Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2013: #36. Atom Egoyan’s Devils’ Knot

Published on January 14, 2013

Devils’ Knot

Director: Atom Egoyan
Writer(s): Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson
Producer(s): Boardman, Elizabeth Fowler, Clark Peterson, Richard Saperstein, Christopher Woodrow
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, Dane DeHaan, Kevin Durand, Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Stephen Moyer, Mireille Enos, Alessandro Nivola, Amy Ryan

Do we really need another feature based on the West Memphis Three. The short answer is: YES. Does Atom Egoyan need a career relaunch? The answer is once again yes. His last great film was 1997’s The Sweet Hereafter.

Gist: Penned by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson and based on Mara Leveritt’s Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, Reese Witherspoon stars as Pam Hobbs, the intrepid mother of murder victim Stevie Hobbs, and Colin Firth plays private investigator Ron Lax, whose tireless efforts uncovered troubling details about the case ultimately led to the release of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin after 18 years in prison.

Release Date: If strong enough, this could easily be included at the Cannes film festival. If not, a TIFF premiere instead.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).