I will continue to update this post as the score changes.
||**Score**|**Number of Reviews**|**Average Rating**|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|**Verified Audience**|70%|50+|3.90/5|
|**All Audience**|72%|100+|4.00/5|
**Verified Audience Score History:**
* 70% (3.90/5) at 50+
[**Rotten Tomatoes:**](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/horizon_an_american_saga_chapter_1) Rotten
**Critics Consensus:** Kevin Costner doesn’t lack for ambition as he sketches this frontier saga across the widest of canvases, but *Horizon*’s first chapter proves too diffuse in scope for it to satisfy as a self-contained endeavor.
||**Score**|**Number of Reviews**|**Average Rating**|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|**All Critics**|42%|57|5.30/10|
|**Top Critics**|16%|25|4.40/10|
[**Metacritic:**](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/horizon-an-american-saga—chapter-1/) 47 (35 Reviews)
**Sample Reviews:**
As a stand-alone film (which it isn’t, but let’s pretend for a moment), “Horizon” is by turns convoluted, ambitious, intriguing, and meandering. But it’s never quite moving. – Owen Gleiberman, Variety
Any of these plotlines might have sustained an hour of compelling television but they don’t add up to much in this awkwardly stitched quilt, which rarely provides the space for anyone’s experiences to resonate. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
It’s a semi-profound if not exactly original concept, sometimes articulated in that hamfisted-yet-poetic way Costner’s worked since his still-greatest directorial statement, “Dances with Wolves.” It’s delivered best visually… **2/4** \- Bob Strauss, San Francisco Chronicle
“Horizon,” so far, anyway, is more about a certain set of movie memories than a movie of its own. **2/4** \- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Part of the pleasure of Horizon is the sheer, magisterial sweep of the thing – with mountains and buttes and mesas like these, who needs CG? But its texture lives in small, telling details. **4/5** \- Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph (UK)
Costner boasts an instinctive understanding of the archetype and thus elevates the role and each line beyond the possibility of camp. **3/5** \- Kevin Maher, Times (UK)
But a film – certainly a Western – needs to have a plot, a bit of credible characterisation, and a structure that preferably includes a beginning, middle and end. Horizon doesn’t have any of those. **1/5** \- Nicholas Barber, BBC.com
At least Horizon accomplishes one staggering feat: it makes one wonder if we were maybe a little too hard on The Postman. – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
The first part of a planned four-part epic saga strives for a lot, but serves more to remind us of the best of the genre without achieving it itself. – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine
It’s fine for an epic to sprawl, but you want a sense of purpose at the same time, and this one sometimes loses its way. Still, it’s handsomely shot and well performed, a throwback to the glory days of event-movie horse operas. **3/5** \- Helen O’Hara, Empire Magazine
So expansive and incomplete that it resembles a modern television series awkwardly edited into feature form. – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
The biggest problem with Horizon is that, even with its lengthy running time, Costner has only scratched the surface of the “saga” he’s trying to tell. There is no arc to what happens, just the seemingly unending introduction of characters. – Esther Zuckerman, The Daily Beast
These aren’t characters so much as the spokes of a plot in human form, each of their storylines moving as if being pulled by horses across the entire span of the American West. **C-** \- Ryan Lattanzio, indieWire
The film is all table-setting, with the stories lacking in polish and dramatic momentum and the characters never developed beyond archetypes. **1/4** \- Derek Smith, Slant Magazine
While the first film in the possible “Horizon” series does well in setting up future pictures, this single film is a chore to sit through. **2/4** \- Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com
**SYNOPSIS:**
In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, “Horizon: An American Saga” explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.
**CAST:**
* Kevin Costner as Hayes Ellison
* Sienna Miller as Frances Kittredge
* Sam Worthington as First Lt. Trent Gephardt
* Will Patton as Owen Kittredge
* Jamie Campbell Bower as Caleb Sykes
* Giovanni Ribisi as Roland Bailey
**DIRECTED BY:** Kevin Costner
**STORY BY:** Jon Baird, Kevin Costner, Mark Kasdan
**SCREENPLAY BY:** Jon Baird, Kevin Costner
**PRODUCED BY:** Kevin Costner, Howard Kaplan, Mark Gillard
**EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:** Robert J. Scannell, Danny Peykoff, Marc DeBevoise, Armyan Bernstein, Rod Lake, Charlie Lyons, Barry M. Berg
**DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY:** J. Michael Muro
**PRODUCTION DESIGNER:** Derek R. Hill
**EDITED BY:** Miklos Wright
**COSTUME DESIGNER:** Lisa Lovaas
**MUSIC BY:** John Debney
**RUNTIME:** 181 Minutes
**RELEASE DATE:** June 28, 2024
by chanma50