When a three-and-a-half-hour true-crime epic about the murder of members of the Osage Nation starts
turning up on “Best of the Year” lists next to pink plastic dolls and nuclear physicists, you know
movie culture is having a wild moment. Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese
and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro, has become one of those films
people feel strongly about in both directions. It wins major awards, racks up glowing reviews,
and still sends some viewers to Letterboxd to complain about sore backs and slow pacing.

So where does Killers of the Flower Moon actually rank in the eyes of critics, awards bodies,
and regular viewers who just want to know whether they’ll stay awake on the couch? Let’s break down
the rankings, the praise, the backlash, and some honest opinions to help you decide where this movie
lands on your personal list.

What Is Killers of the Flower Moon About, Really?

Based on David Grann’s nonfiction book, the film is set in 1920s Oklahoma and centers on the Osage
Nation after oil is discovered beneath their land. Members of the Osage, suddenly wealthy, are
systematically murdered in what became known as the “Reign of Terror.”

The story follows Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), his powerful uncle William Hale (De Niro), and Ernest’s
Osage wife, Mollie (Gladstone). At its core, the film is about complicity, greed, and the way violence
hides inside “love” and family loyalty. The newly formed FBI eventually investigates, but Scorsese keeps
the camera focused less on heroic lawmen and more on the people caught in the web of betrayal.

It’s part crime saga, part historical reckoning, part intimate relationship drama all wrapped in a
slow-burn style that’s very much “sit down, put your phone away, and actually pay attention” cinema.

How Critics Rank Killers of the Flower Moon

Review aggregators: A critical darling

On major review aggregators, Killers of the Flower Moon earned an exceptionally high approval
rating from critics, with scores hovering in the low- to mid-90s on platforms like Rotten Tomatoes
and similarly strong numbers on other sites that track critical consensus.

Critics tend to agree on a few points:

• The performances especially from Lily Gladstone are powerhouse level.
• Scorsese’s direction is precise, controlled, and emotionally heavy, even when the pacing is deliberate.
• The film treats its subject matter with gravity, framing the story as a tragedy rather than a conventional thriller.

Top of the year lists and long-term rankings

If you look at critics’ “Best of 2023” lists, the movie isn’t just present it’s often near the very top.
The Hollywood Reporter ranked Killers of the Flower Moon as the #1 film in one critic’s Top 10 of the year,
placing it above celebrated titles like Anatomy of a Fall and May December.

Broad surveys of critics tell a similar story. In a large critics poll of the best movies of 2023,
Killers of the Flower Moon consistently landed in the upper tier, often mentioned alongside
Oppenheimer, Barbie, and other major releases of the year.

Zoom out even further, and the rankings get even more flattering. One compilation of critics’ lists
put the film at the very top of its “Best Movies of 2023” ranking, and later roundups of the decade’s
best films so far have it sitting comfortably in the top third.

Translation: in the critical league table, this is a top-tier contender, often treated as one of the
defining films of the early 2020s rather than just “another awards movie.”

Awards Season: Nominations, Wins, and Near-Misses

Awards bodies largely echoed the critics’ enthusiasm. The National Board of Review named
Killers of the Flower Moon Best Film of the Year, also honoring Martin Scorsese as Best Director
and Lily Gladstone as Best Actress.

On the global stage, the film was chosen as one of the American Film Institute’s top-ten films of the year
and racked up an impressive number of nominations: ten at the Academy Awards, nine at the BAFTAs, seven at the
Golden Globes, and multiple Screen Actors Guild nods.

Here’s the twist: despite those ten Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress
the movie walked away with zero wins, joining Gangs of New York and The Irishman as Scorsese
films that were heavily nominated but shut out.

During much of the early awards-prediction season, many pundits had Killers of the Flower Moon as a top
frontrunner for Best Picture, before the momentum shifted decisively to Oppenheimer.
That narrative “prestige epic that came close but lost to an even bigger cultural juggernaut” now shapes how
many people talk about the film in retrospective rankings.

Box Office Performance: Critical Hit, Financial Question Mark

With a reported production budget in the $200–215 million range, Killers of the Flower Moon was never a
small gamble. It ultimately grossed around $158 million worldwide, with about $68 million from the U.S. and Canada
and the rest from international markets.

On paper, that looks underwhelming traditional box office math suggests a film of that size would need
several hundred million more to be clearly profitable. But because Apple handled the movie as part of its
streaming strategy, its long-term value includes Apple TV+ subscriptions, rentals, and home viewing, which
complicates the simple “hit or flop” box.

From a rankings perspective, this puts the film in an interesting place: it’s not a runaway commercial phenomenon
like Barbie or Oppenheimer, but it’s far from an obscure art-house title. It sits in that middle zone
of “major event for cinephiles, modest curiosity for casual viewers.”

Audience Opinions: Love, Respect, and a Little Bit of Eye-Rolling

The praise from viewers

Among audiences who vibe with slower, weightier dramas, the movie often earns glowing comments. Viewers
praise the tension in the domestic scenes, the way Scorsese refuses to turn the murders into thrills, and
the devastating quiet in Lily Gladstone’s performance. User reviews and discussion threads repeatedly call
out the acting trio Gladstone, DiCaprio, and De Niro as one of the film’s biggest strengths.

Many also appreciate how the film centers the Osage experience more than a typical crime caper would, and how
it forces viewers to sit with complicity, greed, and betrayal rather than letting them off the hook with a
neat mystery reveal.

The backlash: “Too long” and “too slow”

Of course, not everyone is lining up to buy the Blu-ray. A vocal slice of the audience finds the movie
exhausting, especially its runtime and measured pacing. Some viewers describe it as “a bore” that reveals
its villains too early and then spends hours grinding through misery with little suspense.

These criticisms usually fall into a few buckets:

• Runtime fatigue: At around three and a half hours, you’re committing to what feels like a long-haul flight.
• Emotional heaviness: There’s little comic relief; it’s bleak, and some viewers simply don’t want that right now.
• Expectations mismatch: People expecting a twisty FBI thriller sometimes feel let down by a slower, character-focused tragedy.

In other words, the movie’s biggest strengths to some patience, moral seriousness, refusal to sensationalize
are exactly what others bounce off.

Key Things Most People Agree On

Even across different rankings and hot takes, there are a few areas of broad agreement:

• Lily Gladstone is remarkable. Critics and awards bodies widely singled out her performance, and
  she made history as the first Indigenous American actress nominated for an Oscar.
• It’s technically superb. From the cinematography to the music and production design, this is
  high-caliber filmmaking with a clear sense of place and time.
• The story matters. Many critics highlight the importance of bringing wider attention to the Osage
  murders and the history of violence behind early American wealth.

Even some of the harsher reviewers qualify their complaints with a nod to the film’s ambition and historical value.

Where Opinions Split: Perspective, Violence, and Tone

The most complicated debates around Killers of the Flower Moon aren’t about its shot composition or
box office totals they’re about whose story this really is.

Some commentators argue that by centering the narrative on Ernest Burkhart and William Hale, the film keeps white
perpetrators at the emotional center, leaving Mollie and other Osage characters somewhat underexplored. Critics have
suggested that this perspective can feel “timid” in its willingness to fully inhabit Osage interior lives.

Others counter that Scorsese is tackling complicity head-on by showing the story through the eyes of those who
weaponize their proximity to Indigenous people a husband, an uncle, a doctor in horrifying ways. In that
reading, the discomfort you feel watching Ernest waffle and betray is very much the point.

There’s also debate about how much violence the movie shows on screen. Some feel it’s restrained compared with what
actually happened; others find the killings almost numbing. The overall tone, however, is unquestionably serious:
there’s no sense that the film wants you to “enjoy” the crimes.

So Where Does Killers of the Flower Moon Rank Overall?

If we step back and average out the rankings and opinions:

• Among critics: It’s frequently top 5 of the year, often #1.
• Among awards bodies: It’s a heavily nominated, selectively awarded prestige film.
• Among general audiences: It’s respected, sometimes admired, occasionally abandoned halfway through.
• In long-term lists: It’s already showing up on “best of the decade” and even “best of the century so far” discussions.

In practical terms, that puts Killers of the Flower Moon in the “modern classic in contention” bucket:
it may not be everyone’s personal favorite, but it’s firmly lodged in the conversation whenever people talk
about the most ambitious and significant films of the 2020s.

Should You Watch It? A Quick Viewer’s Guide

Still unsure if you want to schedule a three-and-a-half-hour date with American history and moral rot?
Here’s a quick guide.

You’ll probably love it if…

• You enjoy slow-burn dramas and aren’t afraid of long runtimes.
• You’re interested in true crime stories handled with historical and emotional weight.
• You’re a fan of Scorsese, DiCaprio, De Niro, or Lily Gladstone and want to see them at full power.
• You regularly search for “best film of the year” lists and like comparing your rankings to the experts.

You might struggle with it if…

• You want a fast-moving mystery with lots of twists and court-room fireworks.
• You’re very sensitive to depictions of violence and systemic injustice.
• Three-plus hours of bleak storytelling sounds like a tall order after a long workweek.

If you land somewhere in the middle, consider watching it in two sittings at home: pause midway for a break,
let what you’ve seen sink in, and then come back for the final act. Streaming has turned epic runtimes into
epic miniseries if you want them to be.

Experiences and Takeaways: What It Feels Like to Watch It

Rankings and star ratings are useful, but they don’t really capture the experience of watching
Killers of the Flower Moon. This is the kind of movie that lingers, not because of a single twist,
but because of how it slowly rearranges the way you think about power, loyalty, and history.

For many viewers, the first hour feels almost deceptively straightforward: oil money, new cars, fancy clothes,
and a romance that seems genuine, if complicated. The film lets you settle into the rhythms of Osage life and
the bustling world that springs up around their wealth. You notice the details the language, the clothing,
the rituals and for a moment it might feel like you’re watching a period drama about cultural collision.

Then, almost before you realize it, patterns of violence emerge. A poisoning here, a suspicious “accident”
there, a doctor who seems a little too comfortable with unexplained deaths. The horror isn’t in jump scares;
it’s in the creeping realization that greed has turned an entire community into a hunting ground. By the time
federal investigators arrive, the audience has already seen how deep the rot goes, which makes every polite
interaction and neighborly smile feel loaded.

The emotional weight is especially strong in the scenes between Ernest and Mollie. Many viewers describe a
kind of knot in the stomach watching Ernest move back and forth between affection and betrayal, between
caring for his wife and participating in the scheme that’s slowly killing her family. It’s less “Will
the good guy win?” and more “Is there any way for anyone to come out of this with their soul intact?”

Watching with a group can spark surprisingly intense post-movie conversations. Some people come out talking
about the craft the tracking shots, the period detail, the final scene. Others want to talk about the ethics
of telling this story from a mostly white perspective, or about how little they knew about the Osage murders
before the film. Friends may compare it to reading the book, to classic Westerns, or to other Scorsese films
about crime and complicity.

At home, the experience changes slightly. Pausing to grab a snack or answer a message can take the edge off
the intensity, but it also risks softening the impact. Many people who initially found the film “slow”
report appreciating it more on a rewatch when they’re prepared for the pacing and can focus on the nuances
of the performances and the way Scorsese structures certain scenes.

The film also tends to send viewers down rabbit holes: researching the real history of the Osage Nation, reading
more about similar episodes of violence, or revisiting documentaries and articles about how wealth and power were
built in the United States. As experiences go, that’s a sign the film is doing more than just filling an evening;
it’s nudging audiences to confront uncomfortable truths.

In the end, whether Killers of the Flower Moon lands at #1 on your list or somewhere lower, it’s hard
to walk away indifferent. You may argue with its choices, debate its perspective, or wish for a tighter edit,
but you’ll almost certainly have opinions and that, in a landscape full of instantly forgettable content,
is its own kind of victory.

Conclusion

Killers of the Flower Moon is one of those movies that lives in the tension between admiration
and discomfort. Critics rank it among the best films of the year and in some cases, of the decade
thanks to its performances, direction, and historical weight. Awards bodies shower it with nominations,
even when the trophies go elsewhere. Viewers, meanwhile, are split between calling it a masterpiece
and asking if it really needed to be that long.

Ultimately, that mix of reverence and debate is part of what makes the film so enduring. It isn’t just
“good” or “bad”; it’s a work that invites judgment, rewatching, argument, and reflection. Whether you
end up echoing the critics or siding with the impatient audience members, you’ll come away with your
own ranking and that’s exactly the sort of movie that sticks around in cultural memory.

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