Overview
A deaf teenager navigates the treacherous waters of a brutal boarding school gang, risking everything for love.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Extreme
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Graphic
- bleak
- haunting
- austere
- serious film night
- arthouse cinema viewing
What critics said
Critics broadly acclaimed the film as a bleak, haunting, and formally audacious drama whose wordless sign-language performance and long takes create an unusually immersive portrait of adolescent criminal hierarchy.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
The deaf characters communicate in Ukrainian Sign Language, and the film omits conventional spoken dialogue and subtitles, making gesture the principal narrative language.
The boarding-school corridors, illicit operations, and confrontations unfold through extended takes that preserve physical continuity and uncomfortable duration.
The specialized boarding school is dominated by a gangland-style hierarchy involving bullying, prostitution, theft, and obedience to unwritten rules.
Sergei enters the school as an outsider and adopts the Tribe's violent codes in order to survive and belong.
Films like The Tribe, and why
Son of Saul
formally radical drama using minimal spoken language, sustained observational takes, and physical performance to create social tension
If....
bleak coming-of-age drama centered on institutional violence, alienation, and a young protagonist trapped in an oppressive environment
The Class
austere European social drama about adolescent marginalization, coercive hierarchies, and emotionally devastating transgression
Dogtooth
stylized, unsettling drama that foregrounds bodily gesture, silence, and institutional cruelty over conventional exposition
Movie Details
- Director
- Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi
- Release Date
- 2014-09-11
- Runtime
- 132 min
- Rating
- 6.7 / 10 (330)
Cast
- Hryhoriy Fesenko
- Yana Novikova
- Rosa Babiy
- Oleksandr Dsiadevych
- Oleksandr Osadchyi
- Ivan Tishko
- Alexandr Sidelnikov
- Alexander Panivan
- Kyryl Koshyk
- Yaroslav Biletskiy
Where to watch in United States
- Rent
- Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
- Buy
- Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is The Tribe about?
- A deaf teenager is absorbed into the brutal hierarchy of a Ukrainian boarding-school gang, where forbidden love turns survival into rebellion.
- What is The Tribe like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of The Tribe as measured, its intensity as extreme and its storytelling as layered.
- Is The Tribe violent?
- Yes. Ember rates the violence in The Tribe as graphic.
- What did critics think of The Tribe?
- Critics broadly acclaimed the film as a bleak, haunting, and formally audacious drama whose wordless sign-language performance and long takes create an unusually immersive portrait of adolescent criminal hierarchy.
- Which films are like The Tribe?
- Films with a similar feel include Son of Saul, If...., The Class, and Dogtooth.
- How long is The Tribe?
- The Tribe runs 132 minutes.
- Where can I watch The Tribe?
- In United States, The Tribe is available to rent or buy from Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home.
