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Straw Dogs

1971

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

In the Face of Every Coward Burns a Straw Dog.

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.

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Dustin Hoffman Susan George Peter Vaughan T. P. McKenna Del Henney Jim Norton Donald Webster Ken Hutchison Len Jones Sally Thomsett Robert Keegan Peter Arne Cherina Schaer Colin Welland June Brown Jimmy Charters Chloe Franks Michael Mundell David Warner

Alternative Titles

Straw Dogs - Wer Gewalt sät, Perros de paja, Perros De Paja, Wer Gewalt sät..., Köpekler, Cane di paglia, Olkikoirat, Les Chiens de paille, Cães de Palha, Соломенные псы, 稻草狗, Strašáci, Αδέσποτα Σκυλιά, כלבי הקש, Szalmakutyák, Slamnati psi, Sob o Domínio do Medo, 어둠의 표적, Сламени кучета, Straw Dogs - det galna gänget, Nędzne psy, Солом’яні пси, Psi od slame, سگ های پوشالی, わらの犬, Gossos de palla, Køterne, ไอ้ก้านสั้น

Genres

Thriller Drama

Themes

Intense violence and sexual transgression Graphic violence and brutal revenge Challenging or sexual themes & twists Gripping, intense violent crime Intense political and terrorist thrillers Violent action, guns, and crime Show All…

Theatrical

25 Nov 1971

23 Dec 1971

Netherlands16

27 Dec 1971

Spain18

29 Dec 1971

USAR

30 Jan 1972

UK18

03 Feb 1972

ItalyVM18

09 Feb 1972

France16

29 Mar 1972

Germany16

08 Sep 1972

Ireland18

Physical

28 Feb 2003

Netherlands16

TV

13 Jul 2007

Netherlands16

France

09 Feb 1972

Theatrical16

Germany

29 Mar 1972

Theatrical16

Ireland

08 Sep 1972

Theatrical18

Italy

03 Feb 1972

TheatricalVM18

Netherlands

23 Dec 1971

Theatrical16 Original certificate: 18

28 Feb 2003

Physical16 DVD

13 Jul 2007

TV16 RTL 7

Spain

27 Dec 1971

Theatrical18

UK

25 Nov 1971

Theatrical London

30 Jan 1972

Theatrical18

USA

29 Dec 1971

TheatricalR

116 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 6

"I rise up against all those that hide or ignore the social and moral aspects of violence. It's part of our existence; it's within us. I recognize that I am a violent man. I believe that human being must try, at any price, to recognize and track down the violence brewing within him. This is also one of the artist's roles. The most dangerous people in our society and any society are those who ignore their inner potential for violence."
— Sam Peckinpah
Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★½ 8

Never trusting a British person ever again
Review by nathaxnne [hiatus] ★★ 87

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

NOTE: Even though I have spoiler-warning on, I just wanted to say that this review unlike most of my reviews, really does spoil nearly everything in Straw Dogs, so Be Forewarned!

The story in Straw Dogs that I am interested in is Susan George's story. Her character, Amy, wanted to walk down the street in her village, a village comprised primarily or entirely of child molesters, murderers, alcoholics, rapists and maybe a Major (and later on a Vicar who has read Montiesquieu and the Vicar's wife) and assorted women and children, free of suggestion, to be able to not wear a bra, to be able to satisfy her intellectual curiosity, so somehow she goes off to find a world that…
Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★½ 42

Sam Peckinpah was a one-of-a-kind director, and it shows in the gritty as grit, Straw Dogs. A movie not for the faint of heart, or cat lovers.
Straw Dogs has a very interesting combination. Sam Peckinpah travels to England to direct his first non-Western. Dustin Hoffman plays the protagonist, but for most of the movie, he's a non-macho sissy kitty with an extremely dysfunctional marriage to Susan George. Their marriage is as rocky as Rocky Balboa, and they argue over the most juvenile things. If they make it out of this movie alive, my bet is they're heading for divorce court.
Mr Peckinpah fucks with the audience, and he gives zero fucks about it. He films a very disturbing scene…
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 8

90/100
This is an overused phrase, but I'm going to use it anyway. After witnessing Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, I just couldn't move from my seat. It was as if someone super-glued my ass and forced me to watch the entirety of the credits as I slumped further down in posture, desperately trying to sort though the endless thoughts and feelings that flowed through my body.
It isn't very often when a piece of cinema like this comes along, and since it was released in 1971, I highly doubt another film will ever approach the demon-wrestling anguish of Straw Dogs. Peckinpah has always been one for unearthing the poetry within the aura of surrounding violence, but it is here where…
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 3

93
Linda Williams, who weaves a telling, expert Feminist history of the film in a featurette on the *stellar* new Criterion Blu-ray, is right: Peckinpah may be a great artist, but such claims do not, in any circumstance, exclude such misogynistic, fascistic, mean-spirited discussions and implications from being overlooked. Straw Dogs is nothing less than disgusting, both in its treatment of female sexual desire and its maneuvering of distinct male control within an emasculated era, but the film still teaches. Williams immediately mentions D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation as a film to align with Peckinpah's siege thriller/gender commentary; they're both "on the wrong side of history", yet there's something to learn from their depictions as well as their…
Review by Will Sloan ★★★★★

NOW That's What I Call Problematic
Review by Matt! ★★★★½ 2

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

Very few things do I find as uncomfortably satisfying as when Dustin Hoffman looks around his house, surveying the the fallout of the carnage done by the intruders, murderers, and rapists he has just brutally killed, smiles, and says proudly, “Jesus. I got ‘em all.”
Peckinpah’s seminal testament to the primordial violence inseparable from masculinity, maintaining that all men, no matter how cowardly, have a point at which they will be pushed no further. Neither a glorification nor a condemnation, but rather a harsh acknowledgement, almost as if it were a rite of passage that must be recognized. Visceral, testosterone-fueled, and undoubtedly controversial (obviously that one scene in particular), but 100% my shit, through and through.
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★½ 2

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

30/100
[originally written on my blog]
Lots of smart folks, including Peckinpah himself, have attempted to make a case for this as something other than vile misogynistic Neanderthal bullshit, but I remain unconvinced. If his intention was to make David the movie's stealth villain, I think he completely whiffed; Hoffman was then a formidable enough actor to provide the character with multiple shadings (and the moment where David doesn't warn Amy that her cat is hanging in the closet does suggest a sadistic streak), but his actions in the finale are too well-justified to provoke any real discomfort in those inclined to cheer him on. (Also, I was surprised and disheartened by how closely the final act conforms to what…
Review by Liz ★★★★ 3

Most of the reviews I've seen on here seem to praise Hoffman's character for his 'strength' and his 'determination to protect his home,' but he's the worst character in this? I mean, he spends the entire back-half of this movie ignoring his obviously traumatized wife, pushing the two of them further and further into danger so that he can try to assert and prove his masculinity.
Susan George is the whole reason that this film works and is so uncomfortable to watch -- her entire performance is completely nuanced, yet the character is held at a distance. Her return to her hometown as a 'liberated woman' should be the story, and in some ways it is, but we're watching it…
Review by theriverjordan ★★★★ 23

“Straw Dogs” is a movie that inspires me to get out of bed in the morning assured and fulfilled in the knowledge that I do not see the world as Sam Peckinpah did.
To watch a truly great film is to let yourself be led by an assured hand from minute zero to the closing blackness. To submit to this - to Peckinpah - through the viewing of “Straw Dogs” is to permit a form of self-subjugation.
The film stars Dustin Hoffman as an American pacifist scientist who finds himself brutally aggrieved by a rowdy group of hyper-masculine English house builders.
The metaphor of taking the director’s hand to be guided through the film does not fit in this case.…
Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★★ 1

When the real villain is toxic masculinity.

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Straw Dogs

Synopsis

In the Face of Every Coward Burns a Straw Dog.

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Alternative Titles

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Theatrical

25 Nov 1971

23 Dec 1971

27 Dec 1971

29 Dec 1971

30 Jan 1972

03 Feb 1972

09 Feb 1972

29 Mar 1972

08 Sep 1972

Physical

28 Feb 2003

TV

13 Jul 2007

France

09 Feb 1972

Germany

29 Mar 1972

Ireland

08 Sep 1972

Italy

03 Feb 1972

Netherlands

23 Dec 1971

28 Feb 2003

13 Jul 2007

Spain

27 Dec 1971

UK

25 Nov 1971

30 Jan 1972

USA

29 Dec 1971

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Director

Producers

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Original Writer

Casting

Editors

Cinematography

Assistant Directors

Production Design

Art Direction

Set Decoration

Special Effects

Stunts

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Sound

Makeup

Hairstyling