Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5

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Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5

2025

1h 59m

Documentary

Biography

History

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Popcornmeter

84%

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85 Reviews

52%

Popcornmeter

50+ Ratings

From Academy Award®-nominated and BAFTA-winning director, Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), Orwell is the definitive feature-length documentary on visionary author George Orwell, with the exclusive cooperation of the Orwell Estate. ‍"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past...," wrote Orwell in his novel, 1984. Today, the "newspeak" of authoritarian rule is alive and well and in unexpected places, from the rise of AI Chatbot to the Russian propaganda machine, from the marketing webs of commercial metaverses to the political banning of books in the Southern United States. Peck's "Orwell" will use George Orwell's life, work and legacy as a maverick iconoclastic writer to jam the signals of the algorithms gone rogue which, in the name of personal freedom, threaten to close our minds to a greater possibility.

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Critics Consensus

Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 is a dense, urgent, and unapologetically blunt documentary that offers a chillingly relevant examination of totalitarianism's enduring appeal and the societal conditions that enable it.

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Neil Alcock

Empire Magazine

Mar 28

3/5

A bitter howl at the injustice of the modern world, intellectualised through one of literature’s shrewdest figures. Powerful and eye-opening, but Orwell himself might have preferred a less partisan approach.

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David Jenkins

Little White Lies

Mar 28

2/5

The filmmaker draws some arresting audiovisual cues into the patchwork of images, but the film lacks some of the goofy wit of British documentarian Adam Curtis, whose own provocative essays at least offer some element of surprise.

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Tara Brady

Irish Times

Mar 27

2.5/5

The film often feels cluttered and overlong, shifting clumsily between biography, analysis and polemic.

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Graeme Tuckett

The Post NZ

1d

If it wasn't for the care and intelligence with which Peck and his editors assemble their material, this could have been a dizzying and disorientating ride. But, the film remains lucid, easy enough to follow, and always idiosyncratic and unapologetic.

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Guillem Martinez Oya

Cinematismo

Jun 15

4/5

Raoul Peck interweaves Orwell’s voice-over, archival footage, and contemporary images to offer us a different perspective on our present. [Full review in Spanish]

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Victoria Luxford

Clash Magazine

Apr 1

6/10

A bold and frantic plea for history to not repeat itself… again

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Gregg Y

Oct 18

Informative and visually captivating

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RG

Oct 13

Very intense and very thoughtful. Agreed with much of it, but its so overtly one-sided that detracts a bit from its credibility. Lots of horrors that humans inflict upon one another shown, but no reference to 9/11 or the October 7, 2023 assault by Hamas.

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Anne C

@RT98797131 Jun 9

One-sided, partisan view with provoking visuals and little context to them. Fails to cover the faults of political leaders from both sides and so fails to make a valuable point.

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Ron A

@RT56284347 Jun 9

A "Documentary" about history's foremost spokesperson against propaganda and authoritarian rule that manages to twist Orwell's own words into blatant propaganda. The Ministry of Truth worked overtime on this insidious abomination. Doubleplusbad

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Stephen R

@Steve_R Jun 1

I believed that this would have been an interesting biography on Orwell. To put if bluntly it was akin to bait and switch. It was a case of the producers abusing Orwell's quote: "There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language." The producers turned the biography into an anti conservative diatribe, focusing a lot on maligning Trump. They used the quote: "war is peace" to malign Netanyahu, never mentioning the terrorism of Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran. The producers projected positive views of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. Black Lives Matter was a racist criminal extortion racket. Floyd was a criminal who died from a drug overdose. Finally there is the inevitable historical trend. Democratic socialism works for a short period of time before it degenerates. Orwell famously stated "We are all equal but some of us are more equal than others." The producers never reviewed cases were that happened.

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Prim A

@RT40016115 May 2

extremely intense - I wish there was a ten-minute break in the middle of the film to regather. I never thought of Orwell as an anti-colonial author, but it really showed me how little I know, and definitely made me rethink his work

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Raoul Peck

Director

Damian Lewis

Narrator

Raoul Peck

Writer

Alex Gibney

Producer

Blair Foster

Producer

Tamara Rosenberg

Producer

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Synopsis

From Academy Award®-nominated and BAFTA-winning director, Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), Orwell is the definitive feature-length documentary on visionary author George Orwell, with the exclusive cooperation of the Orwell Estate. ‍"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past...," wrote Orwell in his novel, 1984. Today, the "newspeak" of authoritarian rule is alive and well and in unexpected places, from the rise of AI Chatbot to the Russian propaganda machine, from the marketing webs of commercial metaverses to the political banning of books in the Southern United States. Peck's "Orwell" will use George Orwell's life, work and legacy as a maverick iconoclastic writer to jam the signals of the algorithms gone rogue which, in the name of personal freedom, threaten to close our minds to a greater possibility.

Director: Raoul Peck
Producer: Alex Gibney, Blair Foster, Tamara Rosenberg, Nick Shumaker, George Chignell, Raoul Peck
Screenwriter: Raoul Peck
Distributor: NEON
Production Co: Closer Media, Anonymous Content, Jigsaw Productions
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 3, 2025, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA): $350.3K
Runtime: 1h 59m