''Wolves'' is a 2016 American

sports Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Bart Freundlich Bartholomew Freundlich (born 1970) is an American film director, television director, screenwriter, and film producer. Early life Freundlich was born and raised in Manhattan, the son of Debbie, a marketing consultant, and Larry Freundlich, a wr ...

and starring

Michael Shannon Michael Corbett Shannon (born August 7, 1974) is an American actor. Shannon received two Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominations, for '' Revolutionary Road'' (2008), and '' Nocturnal Animals'' (2016). He received Screen Actors Guil ...

Carla Gugino Carla Gugino ( ; born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. After early roles in the films '' Troop Beverly Hills'' (1989), '' This Boy's Life'' (1993), '' Son in Law'' (1993), and '' Snake Eyes'' (1998), Gugino received wider recognition fo ...

, Taylor John Smith,

Chris Bauer Chris Bauer is an American actor. He is best known for his television work in ''The Wire'', '' Third Watch'', '' True Blood'', '' Survivor's Remorse,'' '' The Deuce'', and the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series ''For All M ...

and

John Douglas Thompson John Douglas Thompson (born 1964) is an English-American actor. He is a Tony Award nominee and the recipient of two Drama Desk Awards, three Obie Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award. ''The New York Times'' critic B ...

. The film was released on March 3, 2017, by

IFC Films Independent Film Company (formerly IFC Films) is an American film production and distribution company based in New York City, New York. It is an offshoot of IFC (U.S. TV channel), IFC, owned by AMC Networks. It mainly distributes independent fil ...

Plot

Anthony is a standout player on his Manhattan high school's basketball team with seemingly everything going for him: a killer three-point shot, a loving girlfriend, and a chance at a scholarship to Cornell. But Anthony's dreams of playing college ball are jeopardized by his volatile father, a hard-drinking writer whose compulsive gambling threatens to derail the lives of both his wife and son.

Cast

as Lee Keller *

as Jenny Keller * Taylor John Smith as Anthony Keller *

as Charlie *

as Socrates *

Zazie Beetz Zazie Olivia Beetz ( ; ; born June 1, 1991) is a German-American actress. She is known for her role in the FX (TV channel), FX comedy-drama series ''Atlanta (TV series), Atlanta'' (2016–2022), for which she received a nomination for the Primet ...

as Victoria *

Jessica Rothe Jessica Ann Rothenberg (born May 28, 1987), known professionally as Jessica Rothe (), is an American actress. After appearing in Independent film, independent films and on stage, her Breakthrough role, breakthrough came with playing Tree Gelbman i ...

as Lola *

Wayne Duvall Wayne Dwyer Duvall (born May 29, 1958) is an American actor known for appearing as Homer Stokes in '' O Brother, Where Art Thou?'', as well recurring roles as the television series ''Billions'', ''The District'', ''The Leftovers'', '' BrainDead'' ...

as Coach Ray * Danny Hoch as Sean * Noah Le Gros as Oliver * Christopher Meyer as Hakim * Richard Kohnke as Billy Dunn * Harry Thomas as Finals Referee

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...

began in June 2015.

Release

The film premiered at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. The festival ...

on April 15, 2016. The film was released on March 3, 2017, by

Reception

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 36% based on 25 reviews, and an average rating of 4.8/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * 2016 films 2016 drama films 2016 independent films 2010s American films 2010s English-language films 2010s sports drama films American films about gambling American sports drama films Films directed by Bart Freundlich English-language independent films English-language sports drama films {{2010s-US-drama-film-stub