The Christian Century

The first feature-length film by video installation artist Steve McQueen (no relation to the late actor) presents a detailed and disturbing look at conditions inside Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison in 1981. Angry members of the Irish Republican Army were jailed—some for relatively minor offenses—denied political-prisoner status and subjected to regular beatings by British guards. Hunger also chronicles the last days of Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender, in a chilling performance), the IRA leader whose frustrations with conditions inside and outside the prison prompted him to stage a hunger strike—which eventually led to his death.