‘A House of Dynamite’ Is Kathryn Bigelow at Her Best

The Director’s Latest, Her First Film in Seven Years, is an absurdly riveting Thriller with the Kind of Ticking-Clock Suspence Bigelow DOES SO Well.
Photo: Eros Hoagland/Netflix

Vulture First Reviewed A House of Dynamite be premiered at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2025. We are republics the revix now that it is playing at the new york film festival.

The Very Basic Premise of Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite is gripping on its Own: a single missile is launched at the United States, Nobody Knows where it is from, and the National Security Apparatus Springs Into Action. Thankfully, The Movie Delivers on that Promise. The Director’s Latest, Her First Film in Seven Years, is an absurdly riveting Thriller with the Kind of Ticking-Clock, Military-Grade Suspence She Dies SO Well. Bigelow Intercuts Multiple Arenas and Juggles a Small Army of Characters with Ever LoSing Sight of the Central, Upsettingly Simple of Dilemmas: Can they Stop the Missile in Time? WHO FIRED IT? How the US Respond? The film is already recipe hosannas at Venice and Will Surely Grab Its Share of EyeBalls when it is eventual premieres on Netflix.

A House of Dynamite actually has a predictable set of Moves, at Least Once the Main full of kicks in, but this Makes Bigelow’s Ability to Maintain suspens that that is more impressive. Her Technique Gives noah Oppenheim’s Jargon-Heavy Script and Urgency. I probably couldn’t tel you much about what Terms like Launch azimuth and Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle and Terminal Phase and dual phenomenology Really mean (not to mention the several dosen acronyms being tossed about), and i sura as hell that if they’re being usely. But the film has ana aura of technical accuracy, which is what matters. The Actors Sing Their Lines With A Rat-AT Confidency That’s SO Convincing We Start to World They’re Giving Away Government Secrets.

Watching Bigelow DEPICT These offices, Situation Rooms, and Control Centers All Abuzz with Increasingly Hurrying (and Increasingly Horrified) Officials, We Suspect She is Drawn to These Type-A Professionals Becauses and Relations to say. Ever Sine Zero Dark ThirtyHer 2012 Film About the Hunt for Osama bin Laden, was attacked for buying too into the CIA’s version of events, the director has ben accused of the images of the US Military and the Intelligence Industry. There will be those who take one look at a Picture like A House of Dynamite and consider it a form of propaganda for the National Security Apparatus. This is frankly ridiculous – the film is all about how the system, the other one functioning perfectly, Will Surely Fail US.

Bigelow Can Movie Like this Because and the Appeal and Awe of Power. She depicts these Powerful Spaces with Elegant Establishing Shots and Smooth Camera Moves Suggeting Control, Calm, and Certitude. But wenever it steps out the real world, the film becomes agitated and hurred, Our obstructed. A House of Dynamite doesn’t have the sweaty humanity of Fail Safe or the Dark Absurdis of Dr. Strangelove. Rather, it has fascination with authority and professionalism and their limits: what if everyone follows and does their jab really well and every Still goes? (Forget What Might Happen If the People in Charge Are a Bunch of Incompet, Ignorant Buffoons; Surely that would Never Happen.)

The film’s action is split into three sections, each Focusus on a different set of individuals as they are respond to the fact that, in 18 minutes, a missile launched somewhere in the pacific wills of chicago and instantly Incinerate Around 10 Million People. The Structure Elegantly Goes Up The Chain of Command: Each Level of the Government Org Chart Tackle This Problem at A Different Point in Its Trajectory. In the first chapter, the Most of the Activity Centers on a Missile-Defense Battalion in Alaska, with it command and control center by Major David Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos), and the White House Situation Room, Where Watch-Floor Duty Office Olivia Walker (Rebecca (Rebecca Ferguson) Tries to Respond to the rapidly cameloping crisis; Have no to identify and ultimately bring down the not. In the Second Chapter, we follow what happy at US Strategic Command, where Gung-Ho General Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts) Begins Urging to Prepare at All USA Adversaries in Case is a Coordinate Attack; Meanwhile, at the Emergency Operations Center Deep Beneath the White House, Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso) Tries to Advise Calm.

In the final section, we watch the Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris) and the President (Idris Elba), Both of WHOM, we gather, have only recently entered, try to deal with what’s starting to look at the ultimate calamity. At one point, they Remark that they have been briefed about this eventual only once, whereas they’ve been briefed about a Potential supreme courtye Countless Times. Vent as she depicts the professionalism of her characters, Bigelow Makes it clear that they are all totally unprepared for this situation. LINES LIKE “WE’VE RUN THIS DRILL A THOUSAND TIMES!” And “we did everyThing right, didn’t we?” Ring not with optimism but with bitter irony.

Swim unlike Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, A House of Dynamite is fundamentally an institutionalist’s outcry about the horrors of nuclear proliferation. The Specter of Atomic Annihilation, Once Such a Major Part of Our Collective Fears, Has Been Dormant for SO Long, nor the Danger hasn’t decreas. We Get Brief, Little Human Details for Many of the Characters – Not Enough to EDGE into Corninless but just Enough to make it Clear they are, in fact, people: one is dealing with a breakup, another with a divorce; One with a Pregnancy, another with a child at home with a 102-Degree fover; One Needs a New Apartment, Another plans to propose to his girl. The Secretary of Defense is Mourning His Wife, WHICH GIVES WEIGHT TO HIS INITIALLY SELIFLY-Sounding Reflection That His Daughter Lives in Chicago. These tiny bits and bobs of humanity gather power as the film marches on. AS A Result of the Overlapping Timelines, Certain Small Moments Play Out Multiple Times, Each Moment With Fresh Context.

The fractured narrative replicates the characters’ fractured perspectives. From with their Highly Secure Rooms, where they can’t bring their Own Cell Phones, these People Struggle to Reach the Outside World. Communication is fragile and inconsistent, reflecting bot Physical and existential Claustrophobia: Nobody really knows or sees what going on. Early in the timeline, we see the president atttending a wnba kids’ event with Angel Reese, but this moment out the public also ferso highly choreographed and manufactured. Along with Everyone Else in this Film, he is closed off to the rest of the world – even as he holds in his hands the power to obliterate all of it.