everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Best movie of this year hands down!

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The opening was really well done and cinematography throughout was excellent. The actors were very good, but then you get a sense of PC. All the Confederate officers are archetypal vicious and mean white southerners. Our hero as such is a deserter who gathers a similar gang of desperadoes, who according to this had not liberal but socialist ideals. Why can't we have a film telling the truth about slavery, I.E. Africans enslaved each other and sold them on to Arabs and Europeans. I'm sick of hearing it's always the white guy to blame.

Personally, i loved to watch biography movies. And, for this movie i saw what's the difference about life and humanity. Humanity issue is so powering of this movies. Life is not about being hedonic, but other's freedom is more important than everything. This movie told you about how to treat people in your circle greatly. How to empathy for they feelings. And, as a conclusion life is all about how you to treat people more than you treat yourself. If you want to see movies that's all about human mankind, this is an answer. Clearly emphatetic.

When the trailers for this film first came out and were being shown in the theater and online, the plot seemed like a rather interesting concept. Despite the tagline of "based on the incredible true story", it somehow never quite registered that the Free State of Jones was a real place, it more so just registered that it was like most movies based on a true story- not so true to this true story. It also comes back to the fact that the story of Newton Knight and the Free State of Jones isn't quite written down in the history books or really talked about at all. And as no type of history buff, without that insertion into everyday learning, there was never really any mention of either subjects. Though it does pose the question as to why their story seems to have faded into the background; the whole thing almost seems to validate the statement of the winners are the ones who write history. Now, onto the actual movie itself. In personal opinion, the performances given by actors such as Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Mahershala Ali to name a few was on the side of excellent and convincing acting from the look of each character to the attitudes portrayed by them all as they played these characters. While most movies portraying times that occured in the past seem to miss the mark in such categories, those who took part in creating all aspects of Free State of Jones managed to bring it all together and put together a movie that feels real rather than what it actually is; actors pretending to be people who died a long time ago. There are very few complaints about this movie, and even those happen to be minor. With a two hour and nineteen minute run time, the movie itself does feel a bit long and almost as though the movie should have ended around the time the war did in the movie, but they instead opted to continue the movie into the Reconstruction Era following the war. It just felt like a weird usage of the time in the movie but did not hinder the movie's quality overall. Another odd part to the movie were the scenes in which they flash forward to 85 years after the events of the movie to tell a short story of one of Knight's descendants for a miscegenation trial in 1940s Mississippi. At first it doesn't quite make sense as to why they decided to add this into the movie, but the point of it becomes more clear with the second half of the movie taking place during Reconstruction and the African Americans supposedly becoming equals to their white counterparts. Constitutionally, blacks were made equal to whites in the name of the law, but that hadn't quite caught on with society, and some may argue in the eyes of some it still hasn't. But to draw back to the 85 years later scenes, it connects to it on account that Knight's descendant was put on trial for being 1/8th black, apparently making him "black enough" to make his marriage to a white woman illegal. This entire story went to show that no, whites and blacks were not equal. Racism was still running all throughout the south in whatever form they thought they could manage. All in all, the Free State of Jones is both a captivating and educational film on the standpoint this is not a topic very many people ever learn about in their lives, some sources online even show the people living in what's now known as Jones County don't even seem to quite agree about the story of Newton Knight and the Knight Company the movie focuses on. In the end, would highly recommend this movie to anybody; history buff or not.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning As the American civil war draws to a close, Commander Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) defects from the Confederacy, his soul and spirit battered by the horrors and atrocities he has witnessed, fighting for a cause he doesn't believe in and has no stake in. He returns home to his family a broken man, but finds salvation by heading out and joining a group of freed slaves, headed by the charismatic Moses (Mahershala Ali) who are fighting for their rights, and they rise up and form an army against their oppressors, while Newton has an affair with Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw.) Eighty five years later, their grandchild sits in a courtroom battling his right to marry a white woman in the State of Louisiana...In a time where various film academies are being cajoled into recognising the talent of black performers more than they have, and black rights activists are using historical injustices to highlight present culture (the recent Detroit being probably the most brazen example!), a film like Free State of Jones finds a nice little bubble to fall comfortably in to. But, unlike much of the hysterical, exaggerated hand wringing and hyperbole that has surfaced in the midst of it all, Gary Ross has crafted a smooth, subtle, balanced piece, that avoids sensationalism and paints a genuinely rattling, highly absorbing film, that covers every inch of the ground it explores, and keeps you engrossed until the end.Performances wise, in the lead role, McConaughey is probably better than he has ever been, carrying the film superbly and delivering a broader range as an actor than he ever has before. He portrays a man who discovers his own character and is unable to let it go, at a time in American history where most others are blindly following along like sheep. But he still has an amazing supporting cast, most notably Ali as Moses, a man who has suffered tremendous indignity, but refuses to let go of his own dignity, as he goes on his noble quest, only to be met with an emotionally shattering conclusion. The performances and the writing are both perfectly balanced, and they compliment each other just fine.At a time when diversity is taking an arguably more aggressive means of instilling itself, here's a project that has the integrity to stand on it's own. How surprising, then, that it got such less attention. ****