Starring: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Jason Schwartzman, Viola Davis, Burn Gorman, Fionnula Flanagan, Ashley Liao
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Dystopian action adventure prequel directed by Francis Lawrence. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) follows a young Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) who is the last hope for his failing lineage, the once-proud Snow family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With his livelihood threatened, Snow is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12. But after Lucy Gray’s charm captivates the audience of Panem, Snow sees an opportunity to shift their fates. With everything he has worked for hanging in the balance, Snow unites with Lucy Gray to turn the odds in their favor. Battling his instincts for both good and evil, Snow sets out on a race against time to survive and reveal if he will ultimately become a songbird or a snake.
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Best Quotes
Part I: The Mentor
Tigris: Coriolanus Snow. Future president of Panem. We salute you.
Tigris: Dean doesn’t hate you.
Coriolanus Snow: He hates everyone. He despises me.
Coriolanus Snow: Snow lands on top.
Coriolanus Snow: [referring to Sejanus] Dress a turnip in a ball gown, and it’ll still beg to be mashed.
Arachne Crane: Don’t do that. We all know that you like him.
Coriolanus Snow: I don’t like him, Arachne. I tolerate him. He’s district.
Festus Creed: Tolerate him. Just don’t encourage him.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: How tantalizing to see all your shining young faces on this auspicious day. I am Dr. Volumnia Gaul, your humble Head Gamemaker, in charge of the War Department and all its affiliated concerns. I’ve broken free of my laboratory today to examine you. The leaders of the next generation. I won’t be around forever, after all. And now to that end, I am honored to introduce to you, the creator of the Hunger Games themselves, Dean Casca Highbottom.
Dean Casca Highbottom: Select students. Faculty. And of course, Dr. Gaul. I have summoned you all here today for the Tenth Annual Reaping Ceremony, in which we choose two children from each district to throw into the Capitol Arena to fight to the death in the Hunger Games.
Dean Casca Highbottom: I am here to tell you that there has been a change this year. One final assignment to prove your worth. Because the esteemed citizens of the Capitol have grown bored of the Games and simply aren’t watching anymore. And if the Games are to continue at all, there must be an audience. So, Head Gamemaker Dr. Gaul has stepped in to incentivize patriotic values with her own unique flair, starting with you. The Plinth Prize will no longer be determined by who has the best grades. But by who is the best mentor in the Hunger Games.
Dean Casca Highbottom: [to the mentors] Your role is to turn these children into spectacles, Ms. Crane. Not survivors. Victory in the Games is only one of our considerations. Your entire future rests on this last project. Oh, and I must tell you that anyone caught cheating to give their tributes an unfair advantage, will just have no future at all.
Dean Casca Highbottom: Here we go. Let the Reaping ceremony begin.
'Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.' - Lucy Gray Baird (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snake) Share on X
Dean Casca Highbottom: [referring to Lucy Gray] The “runt girl”, from District 12, she belongs to Coriolanus Snow.
Arachne Crane: [watching Lucy Gray on the screen] What is that dress? Is she some sort of clown?
Arachne Crane: [referring to Lucy Gray] Singing? Is she out of her mind?
Dean Casca Highbottom: [to Snow] Proud, I see. Like your father. Yes. He and I were best friends. Once.
Dean Casca Highbottom: [to Snow] Look at you. Your makeshift shirt and your too tight shoes. Trying desperately to fit in, when I know the Snows don’t have a pot to pi** in. Good luck with that poor little songbird.
Coriolanus Snow: He’s sabotaging us. That girl is not going to win these games. You saw her, she’s underfed, unstable.
Tigris: The Dean said it’s not just about winning.
Coriolanus Snow: Everything is about winning. If not the Games now, then the crowd.
Coriolanus Snow: Lucy Gray won’t survive a minute inside that arena. So that means we have to make every second before then count. I’ll get her to sing again.
Tigris: I wouldn’t sing a note for you if I was her. I wouldn’t do anything at all. Unless I could trust you.
Coriolanus Snow: She’s district, Tigris. She knows we hate her, and she wants us dead. How am I supposed to get her to trust me?
Tigris: Imagine it was your name that they pulled, and you had be ripped from your home. I’d just want to know that somebody still cared about me out here. Don’t discount her just because she’s district, Coryo. You might have more in common with her than you think.
Lucy Gray Baird: You look like you shouldn’t be here.
Coriolanus Snow: Well, I shouldn’t. But I’m your mentor.
Lucy Gray Baird: A rebel.
'We all do things we're not proud of to survive.' - Coriolanus Snow (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snake) Share on X
Lucy Gray Baird: What does my mentor do besides bring me roses?
Coriolanus Snow: I do my best to take care of you.
Jessup: What’s the matter, pretty boy? You in the wrong cage?
Coriolanus Snow: No. This cage is delightful.
Lucky Flickerman: I’m Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman, a man who needs no introduction. You all know me as your favorite weatherman and amateur magician. But guess where I am today. Here’s a hint. That’s right. The Capitol Zoo, where this year’s tributes will be held here on display behind these bars for your viewing pleasure.
Girl at Zoo: Where did you find that snake?
Lucy Gray Baird: Well, he found me. Must have been a music lover. My singing calmed him right down.
Lucy Gray Baird: But this dress was my mama’s so it’s extra special to me.
Lucky Flickerman: And she’s in District 12?
Lucy Gray Baird: Well, only her bones, darling. Only her pearly white bones.
Lucy Gray Baird: Do you know my mentor? Says his name is Coriolanus Snow, and clearly, I got the cake with the cream, because nobody else has even bothered to show up.
Lucky Flickerman: The Gamemakers did tell you to jump in the cage with them?
Coriolanus Snow: They didn’t tell me not to. They just said that it was a mentor’s job to introduce our tributes to the citizens of Panem. And I thought, well, if Lucy Gray is brave enough to be here, then why shouldn’t I be too?
Lucy Gray Baird: For the record, I didn’t have a choice.
Lucky Flickerman: For the record, I think you’re about to be whisked away, young man.
Lucky Flickerman: The Tenth Annual Hunger Games are soon approaching. So come down to the zoo, and see these tributes before it’s too late. And I mean, too late.
'Fueled with the terror of becoming prey, see how quickly we become predator. See how quickly civilization disappears.' - Dr. Volumnia Gaul (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snake) Share on X
Sejanus Plinth: The tributes are human beings. Just like us. That’s why nobody wants to watch the Games. It’s because people know deep down that winning a war ten years ago doesn’t justify starving people’s children, taking away their freedoms, their rights.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: Snow fell down in the cage. It fell down in the cage. But it landed…
Coriolanus Snow: On stage.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: You’re good at Games. Maybe one day, you’ll be a Gamemaker like me.
Dean Casca Highbottom: If the Games continue at all.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: Oh, they’ll continue. With performances like young Mr. Snow’s in that zoo.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: What are the Hunger Games for?
Coriolanus Snow: They’re to punish the districts for their uprising, to commemorate the end of the war.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: “Commemorate the…” Dull. Dull. Dull. Punishment can take myriad forms. Why not drop bombs? Cancel food shipments? Stage executions? Why Games?
'You want to protect people? To govern them? Then it's essential you accept what human beings are and what it takes to control them.' - Dr. Volumnia Gaul (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snake) Share on X
Sejanus Plinth: The Capitol is supposed to be everyone’s government now. It is supposed to protect all of us. I don’t see how making children fight each other to the death is protecting anyone.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: That sort of sympathy might interfere with your mentoring assignment.
Dean Casca Highbottom: Perhaps the Capitol students are ill-suited to be mentoring tributes. Perhaps the Game’s time has passed.
Coriolanus Snow: Maybe we should be viewing those tributes as human beings.
Coriolanus Snow: If we need people to watch, we should be letting them get closer to the tributes before the Games. To make the stakes personal.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: Who will watch the Games if they care what happens to the tributes?
Coriolanus Snow: Everyone. If they thought the tribute they cared about had a chance of winning. People need someone to root for, and someone to root against. We need them to invest.
Sejanus Plinth: Quite the rebel.
Coriolanus Snow: Oh, yeah. I’m bad news.
Lucy Gray Baird: [referring to Arachne] One thing I learned in 12 is that hunger is a weapon. Your friend over there sure knows it.
Coriolanus Snow: She is not my friend. She is poison with perfect teeth.
'People aren't so bad. Not really. It's what the world does to them.' - Lucy Gray Baird (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snake) Share on X
Lucy Gray Baird: I don’t sing when I’m told. I sing when I have something to say.
Coriolanus Snow: You know, one time, during the war, I ate a whole jar of paste just to stop the pain in my stomach.
Lucy Gray Baird: And how was it?
Coriolanus Snow: Pasty.
Lucy Gray Baird: You seem like a good man, Coriolanus Snow. Sure would’ve been nice to meet you under different circumstances.
Grandma’am: [after Arachne is killed] It’s starting again. This is how it begins. The war.
Coriolanus Snow: It was my fault. I suggested we get closer to the tributes.
Grandma’am: You’re just lucky that your songbird didn’t peck out your eyes too.
Tigris: She’s not a rebel, Grandma’am. She’s just a girl.
Grandma’am: Trust me, that one hasn’t been a girl in a long time. Outside this Capitol, they’re savages, one and all. However, they may smile, she will use you. You must use her, or you’ll end up dead in the trees like your father.
Lucy Gray Baird: Wearing my mama’s dress is the only thing keeping me together here. It’s like she’s wrapping her arms around me.
Lucy Gray Baird: You really want to take care of me in that arena, Coriolanus? Start by thinking I can actually win.
'There's a natural goodness born into us all. You can either cross that line into evil, or not. And it's our life's work to stay on the right side of that line.' - Lucy Gray Baird Share on X
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: There’s a point to everything, Ms. Dovecote, or to nothing at all.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: I want my enemies to see a rainbow of destruction engulfing the world. I’m not above using spectacle to create a little terror.
Lucy Gray Baird: Coriolanus, please don’t let me die in here tomorrow.
Lucky Flickerman: Now, I don’t love your odds, but may they be in your favor.
Coriolanus Snow: The moment that bell rings, you can’t trust anyone. Not even Jessup. Just lay low down there until it’s safe to come out.
Lucy Gray Baird: Thank you for taking care of me.
Coriolanus Snow: I can’t let you die. You saved me. You saved me, Lucy Gray.
'Mysteries have a way of driving people mad.' - Dean Casca Highbottom (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snake) Share on X
Coriolanus Snow: I am going to get you out of here. I promise. Back to the Covey, okay?
Coriolanus Snow: [as Lucy Gray tries to kiss him] Is this real? Just tell me. If I’m going to risk everything.
Coriolanus Snow: Look, I have seen what war does to people, okay? I’ve seen it. And there will come a time when you need this. When you need to act. We all do things we’re not proud of to survive.
Coriolanus Snow: We are going to win this, Lucy Gray. We’re going to win this together.
Part II: The Prize
Lucky Flickerman: Just because you’re not hosting, doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. Help me. Don’t get lost behind your screens. No yawning. No gum chewing. Keep your chins down, heads up, shoulders back. And smile. It’s why we have teeth.
Lucky Flickerman: Good morning, I’m Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman. A man who needs no introduction. Weatherman, amateur magician, and today, I’m honored to say, first ever host of the Hunger Games.
Sejanus Plinth: You’re monsters! All of you!
'It's the things we love most that destroy us.' - President Snow (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snake) Share on X
Lucky Flickerman: To the children watching, that was violent, horrific, and disgusting.
Lucky Flickerman: Was it mercy? Was it murder? Either way, that’s what happens when you do stuff. You get attention.
Dean Casca Highbottom: You can’t save her by watching. What do you want from that girl?
Coriolanus Snow: Nothing. I want her to live.
Dean Casca Highbottom: And the Plinth Prize would be a happy coincidence, I suppose.
Coriolanus Snow: I believe I’d be entitled to it.
Dean Casca Highbottom: Of course you do. Of course you do.
Dean Casca Highbottom: The prize, the girl. How convenient. You don’t have to choose between them. Who do you think makes that final decision for the prize you so covet, Mr. Snow? Wake up. Even if Lucy Gray Baird somehow wins it all, I will do everything in my power to ensure that you don’t see a dime. So, ask yourself, how much do you care if she lives now?
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: I will not have these rebels make a further mockery of my Games. Anyone sees us lose control of this arena, it might as well be sounding a horn to the districts to revolt.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul: Who could imagine Crassus Snow’s baby boy fighting for his life in the arena one day?