Sightlines · reception

How V for Vendetta was received

2006 · James McTeigue · V for Vendetta on Sightlines

The arc

Critics were split in 2006 — some called it muddled dorm-room politics, and Alan Moore famously disowned it sight unseen — but the film outgrew its reviews: within a few years its imagery was on real streets worldwide, and it's now treated as one of the defining political thrillers of its decade.

What’s debated

The forever-debate: did the Wachowskis' script sand Moore's anarchism down into safe Hollywood liberalism, or did the movie actually improve on the comic — and was Moore right to take his name off it?

Its footprint

Almost no 2000s film has a bigger real-world afterlife: the Guy Fawkes mask became the face of Anonymous and the Occupy movement, and 'Remember, remember the fifth of November' turned every Nov 5 into an unofficial rewatch holiday.

Where it stands

A millennial touchstone and perennial Letterboxd favorite — the rare comic-book adaptation people revisit ritually, on a schedule the film itself set.

Did you know? James Purefoy was originally cast as V but left several weeks into filming; Hugo Weaving replaced him behind the mask — meaning the lead performance was recast mid-shoot without the character's face ever being seen.

Named by the director

• The Battle of Algiers (1966) — McTeigue cited Pontecorvo's film as a touchstone for grounding the film's depiction of insurgency and state repression in realism.