Battle Royale

2000 ‘バトル・ロワイアル’ Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Could you kill your best friend?

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

Takeshi Kitano Tsuyako Kinoshita Eri Ishikawa Sayaka Ikeda Tomomi Shimaki Tamaki Mihara Yukari Kanasawa Misao Kato Takayo Mimura Hitomi Hyuga Anna Nagata Kou Shibasaki Satomi Ishii Chiaki Kuriyama Haruka Nomiyama Aki Maeda Satomi Hanamura Sayaka Kamiya Aki Inoue Asami Kanai Mai Sekiguchi Takako Baba Shin Kusaka Ren Matsuzawa Gouki Nishimura Shigehiro Yamaguchi Taro Yamamoto Masanobu Ando Yukihiro Kotani Show All…

Alternative Titles

Кралска битка, Batalha Real, Battle Royale - Nur einer kann überleben!, Batalla Real, Batoru Rowaiaru, 배틀 로얄, 大逃殺, Battle Royale (Director's Cut)

drama adventure thriller

114 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sarah Jane 🔪 ★★★★ 19

Every boy in this movie looks like he is a character straight from anime. Man, I hate that hairstyle. Then and now.
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) says she was inspired to write The Hunger Games after the poverty she saw in Iraq during the war. Uh huh.
Is anyone else buying that bullshit?
Still a great movie 14 years later.
Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★★ 24

Going on a school field trip has never fuckin' sucked so fuckin' bad. Sharing a Kodak moment with your friends. Waking up to a what-the-fuckin'-shit-hell-is-fuckin'-going-on nightmare. A fuckin' outrage as Professor Kitano takes over the class. No fuckin' talkin', not even a fuckin' whisper. A necklace that will fuck you up. Watching your best-mate's neck gush. The transfer students with two very different fuckin' agendas. Watch out, Death Note's finest will light you the fuck up with a pot lid. Mitsuko's smile. The way Kawada smokes. Kazuo, zero lines of dialogue and total fuckin' ownage. The boys from Anonymous try their fuckin' best to hack the system. Yummy spaghetti. The greatest fuckin' lunch ever served at a lighthouse. Kawada vs.…
Review by brat pitt ★★★★½ 5

better than the hunger games because jennifer lawrence isn't in it
is it too EDGY to hate on jennifer lawrence on letterboxd.com? whatever im gonna do it anyway

EDIT: lost a follower for hating on jennifer lawrence but i dont care because im committed to the truth
Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★★ 2

Controversial Cult Classic, incredibly original and highly influential film that puts the Hunger Games to shame!
It has more than earned its reputation for its violence and brutality but the real star of the show is the diverse range of emotions and fears (Good and Bad) that are all too human!
Takeshi Kitano added some serious beaucoup depth and flavor to the film!
Naughty Approved!
Review by suzie fahrenheit tepes ★★★★★ 2

everyone looked like they had fun
Review by YI JIAN ★★★★ 12

Run.
When you've already presented the main plot on the table in the first five minutes, and the rest of it are mostly predictable, what do you use to drive your film forward while keeping it interesting?
Testicle mutilation.

Wait. No.
Characters. That's right. Characters. Good ones. The ones with depth. And director Kinji Fukasaku, or rather, author of the original novel -- Koushun Takami, delivers. 43 of 'em! (Including Kitano-sensei.) The hardest part of telling a story about teenagers stabbing, choking and shooting each other is to make the audience care about them. Once that obstacle is crossed, what we have is an emotional, intense, shocking and insane little cult classic.
What makes Battle Royale even more special is…
Review by Chris 🦑 ★★★★★

me, checking my survival bag: damn... how am i gonna kill myself with a pot lid
Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 1

still seems like a severe method in which to teach kids that being an adult is mostly just a confusing mess of hurt feelings and horrifying violence. but who am i to judge?
Review by Jay ★★★★½

did anyone try the chicken and sweetcorn soup? i thought the chicken and sweetcorn soup was lovely
Review by Tylot Lantern ★★★★½

I can imagine a group of young people watching this because they think it’s something to do with Fortnite and then accidentally discovering cinema for the first time. That makes me happy.
Recommended to me by JU1C3B0X3R
Review by siobhan ★★★

suzanne collins: hey can i copy your homework
battle royale: yeah just change a few things so that its not obvious
Review by Dirk van Eck ½ 17

Fifteenth watch of Dystopian December. Does everybody just pretend to like this because Tarantino does or am I that bland? Picturing future Japan, an annual ‘Battle Royale’ is organised in which a class of students is dropped on some island and forced to kill each other in a Hunger Games sense until one of them remains. This competition is being enforced so as to keep the youth from revolting against the state, but doesn’t really make any sense, seeing as the selection process is random and thus not a result of that particular class’ rebelliousness. So how this should then trickle down to every other student in the country remains a mystery. One review I read on this site rightfully…

Recent reviews

Review by Sof ★★★½

Remember, if Suzanne Collins got away with this one without being sued, you can do anything.
Review by thejaredpowers ★★★½

Amazon Prime Video, English Subs
English subs get 1 star. Awful. Also there were commercials. Wtf bezos.
The movie held up in spite of the awful subs and the commercials. I like the concept better than hunger games.
(Also my mom called in the middle of the film.)
Review by justin_urie ★★★★★

this movie inspired the greatest genre of games ever
Review by JohnMaddening ★★★★

Twenty years!
Review by Eric ★★★★

There's the virgin Hunger Games, and then there's the Chad Battle Royale. This film was so good. It's exactly what it says it is, and makes one hell of a production out of it. My only real complaint is that at first there's an overabundance of characters to pay attention to which kind of bogs and drags the film on for a bit. However, once more kids get killed off it starts to focus in more on the main characters and important parts of the story. Strong 8.
Review by İlhan Uysal ★★★

PUBG, Fortnite gibi battle royale oyunların ve Hunger Games film serisinin çıkış noktası. Fikir iyi ama çok daha iyi işlenebilirdi gibi geliyor bana.
Review by zander ★★★★★

how u gonna make a movie about 50 kids and make me care about every one
Review by sude ★★½

why is everyone so chill damn
Review by Ellie ★★★★

Idk if this film was meant to be as darkly funny as I found it (I think so??) but anyway sick film very funny very very entertaining
Review by asude ★★★★

i love love LOOOVEE how japanese movies end. it’s like you’re seeing a dream. i didnt read the book hopefully, i will but the movie was just fine to me. ofc there’re little bumps here and there like bland actor performances or way too dramatic dialogues and it’s ok.
thinking tarantino chose this film as his all time favorite movie is yes– mind-blowing but very much like him. the impact of the book in this decade was astronomical. many artists were inspired like suzanne collins, quintin tarantino, basically all manga writers... i can’t wait to read the book!
Review by thiago ★★★★½

único erro desse é o kiriyama e a mitsuko não serem os protagonistas, mas meu casal de extrema direita favorito
Review by Joshua Wilson ★★★★

movie! movie! movie! This is one of my favourite books and I am glad the film delivered. Really fun time, great pacing and good action sequences.