman should do more movies together), and unbelievable suspense. In my book, this was a very deserved Best Picture winner.
Review by isengrim134 ★★★

To describe it in general terms, Argo feels like something of a cross between Bridge of Spies and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - in the sense much of its screenplay wildly alternates between high-stakes political drama and espionage in some scenes, and "summer vibes" banter and comedy in others. Plotwise, the ruse employed by the CIA to rescue the hostages is pretty over-the-top ridiculous, and it is a lot of fun to watch the entire scheme being pulled off by all the various parties involved.
Amusing as it is, the film unfortunately faces problems with its pacing, and fails to make the viewer sufficiently invested in the hostages (who are supposedly central to the film's plot). As a whole, the film didn't provoke much afterthought, and wasn't particularly impactful or memorable.