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Holding Liat

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95% Tomatometer 22 Reviews Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Ratings
After Liat Beinin Atzili is kidnapped on October 7th, her Israeli-American family faces their own conflicting perspectives to fight for her release and the future of the places they call home.
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Holding Liat

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Critics Consensus

Illuminating a conflict that demands change, Holding Liat weaves personal anguish and geopolitical complexity into a powerful, deeply soulful documentary that humanizes an unthinkable ordeal.

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Critics Reviews

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Sonia Rao Washington Post Feb 5
2.5/4
A way into exploring the fraught emotions and generational divides that exist among the Beinin and Atzili families. The resulting film offers a unique and revealing — but fundamentally incomplete — perspective on the ongoing war in Gaza. Go to Full Review
Kimber Myers Crooked Marquee Jan 13
B
Holding Liat can be viewed as a microcosm of the differing, dividing opinions amongst Jewish people (and the world as a whole) on Gaza, but it’s also simply about a single family at the worst time imaginable. Go to Full Review
Matt Zoller Seitz RogerEbert.com Jan 13
3/4
The movie itself tends more towards the force majeure approach, though it can’t help but get specific when it focuses on Yehuda. Go to Full Review
Zachary Goldkind In Review Online 5d
Kramer flimsily offers us a thought experiment, one where the suffering of Palestinians remains on the margins. Go to Full Review
Roger Friedman Showbiz 411 Jan 15
4/4
The very powerful film — eligible for an Oscar, now playing at New York’s Film Forum and starting Friday in Los Angeles — should be seen by everyone because it humanizes a horrific time that resonates even more today. Go to Full Review
Christopher Campbell Nonfics (Substack) Jan 9
As far from propaganda as it can be for an issue and situation that has been heavily propagandized from multiple sides. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Reba Jan 15 Powerful, complex, haunting. See more SL B @whatIlike 2d Utterly absorbing documentary made in real time focused on Yehuda, a left-leaning Israeli-American with a lifelong commitment both to Israel and to justice for Palestinians, as he deals with his like-minded daughter Liat's abduction by Hamas on October 7 2023. Within the microcosm of Yehuda's family, his wife, his brother and daughter who have both chosen to leave Israel for the United States, his adult grandson (Liat's son) who experienced the October 7 raid but avoided being kidnapped, and the broader group of the exasperated handlers who bring Yehuda to the US Congress to plead for the hostages only to have him go repeatedly off script in his passionate opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the military campaign to flatten Gaza, the film encompasses and vividly portrays the existential conundrum Israelis now face. See more Violeta E @VIOLA318 Feb 4 The film is about Hamas’s invasion of Kibbutz Nir Oz, the kidnapping of Liat & Aviv, the staggered release of captives, Liat’s freedom, & the confirmation that Aviv was murdered on October 7. That should have been enough. It isn’t. Instead,the narrative elevates Liat’s father as a moral anchor, revealing a clear agenda. Framed as a grieving parent, he functions as a political surrogate directing fury not at Hamas but largely at Israel and its government. He and his grandson travel to the United States urging diplomats to act against Israel’s "fanatical right," in scenes that repeat without challenge. What’s missing is deafening: no serious reckoning with Hamas’s wider crimes—mass murder, human shields, stolen aid, or brutality toward Palestinians. In the final act, Liat calls her captors "very nice," echoes "From the River to the Sea," and presents a flattened, accusatory history while claiming Israel kills Palestinians "like flies." Complexity vanishes; moral inversion is complete. See more E Jan 13 Moving story. Complex issues. An incredible family put in a desperate situation deals with these issues with integrity. See more Read all reviews
Holding Liat

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Movie Info

Synopsis After Liat Beinin Atzili is kidnapped on October 7th, her Israeli-American family faces their own conflicting perspectives to fight for her release and the future of the places they call home.
Director
Brandon Kramer
Producer
Darren Aronofsky, Lance Kramer, Yoni Brook, Ari Handel, Justin A. Gonçalves
Distributor
The Film Collaborative
Production Co
Meridian Hill Pictures, Protozoa Pictures
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jan 9, 2026, Limited
Runtime
1h 37m