Popular reviews

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  Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★ 2

  (Guest Podcast Appearance with The Cinematic Underdogs)

  (Foreign language film/English dub available)

  A battle of the sexes take on the familiar human deathmatch scenario, served up as a satirical rump with a European sci-fi arthouse aesthetic.

  "The rules of the Big Hunt are quite easy, yet they are of great importance. The 21st Century... shall be the one that has legalized violence!"

  Things not only get steamy but also absurdly comical as Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress chase after each other in a deadly game of survival, seduction, and social commentary. So what are you in store for with The 10th Victim ... how about a pre Austin Powers Fem-bot, an explosive Nazi boot heal click, a tricky but smoking…

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  Review by Matt Winfield ★★★★ 2

  Well within the first five minutes of this flick, one guy gets shot and killed by a pair of boobs at point blank, and another guy gets exploded out of his boots, also killing him in the process. All happening after a laugh filled shootout in the streets. Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty good way to open a movie. Eat your heart out, Touch of Evil!

  The 10th Victim is set in the far flung future of 19xx, where war has been abolished, and to satisfy the urge to kill, people can join in The Hunt. Once you kill your 10th victim, you get showered with money and fame. Ursula Andress just killed her 9th victim in boobtacular fashion,…

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★ 7

  Weirdly wonderful, ice cool, kitsch, pop arty, satirical and instantly iconic, The 10th Victim is a joyously fun slice of 60s Italian cinema.

  What's not to like about a film in which Ursula Andress - at her peak - has a bra that shoots bullets?!

  The notion of a worldwide officially sanctioned Hunt, legalized killings being conducted by competitors operating as Victims and Hunters, in order to stave off societies desire for world wars is an interesting notion too, and one that has been copied and explored several times over, including the recent success of The Hunger Games.

  The over reliance of the organ in the film's score is a bit trying though.

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  Review by Cinematic Underdogs ★★★★ 1

  The pop art, Andy Warhol-esque, vintage-style comic book aesthetics of The 10th Victim are a sight to behold — from the sleek opening NYC chase sequence to the elegant Roman Coliseum finish. Starring Fellini’s beloved Marcello Mastroianni and a super sultry Ursula Andress, this futuristic, swinging-sixties satire on media/paparazzi culture is flimsy in plotting but salacious in theory. It’s very much an ironic product of its own ire — a kitschy middle finger to the very Ming Tea/advertisement-adjacent superficiality it playfully parodies. A hell of a fun time, regardless — but there’s definitely brains behind its dimwitted bimbo vs. himbo premise. 

  The message is enmeshed within the medium — and perhaps rendered moot for many, who choose to spend the…

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  Review by Ethan Lyon ★★★★ 7

  1st Elio Petri

  A whacked out mod dystopia, where reality television and the spectacle of live death have crashed into the capitalist nightmare with deadly consequences; human hunting is not only legal, but an integral part of the world economy. Petri and Ponti take this as the starting point for a ferociously black comedy that pokes more fun at the outdated divorce laws of Italy and the toxic masculinity inherent in the system, having Mastroianni’s womanising playboy comes up against his equal in ice-Queen Ursula Andress’s ruthless American assassin, his prescribed ‘hunter’. An elaborate game of cat and mouse takes place in and around Rome, both sides looking to lure the other, but for Andress, it’s an opportunity to make…

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  Review by ELECTRICWIZARDx ★★★ 1

  Post-most dangerous game painted in shades of pre-Battle Royale, Purge and Austin Powers machine gun Jubblies painted on to Italo-cheap retrofuturism that approaches Uncle Jess levels of weird worldness, complete with primary colours, transparent inflatables and geometric shaped furniture and tools.

  A geneva-based computer assigning hunters and huntees to one another to kill or be killed, or to beat the odds and win a mill. Solving war is easy, eh? 60s charm and campy capers, awash with swinging sensibilities, warring sun and moon cults and dogshit dubbing plus a budget blonde Italian version of Steve McQueen, as a complicated relationship throws a spanner in the works and hopefully a murder into the advertising world.

  Mindless Italian camp. A neccessary good in the world.

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★ 1

  The Years of Lead

  Because of The 10th Victim's dystopian science-fiction elements, the most obvious comparison seems to be calling this Elio Petri's The Hunger Games, but while the similarities are certainly there, the politics of the film's premise reminded me more of The Purge. In ultra-modern future-Italy, the Big Hunt "has brought morality to this century" by "legaliz[ing] violence," but only for those who sign up to take part. Participants are paired off into "hunters" and "victims," and whoever kills the other is given prize money. If you survive ten rounds, you become a superstar mega-celebrity: you get a massive cash reward, you don't have to pay taxes, you receive a vast array of social perks like special invitations…

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  Review by Jenna Ipcar ★★★★½

  Uh holy shit, instant classic. Amazing 60s future outfits, Jazz men on cubes, a Bureau of Murder, beautiful sites in Rome, spikey boob guns, a glass house full of paper mache figures cause ‘future art,’ Marcello Mastroianni with a bad haircut but still lookin' fine, Ursula Andress in Barbie pink booty cleavage pants, a fully choreographed and televized execution.... What DOESNT this movie have?!?!

  Never mind Austin Powers, Putting bets on the fact this shit influenced Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange in style, violence and levity. Definitely way heavier on the levity and camp factor though. This was a ridiculous wild ride with a perfectly over the top happy ending. Like oh man. Add a bubblegum yeye jazz soundtrack into the mix and you got my heart, baby. Great satire on capitalism and violence to boot.

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  Review by Fabian ★★★½ 9

  Elio Petri's delightfully deranged The 10th Victim is a silly, yet supremely entertaining glimpse of Italian camp. A satirical deconstruction of gender dynamics in a slick aesthetic of Euro-futurism, it might simultaneously have been an Italian response to the sophisticated gadgetry of the James Bond series in its early roots, as well as a precursor to more mainstream-appropriate movies centered around dystopian reality TV depictions of death hunts (think Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, The Hunt) – and, of course, also an inspiration to the fun parodies of the Austin Powers series.

  It's enormously fun to watch such fundamentally differing versions of the future in the science-fiction genre of the 1960s, as technological advancement began to enable more sophisticated futuristic…

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  Review by eely ★★★★ 1

  caroline has:

  1. a sparkly silver bra that shoots bullets out the front
  2. incredible hair
  3. nine confirmed kills under her belt 

  caroline is:

  1. my hero

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  Review by Jim Drew ★★★★ 5

  I knew zip about this film other than the county of origin (Italy) and with it being a Shameless release, I settled down to an unseen giallo. What I got instead was a sci-fi precursor to such films as Death Race 2000, Running Man, The Purge, Hunger Games, Battle Royale, Series 7: The Contenders and so on.

  Director Elio Petri is apparently considered to be much much closer to the likes of Fellini and Antonioni than an Argento or a Fulci. Perhaps this tale is a tad too camp to be so highly regarded but it is an interesting and influential tale of a man and a woman pitting their wits against each other in a fight to the death.…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★ 1

  54/100

  Certainly the goofiest homicide-as-contest picture I've ever seen, as well as the one least interested in overt sociopolitical commentary. (The most biting stuff is in the margins, e.g. Italians hiding their elderly parents in secret rooms rather than turn them over to the government, presumably to be euthanized.) Mastroianni seems even more bored than Andress, incredibly, which is a problem given that the narrative is heavier on psychological manipulation than on physical action. Worth seeing, if at all, mostly for its sheer '60s grooviness (tacky sets, eye-searing costumes, a score that sounds like Esquivel crossed with the Lolita "ya ya" song), plus such absurd, quickly forgotten details as Mastroianni's plan to kill Andress by catapulting her into a swimming pool containing a hungry shark.