Film

The Turin Horse

Name: The Turin Horse
Genre: Drama
Released: 2011
Cast: János Derzsi, Erika Bók, Mihály Kormos, Lajos Kovács, Mihály Ráday

Drama
Very dark
Strange
Slow-burning

Béla Tarr's final film is a meditation on entropy and human endurance. A father and daughter eke out a meagre existence in a wind-battered cottage, tending a dying horse and eating boiled potatoes. Over six days, their fragile routine dissolves. It's glacially paced, hypnotic, almost a poem in black and white—not uplifting, but profoundly moving.

TMDb rating

3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are happy to let a camera watch ordinary routine unfold in unhurried, rhythmic takes, finding the stark wind-scoured images and repeated rituals hypnotic rather than waiting for a plot to start.

Skip it if you need stories that move, since almost nothing happens across its long running time and the bleakness is relentless with little relief or wit.

What it asks of you: Roughly two and a half hours of long, static takes with very little dialogue, so it demands patience and a willingness to sit still through repetition.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's masterpiece shares Tarr's patient, philosophical approach to cinema. A mysterious journey into a forbidden zone becomes a meditation on desire, faith, and what we truly want. Visually stunning and mentally consuming.

But It's 163 minutes long and moves at its own meditative pace. If you need constant narrative momentum, you'll struggle. Requires genuine patience and surrender.

Come and See1985

Elem Klimov's apocalyptic war film has Tarr's sense of inexorable darkness and suffering. A boy is drawn into the brutality of warfare; what unfolds is harrowing, intimate, and unforgettable. Raw and devastating.

But This is not entertaining. It documents atrocity with unflinching honesty. Difficult viewing, even necessary viewing, but not a comfort.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Kaufman builds a chamber piece about artistic obsession and mortality that expands into something towering and strange. Like Tarr, he finds profound meaning in repetition and decay. Intellectually generous and oddly moving.

But Requires active interpretation. Symbolism piles on symbolism; some viewers find it self-indulgent rather than revelatory.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Turin Horse

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Ordet1955

Both films believe that cinema's true power lies in showing time passing, in repetition, in the accumulation of small moments into something vast. Both filmmakers are interested in what happens when narrative dissolves into pure observation.

Carl Theodor Dreyer's austere drama about faith and the end of things. Like Tarr, Dreyer believed cinema should be about presence and duration, not spectacle. A portrait of a family in crisis, shot with monastic patience.

But Religious and philosophical without being preachy; that still doesn't mean it's easy. Requires the viewer to sit with silence and grief.

Safe1995

Todd Haynes's slow-burn nightmare follows a woman whose body increasingly rejects the world around her. Like Tarr, Haynes finds terror in quotidian routine. Eerie, meticulous, and impossible to shake off.

But Offers no answers and little comfort. The protagonist's condition is unexplained and worsening. It's a film designed to unsettle rather than soothe.

Hunger2008

Steve McQueen's debut is a brutal portrait of Bobby Sands's final days. Sparse dialogue, uncompromising physicality, and a commitment to showing what endurance actually looks like. Formally daring and deeply felt.

But Graphic and exhausting by design. The final scene is intentionally difficult to witness. Not cathartic; deliberately hard.

In the Mirror of the City1975

Andrei Tarkovsky's fragmented memory piece weaves poetry, documentary footage, and performance into something dreamlike. Shares Tarr's feeling that cinema can capture something beyond plot—the texture of existence itself.

But Structure is deliberately obscure. Narrative reassembly happens in the viewer's mind, not on screen. Demands genuine patience and tolerance for ambiguity.

Werckmeister Harmonies2001

Tarr's earlier film is perhaps more accessible than Turin Horse, but equally hypnotic. A town and its rhythms observed with anthropological care. Long takes that make you feel time itself shifting beneath you.

But If you haven't seen Tarr before, Turin Horse might be a better entry point. This one requires trust that the slowness serves something real.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives2010

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's ghost story is more gentle than Tarr but equally unhurried. Family, memory, and the permeability between life and death. Meditative and strangely warm despite its melancholy.

But Almost nothing happens. Conversations drift. Ghosts appear without dramatic fanfare. If you need active storytelling, this will feel empty.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives poster

This Is England2007

Both films reject the clean structures of conventional narrative in favour of accumulated detail and genuine bewilderment. Both trust the viewer to find meaning in the accumulation of small, often mundane moments rather than in plot architecture.

Shane Meadows's gritty, digressive social realism catches the texture of real life—specifically, a boy's experience in 1980s England amid skinhead culture. Funny, rough, and achingly human. Feels lived-in rather than constructed.

But Tonal whiplash; it swings from comedy to violence without warning. Not as formally controlled as Tarr; some find that authenticity alienating.

The Holy Mountain1973

Both filmmakers make films about a journey toward understanding the nature of existence and human suffering. Both are willing to alienate audiences to pursue their vision. Both believe cinema can be philosophy.

Jodorowsky's visionary fever dream couldn't be more opposite in method—chaotic, surreal, maximalist colour—but shares Tarr's conviction that cinema can explore spiritual and existential emptiness. Weird, ambitious, unforgettable.

But Extremely difficult to parse. Symbolism stacked on symbolism. Some viewers find it profound; others find it pretentious nonsense. Requires openness to difficulty without explanation.