2+2=5 unfolds a work of intellectual montage, juxtaposing archival footage with contemporary news clips and fragments of popular culture, delving deeply into Orwell’s psychology and biography (and even biology), while also looking beyond them.

“Every word in the film was written by Orwell, and Peck illustrates them with unabashed fury, images filling the screen to illuminate the doublethink that Orwell called “newspeak” — official language used to alter reality and to manipulate.” – Bob Mondello, NPR

“Densely packed, the movie is a whirlwind of ideas and images, by turns heady, enlivening, disturbing and near-exhausting. It’s a work of visceral urgency.” Critic’s Pick – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Orwell: 2+2=5 feels like the boldest documentary anyone could make right now. Another slogan from 1984: ‘Ignorance is strength.’ If you don’t feel that one in your gut right now, you’re sleepwalking through life.” – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

“There are no talking heads and no one explaining, ‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.’ Instead, it’s a loose assembly of biography, reflection and key moments of political awakening, with actor Damian Lewis narrating Orwell’s words with a poetic gravitas.” – Lindsay Bahr, Associated Press

“Peck has long crafted impeccable, politically charged fictions, docs, and docudramas, whether it’s his 2000 biopic on Patrice Lumumba or his peerless portrait of James Baldwin (the aforementioned I Am Not a Negro). With this latest magnum opus, the Haitian filmmaker has given us not just an invaluable, iris-out look at our present moment but the scariest movie of 2025 by a wide margin.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone

“The former Haitian minister of culture, Peck, who also directed the Oscar-nominated I Am Not Your Negro, is also one of the most incisive and politically incendiary filmmakers working today, and Orwell: 2+2=5 may be his widest-ranging and most ambitious work. (It’s also the first movie I’ve seen to make intelligent and purposeful use of generative A.I.) It’s dazzling and terrifying, a guide to a political movement that has been gathering steam for decades and shows no signs of letting up. It’s also a profoundly pessimistic movie, but it’s galvanizing in its understanding that the struggles we now face have been fought before, and some of them were won.” – Sam Adams, Slate

“Orwell: 2+2=5 is less about Orwell than it is about us, and it’s less about “1984” than it is about 2025.” – Steve Pond, The Wrap

“With a dynamic mix of biography and intellectual essence, and with the re-election of Donald Trump the obvious inflection point for its urgency, Orwell: 2+2=5 delves into the ways Orwell’s arguments illuminate a century’s worth of geopolitics.” – Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter