Curator Watchlist
A warm, loose, and unusually charming adventure-comedy that values atmosphere, camaraderie, and animal-action spectacle over plot. It’s very much a hangout movie, with gorgeous location work, easy chemistry, and a playful sense of professional teamwork, though its colonial-era attitudes and meandering length may… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Tue · 2h 37m
Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: John Wayne, Hardy Krüger, Elsa Martinelli
A female wildlife photographer arrives on an East African reservation where a group of men trap wild animals for zoos and circuses.
Howard Hawks
John Wayne, Hardy Krüger, Elsa Martinelli
A warm, loose, and unusually charming adventure-comedy that values atmosphere, camaraderie, and animal-action spectacle over plot. It’s very much a hangout movie, with gorgeous location work, easy chemistry, and a playful sense of professional teamwork, though its colonial-era attitudes and meandering length may test some viewers.
Hatari! is one of those movies that seems to run on pure camaraderie. The plot is simple enough, but Hawks is far more interested in the rhythms of work, flirtation, and shared routine than in suspense, and that gives the film its easygoing charm. The animal-catching sequences are lively, but the real pleasure is watching the group settle into a social ecosystem that feels casual, professional, and oddly affectionate.
It’s also a beautiful piece of location filmmaking, full of sun-baked landscapes, practical stunts, and the kind of physical staging Hawks made look effortless. The movie can feel shaggy, and some material is dated in ways that are hard to ignore, but the overall mood is so inviting that the looseness becomes part of the appeal.
If you like classic Hollywood movies that feel like they’re hanging out with you rather than pushing you along, this is an easy recommendation. It’s less about plot than presence, and that’s exactly why it endures.
Peter Labuza (4★) · 214 likes
Quentin Tarantino always calls Rio Bravo a "hang out" movie, but there's way more hanging out in this film and barely a narrative motivation to hold onto (yes they have to complete the safari, but everyone seems pretty relaxed about this). In doing so, some scenes are kind of padding for the 2.5+ hour running time (a gag with ostriches, a not particularly offensive but still in bad taste tribal sequence with Dallas). Even if it does feel like a
comrade_yui (5★) · 185 likes
such a warm and inviting adventure, it wraps around you like a comfy fresh blanket. a 157 minute howard hawks hang-out safari movie is basically catnip for me at this point. i love this atmosphere, i love these visuals, i love these characters, i love this director. i wish i could live within this film forever, it's a never-ending buffet of the tastiest cinematic pleasures.
Bruno Andrade (5★) · 161 likes
Há um ou dois meses escrevi o seguinte: Apenas dois cineastas que surgiram na geração dos anos 1970 podem ser considerados inequivocamente clássicos, John Milius e Michael Cimino, e apenas a partir das suas obras é possível se falar de um novo classicismo, pela simples razão de que eles, como Hawks, Ford, Walsh, Vidor, DeMille, trabalharam o mito a partir do seu interior, trabalharam o mito de dentro do mito, um pouco como os vaqueiros de Red River e The…
comrade_yui (5★) · 114 likes
hawks films are instructive as to how you can do interesting things solely through smart blocking and cutting on gesture, which isn't flashy, but when done correctly can give your movie a strong measured consistency in which subtle things can occur in the margins: i'll point out to you how often he'll start a scene in an establishing shot, showing us the orientation of a group of characters, how they relate to each other in a space, and then instead
Jude (4.5★) · 108 likes
a series of impeccable minor scenes strung together with nothing but chill vibes and beautiful landscapes. strangely progressive in how it imagines this utopian cross-cultural space united by intangible codes of (paradoxically gender-neutral) masculinity and professionalism, even if its notions of everyone and everything unfamiliar to the American male are hopelessly exoticizing. surely the warmest and most pleasurable two-and-a-half hours you can spend watching very little happen
A defining Hawks hangout movie with the same pleasure in routine, banter, and professional solidarity.
Another Hawks film built around dangerous work, group chemistry, and a relaxed but tense operational rhythm.
Shares the frontier masculinity, teamwork, and mythic Western energy that underpins Hatari!'s appeal.
For classic Western-era mythmaking and the way Hawks-adjacent storytelling turns character dynamics into the main event.
An adventure built on personality, friction, and location texture, with a similarly old-school sense of fun.
A glamorous, location-driven jungle adventure with romantic tension and studio-era exoticism.
For East African setting, physical adventure, and a survival-oriented use of landscape and action.
A group-under-pressure adventure that turns teamwork and problem-solving into the core drama.
A widescreen classic that values landscape, masculine ritual, and measured character interaction.
A loose, witty Western ensemble with the same easygoing professional rapport and Hawksian tone.
For rugged camaraderie, Western professionalism, and a warm but hard-edged studio-era sensibility.
For African location spectacle and a grand, old-fashioned adventure scale.
hangout ensemble, professional camaraderie, adventure comedy, romantic tension, workplace ritual, animal capture, location filmmaking, colonial-era attitudes
adventure-comedy, ensemble cast, hangout movie, classic Hollywood, African location shoot, practical stunts, romantic banter, workplace camaraderie, animal action, 1960s cinema