Enter a Rotten Tomatoes movie slug to inspect the stored movie, batches, snapshots, and reviews.
Movie ID: 1173
RT slug: the_settlers_2023
RT URL: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_settlers_2023
Release year: 2024
Runtime: 97 mins
Wide release date: —
Limited release date: 2024-01-12
Festival premiere date: —
Streaming release date: —
Tomatometer final: 93%
Audience score final: 66%
Genres: Crime, Drama
Directors: Felipe Gálvez Haberle
Writers: Antonia Girardi, Felipe Gálvez Haberle
Producers: Benjamín Doménech, Emily Morgan, Giancarlo Nasi, Matias Roveda, Santiago Gallelli, Stefano Centini, Thierry Lenouvel
MPAA rating: —
Executive Producers: —
Created: 2026-08-15 12:42:44
Updated: 2026-08-15 12:42:44
Chile, 1901. Three horsemen embark on an expedition, tasked with securing a wealthy landowner's vast property. Accompanying a reckless British lieutenant and an American mercenary is mestizo marksman Segundo, who comes to realize their true mission is to violently "remove" the indigenous population.
As harrowing as it is humane, The Settlers serves as a sharp-edged excavation of long-marginalized history.
Canonical reviews: 61
Canonical fresh: 57
Canonical rotten: 4
Canonical calculated Tomatometer: 93%
Latest snapshot UTC: 2026-08-15 12:40:54
Snapshot Tomatometer: 93%
Snapshot review count: 61
Snapshot fresh count: 57
Snapshot rotten count: 4
Source note: Imported from manual review paste batch #2807 (full_snapshot)
| Company | Role |
|---|---|
| MUBI | distributor |
| Cine Sud Promotion | production |
| Quiddity Films | production |
| Quijote Films | production |
| Rei Cine | production |
| Snowglobe | production |
| Sutor Kolonko | production |
| Volos Films Ltd. | production |
| Billing | Name | Character |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam Spruell | — |
| 2 | Alfredo Castro | — |
| 3 | Mariano Llinás | — |
| 4 | Marcelo Alonso | — |
| 5 | Benjamin Westfall | — |
| Batch ID | Status | Mode | Created | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1189 | processed | — | 2026-08-15 12:42:44 | Processed successfully into movie_id=1173 using update_mode=merge_non_empty. |
| Batch ID | Local Snapshot | UTC Snapshot | Entered % | Entered Count | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2807 | 2026-08-15 07:40:00 (America/Panama) | 2026-08-15 12:40:54 | 93% | 61 | processed | Mode=full_snapshot. Processed 61 row(s); 0 row error(s). Parsed unique reviews in this batch=61, fresh=57, rotten=4, tomatometer=93%. Net new reviews added=61, fresh=57, rotten=4. Current canonical totals=61 reviews, 57 fresh, 4 rotten, tomatometer=93% (93.443%). Entered review count matched parsed batch count (61). Entered tomatometer matched parsed batch value (93%). |
| ID | Critic | Outlet | Fresh? | Score | RT Time Raw | Approx Published UTC | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 244288 | Cameron Ritter | Geek Vibes Nation | Fresh | 7.5/10 | 2025-07-19T23:46:25.000Z | 2025-07-19 23:46:25 | Felipe Gálvez Haberle makes a powerful statement with his first feature by masterfully depicting the decades-long sins of a young nation through this more contained story of just several players. |
| 244289 | Michael Nordine | Movie Brief | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2025-01-17T21:48:06.000Z | 2025-01-17 21:48:06 | It’s not often that a film set in uncharted land feels truly uncharted the way The Settlers does. |
| 244290 | Heidy Morales | Hye's Musings | Fresh | — | 2024-06-04T02:23:27.000Z | 2024-06-04 02:23:27 | 'The Settlers'... challenges what we are taught (and not taught) in history books. It is asking us to question said history and to acknowlege that all colonies were established through violence and genocide. |
| 244291 | Filipe Freitas | Always Good Movies | Fresh | 3.5/5 | 2024-04-18T02:06:51.000Z | 2024-04-18 02:06:51 | Evokes the spirit of classic westerns, here infused with shades of Herzog and Jodorowsky’s filmmaking styles. |
| 244292 | Petr Navovy | Pajiba | Fresh | — | 2024-04-10T20:33:05.000Z | 2024-04-10 20:33:05 | Its relatively brief running time and patient pace combined with spare, subtle character work give it the feel of a parable or folk tale, even as it confronts the horrors of imperial subjugation with, at times, nearly unbearably frank realism. |
| 244293 | Rohan Naahar | The Indian Express | Fresh | — | 2024-04-07T04:03:13.000Z | 2024-04-07 04:03:13 | A queasy companion piece to Killers of the Flower Moon and The Zone of Interest; a harrowing revisionist western unpacks the moral compromises involved in the Birth of a Nation. |
| 244294 | Pallavi Keswani | The Hindu | Fresh | — | 2024-04-03T21:55:32.000Z | 2024-04-03 21:55:32 | The Settlers may require polishing in way of its performances, but is an example of a simply told yet richly-engaging story. |
| 244295 | Emma Simmonds | Radio Times | Fresh | 4/5 | 2024-03-16T00:55:39.000Z | 2024-03-16 00:55:39 | The Settlers is a brutal, beautifully lensed look at some appalling events, featuring eccentric interludes and unpleasant twists in the tale. |
| 244296 | Tara Brady | Irish Times | Fresh | 4/5 | 2024-02-24T13:00:56.000Z | 2024-02-24 13:00:56 | The writer-director and his cinematographer, Simone D’Arcangelo, evoke spaghetti westerns with wide-angle vistas of forbidding horizons. Odd moments of Quentin Tarantino-style playfulness add to the unease. |
| 244297 | Rich Cline | Shadows on the Wall | Fresh | 3.5/5 | 2024-02-13T17:41:02.000Z | 2024-02-13 17:41:02 | The film is thoughtful and challenging, with a somewhat enigmatic structure. Atrocities and injustice litter the screen, both underscored and softened by the nuanced storytelling. |
| 244298 | Sarah Kent | The Arts Desk | Rotten | 3/5 | 2024-02-09T20:16:33.000Z | 2024-02-09 20:16:33 | The film might have worked both as a brutal Western and as history... But a desire to explore how the state covered up the slaughter of the Selk’nam people led [Gálvez] to abruptly switch genres -- from western to period drama -- and to adopt the clichés. |
| 244299 | Jonathan Romney | Financial Times | Fresh | 3/5 | 2024-02-08T18:05:46.000Z | 2024-02-08 18:05:46 | At its strongest, though, The Settlers is unsettling indeed, not least thanks to the complementary performances of Arancibia, British TV regular Stanley, and Alfredo Castro... |
| 244300 | David Jenkins | Little White Lies | Fresh | 3/5 | 2024-02-08T13:17:59.000Z | 2024-02-08 13:17:59 | Lacks for a dramatic centre, but all the constituent parts are worthwhile. |
| 244301 | Peter Bradshaw | Guardian | Fresh | 4/5 | 2024-02-07T11:46:25.000Z | 2024-02-07 11:46:25 | It’s a fierce, stark, almost primitive parable of cruelty and power. |
| 244302 | Keith Garlington | Keith & the Movies | Fresh | 4/5 | 2024-02-05T17:42:05.000Z | 2024-02-05 17:42:05 | ...a harrowing and unflinching dive into Chile’s colonial past, offering a piercing and fittingly uncomfortable critique. And all to the backdrop of DP Simone D’Arcangelo’s stunning John Ford-esque canvas. |
| 244303 | Pablo De Vita | La Nación (Argentina) | Fresh | 4/5 | 2024-02-01T19:22:16.000Z | 2024-02-01 19:22:16 | As a narrative experience, The Settlers portrays with an epic Western lens the hidden side of previously featured civilizing advancements of the "white man" in cinema fiction. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 244304 | Manuel Betancourt | FilmWeek (LAist) | Fresh | — | 2024-02-01T00:57:33.000Z | 2024-02-01 00:57:33 | It is particularly gripping and hard to watch at times. I was blown away by this movie. |
| 244305 | Diego Batlle | Otroscines.com | Fresh | 3.5/5 | 2024-01-30T21:59:52.000Z | 2024-01-30 21:59:52 | ... An honest exploration and a denunciation that's more artistic than moralistic about one of the many genocides that occurred in the south of the South. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 244306 | Elissa Suh | Moviepudding (Substack) | Fresh | — | 2024-01-28T19:27:56.000Z | 2024-01-28 19:27:56 | Swaggeringly sure of itself. |
| 244307 | Alan Zilberman | Spectrum Culture | Fresh | 3.5/5 | 2024-01-23T14:44:10.000Z | 2024-01-23 14:44:10 | It starts with a revisionist Western framework, including a literal cowboy, then turns the appeal of those tropes into a sick joke. The material is challenging and a little chilly, but the photography and performances make it compelling. |
| 244308 | Dennis Harvey | 48 Hills | Fresh | — | 2024-01-22T20:09:18.000Z | 2024-01-22 20:09:18 | The Settlers does not (particularly towards the end) place much emphasis on narrative drive. Still, its combination of the poetical and cruel leaves a lingering, distinctive impression. |
| 244309 | Dmitry Samarov | Chicago Reader | Rotten | — | 2024-01-19T20:44:23.000Z | 2024-01-19 20:44:23 | Structured like an old-fashioned western, Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s debut is a turgid, ofttimes muddled mix of mismatched buddy film, morally-righteous screed, and quasi-religious nature-worship. |
| 244310 | Liam Lacey | Original Cin | Fresh | B | 2024-01-19T15:10:04.000Z | 2024-01-19 15:10:04 | Feliz Galéz’s impressive if uneven debut film is politically on-the-nose and visually rich. |
| 244311 | Randy Myers | San Jose Mercury News | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2024-01-18T17:17:10.000Z | 2024-01-18 17:17:10 | [The] synopsis sounds like this is nothing more than a John Ford/Sergio Leone homage, but [The Settlers] corrals bigger ideas, with director/co-screenwriter Felipe Galvez Haberle’s debut exposing colonization’s inherent nastiness. |
| 244312 | A.A. Dowd | IGN Movies | Fresh | 7/10 | 2024-01-17T20:35:50.000Z | 2024-01-17 20:35:50 | For all that this Cannes-winning film flirts with the grandeur of spaghetti Westerns, it’s rarely aiming for excitement or even drama in a conventional sense. But there’s integrity to its brutality. |
| 244313 | Michael Atkinson | LA Weekly/Village Voice | Fresh | — | 2024-01-16T19:29:52.000Z | 2024-01-16 19:29:52 | Most of what you might hear about The Settlers is about its brutality, but I found the movie almost strangely tasteful. |
| 244314 | Rene Sanchez | Cine Sin Fronteras | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2024-01-13T22:28:42.000Z | 2024-01-13 22:28:42 | A spellbinding western that explores the painful wounds and hidden truths of a colonial past. [Full Review in Spanish] |
| 244315 | Zachary Barnes | Wall Street Journal | Rotten | — | 2024-01-12T21:27:16.000Z | 2024-01-12 21:27:16 | Torn between Tarantino-esque genre pastiche and stilted art-film seriousness, The Settlers is at once unsettling and tonally unsettled. The result is a muddled study of brutal history. |
| 244316 | Todd Jorgenson | Cinemalogue | Fresh | — | 2024-01-12T21:22:22.000Z | 2024-01-12 21:22:22 | The rugged beauty of its frontier landscapes provides the backdrop for some brutal violence and ugly racism among colonialists in this powerful Chilean period drama. |
| 244317 | Chase Hutchinson | Collider | Fresh | 8/10 | 2024-01-12T21:04:34.000Z | 2024-01-12 21:04:34 | In The Settlers, what we observe can be beautiful to behold, with sweeping landscapes precisely captured by cinematographer Simone D'Arcangelo, just as it cuts deep into the open wounds wrought by the all-consuming darkness of this historical story. |
| 244318 | Sheila O'Malley | RogerEbert.com | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2024-01-12T18:37:41.000Z | 2024-01-12 18:37:41 | The fact that "The Settlers" is shot with such piercing beauty intensifies its message. |
| 244319 | Jared Mobarak | Hey, Have You Seen ...? | Fresh | 8/10 | 2024-01-12T15:20:05.000Z | 2024-01-12 15:20:05 | Credit Sam Spruell's memorably monstrous performance, but also Haberle and co-writer Antonia Girardi for seemingly acknowledging that they cannot simply tread that well-worn path of tragedy. |
| 244320 | Manohla Dargis | New York Times | Fresh | — | 2024-01-11T18:48:32.000Z | 2024-01-11 18:48:32 | Gálvez’s work here is by turns blunt and subtle, and very assured. (It’s his feature debut.) |
| 244321 | Mark Dujsik | Mark Reviews Movies | Fresh | 3/4 | 2024-01-11T15:39:18.000Z | 2024-01-11 15:39:18 | Except for the victims, no one's hands are clean in The Settlers, and that's the awful truth of this story and history. |
| 244322 | Hector A. Gonzalez | Loud and Clear Reviews | Fresh | 4/5 | 2024-01-08T22:40:58.000Z | 2024-01-08 22:40:58 | With The Settlers (Los Colonos), Felipe Gálvez offers a piercing and cold look at the brutal actions in La Tierra del Fuego. |
| 244323 | Elijah Gonzalez | Paste Magazine | Fresh | 8.0/10 | 2024-01-08T17:38:14.000Z | 2024-01-08 17:38:14 | It presents obfuscated truths about colonial atrocities, using its austere direction and sun-bleached color palette to firmly place us in the middle of man-made horrors. |
| 244324 | Nicolás Medina | Montevideo Portal / Latido Beat | Fresh | 9/10 | 2023-12-26T13:32:37.000Z | 2023-12-26 13:32:37 | Los colonos is an oasis in this desert of "statement focused movies". It manages to be, first, a film extremely aware of its form, of its narrative and of what it seeks, despite its strong socio-political charge. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 244325 | Dennis Schwartz | Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews | Fresh | B | 2023-12-23T13:16:15.000Z | 2023-12-23 13:16:15 | A sharp-edged social commentary on European colonial racism. |
| 244326 | Frank J. Avella | Awards Daily | Fresh | B- | 2023-12-02T15:37:11.000Z | 2023-12-02 15:37:11 | There’s a power to the film that packs a punch, but it also tends to meander. Still, this is an important story that has been erased from Chilean history. |
| 244327 | Saibal Chatterjee | NDTV | Fresh | — | 2023-10-31T19:04:13.000Z | 2023-10-31 19:04:13 | Visually grand and consistently disquieting, the film lays bare the brutality of the violence, physical and systemic, that the powerful unleash on those that they seek to overpower and eliminate. |
| 244328 | Alex Papaioannou | InSession Film | Fresh | B | 2023-10-30T16:56:07.000Z | 2023-10-30 16:56:07 | The Settlers takes a bold, often overtly-violent approach to tackling an essential subject, but when addressing a history that has been pushed aside for so long, a statement such as Gálvez Haberle’s film is necessary. |
| 244329 | Javier Ocaña | El Pais (Spain) | Fresh | — | 2023-10-27T23:09:34.000Z | 2023-10-27 23:09:34 | The settlers speak of the past with the here and now always present. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 244330 | Dwight Brown | DwightBrownInk.com | Rotten | 2/4 | 2023-10-23T22:17:52.000Z | 2023-10-23 22:17:52 | Haberle may have had good intentions, but he lost his way. |
| 244331 | Julian Roman | MovieWeb | Fresh | 4/5 | 2023-10-13T02:36:24.000Z | 2023-10-13 02:36:24 | The powerful invade without mercy. They take what they want, commit unspeakable crimes, and leave trauma in their wake. The Settlers is a harrowing experience that lingers long after the credits roll. |
| 244332 | Philipp Engel | Cinemanía (Spain) | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2023-10-09T22:05:36.000Z | 2023-10-09 22:05:36 | A rounded, beautiful and vindictive western. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 244333 | Kevin L. Lee | Film Inquiry | Fresh | — | 2023-10-05T22:33:53.000Z | 2023-10-05 22:33:53 | When we get to the final 20 minutes of The Settlers, Haberle hits home on what genocide truly leaves behind in world history – that it is more than just a period of evil and murder, but it shapes the societal entity that is formed afterwards. |
| 244334 | Morris Yang | In Review Online | Fresh | — | 2023-10-05T19:15:55.000Z | 2023-10-05 19:15:55 | What The Settlers does tremendously well is to [underline] this materialist logic, and then [demonstrate] how Patagonia’s colonial legacy, unlike the aspirations of many a prospector, is something that can never really be settled. |
| 244335 | Tom O'Brien | Next Best Picture | Fresh | 8/10 | 2023-10-04T15:11:56.000Z | 2023-10-04 15:11:56 | The assurance Gálvez displays with his pacing, his work with actors, and the integrity through which he tells an important story suggests experience far beyond his own. |
| 244336 | Jake Cole | Slant Magazine | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2023-10-03T23:02:22.000Z | 2023-10-03 23:02:22 | The film is a blistering laceration of the contradictions and hypocrisies of European racism. |
| 244337 | Laura Babiak | Observer | Fresh | 3/4 | 2023-10-03T19:02:59.000Z | 2023-10-03 19:02:59 | A brutal, chilling indictment of capitalist colonialism, The Settlers mixes shocking violence with acute apathy. |
| 244338 | Carlos Esquives | Cinencuentro | Fresh | — | 2023-08-18T18:46:40.000Z | 2023-08-18 18:46:40 | Los Colonos (The Settlers) is an idea born of vile historical events, examined through a vile perspective. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 244339 | Jessica Kiang | Variety | Fresh | — | 2023-07-01T04:11:01.000Z | 2023-07-01 04:11:01 | A heady, opaque western, slow to stir but vicious as a rattlesnake when it does. |
| 244340 | Sarah Manvel | Critic's Notebook | Fresh | — | 2023-06-20T07:25:13.000Z | 2023-06-20 07:25:13 | Mr. Gálvez has arrived on the international cinema scene in a very big way; and “The Settlers” is a major achievement. It’s especially recommended to horror aficionados, anyone who cares about indigenous rights, or people who just hate the British. |
| 244341 | Àngel Quintana | Caimán Cuadernos de Cine | Fresh | — | 2023-05-31T23:48:24.000Z | 2023-05-31 23:48:24 | Felipe Gálvez rolls through that journey at the end of the world, marked by sublime landscapes, meanwhile, the originating violence ends up tainting both the sheep and Chile's history in blood. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 244342 | Jordan Raup | The Film Stage | Fresh | B | 2023-05-26T16:15:57.000Z | 2023-05-26 16:15:57 | The riveting second half––including a chilling reckoning with others occupying the desolate land and a well-executed structural gamble––brings profound expansion to this chilling story of atrocity. |
| 244343 | Carlos Aguilar | The Playlist | Fresh | A | 2023-05-24T14:03:33.000Z | 2023-05-24 14:03:33 | Gálvez, it’s clear, carefully considered the many ramifications of the subject matter he tackles here. |
| 244344 | Nicholas Bell | IONCINEMA.com | Fresh | 3/5 | 2023-05-22T21:59:03.000Z | 2023-05-22 21:59:03 | Gálvez has created a suffocating film about a murder journey serving as a footnote for decades of disastrous chicanery to come. |
| 244345 | Christian Blauvelt | IndieWire | Fresh | A- | 2023-05-22T20:16:28.000Z | 2023-05-22 20:16:28 | This is a film that shows that, as easy as it is to forget about the past, it’s easier still when it was never taught in the first place. |
| 244346 | Stephen Saito | Moveable Fest | Fresh | — | 2023-05-22T15:03:41.000Z | 2023-05-22 15:03:41 | To go by “The Settlers,” perhaps nothing about the past should be entirely trusted, but it sure feels as if [director Felipe] Gálvez and crew are delivering the truth. |
| 244347 | Wendy Ide | Screen International | Fresh | — | 2023-05-22T14:36:33.000Z | 2023-05-22 14:36:33 | The Settlers shows promise: it’s the work of a daring director intent on developing a distinctive and original voice. |
| 244348 | Jordan Mintzer | The Hollywood Reporter | Fresh | 3/5 | 2023-05-22T14:35:28.000Z | 2023-05-22 14:35:28 | While its stylings are purposely retro, its aims are very much of the here and now. |
Showing the latest 100 canonical reviews for this movie.