The Way Back

2010 Directed by Peter Weir

Their escape was just the beginning.

At the dawn of WWII, several men escape from a Russian gulag—to take a perilous and uncertain journey to freedom as they cross deserts, mountains and several nations.

Colin Farrell Ed Harris Saoirse Ronan Jim Sturgess Mark Strong Dejan Angelov Dragoș Bucur Sally Brunski Alexandru Potocean Gustaf Skarsgård Sebastian Urzendowsky Zachary Baharov Ihor Hniezdilov Stanislav Pishtalov Mariy Grigorov Nikolay Stanoev Stefan Shterev Yordan Bikov Ruslan Kupenov Nikolay Mutafchiev Valentin Ganev Anton Trendafilov Pearce Quigley Sattar Dikambayev Haruhiko Yamanouchi Meglena Karalambova Irinei Konstantinov

Alternative Titles

Caminho da Liberdade, 亡命千万里, Les chemins de la liberté, Camino a la Libertad, 归途, Путь домой, 自由之路, 回家的路, Rumo à Liberdade, 回去的路, Niepokonani, Drumul de întoarcere, ウェイバック -脱出6500km, Шлях додому, The Way Back – Der lange Weg, 웨이 백

adventure history drama

133 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Grooveman ★★★ 2

I haven't felt this guilty eating pizza and drinking beer while watching a film since Steve McQueen's Hunger.
Review by Ascended Tutweiller ★★★½ 2

I thought this was gonna be about the zany misadventures of some kids at a water park.
Review by •Andy• ★★★½ 2

Peter Weir’s historical drama “The Way Back” follows a group of gulag escapees on their journey to freedom through a war-torn Asia. From the freezing cold of Siberia to the blistering heat of India, there’s no end to the harsh environments that the protagonists must endure, and it makes for a really endearing survival movie.
Jim Sturgess heads up the cast as a resilient prisoner of war from an occupied Poland, sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for allegedly being a spy. Once inside the gulag he meets a variety of characters who agree to join him in his escape, including Ed Harris as a grizzled American far from home & Colin Farrell as a tattooed communist who’s in for murder.
The…
Review by Duck ★★★ 3

Managed to make it to 100 diary entries before 2021!
As for the film, it was pretty good.
Thanks for reading this long ass review, I spent hours on it :).
Review by Travis Lytle ★★★½ 2

Peter Weir's "The Way Back" is the story of determination and force of will against astounding odds. Focusing on a band of prisoners of war who have escaped from a gulag during World War II, the film follows the men and, eventually, one young woman as they trek from Siberia to India. An epic with subtly old-fashioned sensibilities, "The Way Back" is an engaging piece of work that champions the heroism of the human will.
After escaping from their icy prison, the band, made up of Europeans and one American, begin a harrowing journey from Russia. On foot, they travel 4,000 miles, losing members of the group to exhaustion and the elements. Their quest is harrowing, and Weir is able…
Review by ellie ✨ ★★½

i started watching this last year for colin farrell and finished watching it this year for saoirse ronan........character development????
Review by russman ★★★ 4

I think they earned a trip to a water park
Review by FilmApe ★★★★½ 2

A movie about walking, and walking, and walking, and walking,and walking, and walking, and walking,and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking,and walking, and walking, and walking,and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking.....that is actually a very epic and cinematic experience.
Review by PaulMovie34 ★★★½ 2

After watching both "Master And Commander" and "The Way Back" I've got to say that I really admire Peter Weir, I think that he is an incredible director and a very underrated one.
In "The Way Back" I think that the most powerful thing that this movie delivers is the ability of Peter Weir to tell a story in a very effective and beautiful way. this is a very good looking movie with a lot of different locations which really makes you feel in the situation, in a very unique and effective way. The actors did a great job in my opinion and it was surprising to watch the two young talented actors(Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan) carrying the movie,…
Review by Once upon a Tom in Hollywood ★★★★

Thank you Mother Russia for your hospitality, but I will definitely not be coming back.
Incredible locations, a marvelous score, and fine performances highlight Peter Weir's epic tale of an escape from the gulags of Siberia through the deserts of Mongolia and the Himalayan Mountains of Tibet and beyond. I started to feel the film's length at times, and a few of the characters may have blended together early on, but the cinematography was stunning and the story kept me engaged throughout (I also may have suppressed a tear or two along the way). One of Weir's better films. Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell and Saoirse Ronan are the cast standouts. Recommended.
Added to: Peter Weir Ranked
Review by TajLV ★★★½

Part of my 5 Directors x 5 Unseen Films (13) challenge.
This survival drama from writer-director Peter Weir, made in association with National Geographic Entertainment, was adapted from a 1956 memoir by former Polish war prisoner Slavomir Rawicz entitled "The Long Walk." It describes his alleged escape from a Soviet gulag in World War II and how he covered 4,000 miles on foot to reach freedom in India.
The film version opens in 1940 with a Polish army officer named Janusz Wieszczek (Jim Sturgess) interrogated by the USSR's People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Based upon a false confession coerced from his tortured wife, he's found guilty of spying and sentenced to 20 years in a Siberian labour camp 500 miles…
Review by Tentin Quarantino ★★★½ 4

A far cry from Weir's earlier work. This should have been an hour longer. It seemed as if the writer(s) just got bored and wrote: "And then they crossed the Himalayas. The end." The rushed ending is not the only downfall, either. There is a stench of Hollywood-ness to this that makes the ongoings feel less real and consequential.
Pick up the Criterion blu-ray set of The Human Condition this summer to see what this kind of film could have been.

Recent reviews

Review by honortogod ★★★

Good movie but I wouldn't watch it again, too slow. It's more about the story and what they went through and why... it's less about the entertainment. But its a good movie so worth a watch.
Review by ccloke ★★★★

Solid.
Review by dlopilato ★★★½

Six r/UltraLight users have the wilderness experience of a lifetime with nothing but their base layers and a titanium spork.
Review by Conner Nielsen ★★★

The Way Back is a solid movie, but less than the sum of its parts. Elegantly acted, stunning production design, detailed makeup and costumes, vibrant and versatile cinematography, smartly edited, and effectively directed; this P.O.W. escape/Man vs. Nature survival tale worked for me on premise alone, and succeeds for the first half. But the second half becomes repetitive (a risk all survival stories run) and the ending lacks a satisfying enough payoff for the amount of suffering you see the characters go through.
6.5/10
Review by Alfie Rees ★★★★

It’s unknown wether any of this actually happened due to little evidence supporting these people’s claims but either way this made for a good story.
Review by JMAtHome ★★★

Epic. Unbelievable. Beautifully done. Second best movie about an escape from the Gulag. The best is Within the Whirlwind.
Review by •Andy• ★★★½ 2

Peter Weir’s historical drama “The Way Back” follows a group of gulag escapees on their journey to freedom through a war-torn Asia. From the freezing cold of Siberia to the blistering heat of India, there’s no end to the harsh environments that the protagonists must endure, and it makes for a really endearing survival movie.
Jim Sturgess heads up the cast as a resilient prisoner of war from an occupied Poland, sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for allegedly being a spy. Once inside the gulag he meets a variety of characters who agree to join him in his escape, including Ed Harris as a grizzled American far from home & Colin Farrell as a tattooed communist who’s in for murder.
The…
Review by Jordan Rosenthal-Kay ★★★

never hiking again
Review by brettski ★★★½

Siberian gulag escapees travel 4;000 miles by foot to freedom in India; stars Ed Harris and Colin Farrell
Review by Mackenzie ★★★★

Did someone say underrated Gem?
Review by Thomas ★★★

Definitely a good showcase of what went wrong with communism. In this case, the main focus was set on a Siberian gulag as well as Poland. Poland thought the enemy comes from the West, the Nazis, but an equally strong threat came from the East. In the events that occurred after WWII, Poland had been occupied by the Communists. But, before that, a small group of six guys (and later a young woman) fled from the mentioned above gulag, and tried to find asylum in a country that is not led by the one that held them as prisoners. It takes a lot of preparation, food, will and survival instinct to flee from Siberia to India. Although it‘s a fascinating…
Review by Eve ★★½

2.5 - 3 stars
Good story but left me a little cold