Award :: 2007 Viennale Film Festival
Shotgun Stories wins Fipresci Prize at the 2007 Viennale Film Festival

Award :: 2007 Austin Film Festival
Shotgun Stories wins narrative feature jury prize at the 2007 Austin Film Festival

Press :: Roger Ebert's blurb from the Chicago Film Festival
"Shotgun Stories." For me, the great discovery of this year's festival. A first feature by writer-director Jeff Nichols, it creates implacable tension between two sets of half-brothers in rural Arkansas. Three brothers, who live together, are the product of a marriage by an alcoholic father... more

Press :: The Seattle Film Festival New American Cinema Grand Jury Prize goes to Shotgun Stories!
Jeff Nichols grabbed the New American Cinema Award for "Shotgun Stories," which a separate jury called "a starkly powerful tale told with a distinctively American voice." more

Review :: Premiere (Aaron Hillis)
In this tumultuous age when Israeli-Palestinian conflict films have become – dare I say – fashionable, writer-director Jeff Nichols' unforgettable feature debut offers a richer illustration of both the futility and complexity of long-standing blood feuds than any suicide bomber film yet... more

Review :: IndependentFilm.com (Patricia Freeman)
Using a haunting soundtrack by Lucero and Pyramid and captivating cinematography by Adam Stone to create the sleepy backdrop of a poor rural community, Nichols' epic tale of feuding half-brothers builds with the speed and intensity of... more

Interview :: Michael Shannon Discusses Shotgun Stories w/ LatinoReview.com
"This guy having two families, that's just so fascinating to me," Shannon enthuses. "The whole Hatfield-McCoy rivalry is kind of iconic, but imagine the Hatfields and the McCoys coming from the same person. That's what really threw me for a loop. All seven of these men are brothers, and that's what's so compelling... more

Press :: New York Magazine lists "Shotgun Stories" as one of the ten (out of 137) to watch at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Deep South: trailer homes, sprawling farms, tractors, and two sets of brothers, one abandoned by an alcoholic father, the other raised by the same man in a good Christian home. After the forsaken brothers make a scene at their... more

Article :: Moving Pictures Magazine -- Shotgun Stories and Regional Storytelling (Written by Jeff Nichols)
After our film Shotgun Stories premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, a German radio show host told me he enjoyed the film, but at times had "trouble understanding the Arkansas." I told him, "That's perfect." Shotgun Stories, set in... more

Review :: Screen Daily (Patrick Z McGavin)
A measured and sobering meditation on violence and discontent, distilled through a blood feud that ruptures two clans of half-brothers, Jeff Nichols' Shotgun Stories is a highly intelligent and accomplished first feature... more

Review :: Variety (Eddie Cockrell)
A point-blank buckshot blast of inarticulate American rage, played with the disarmingly placid inevitability of Greek tragedy... more

Excerpt from the Berlin Film Festival Main Program (Ansgar Vogt)
Shotgun Stories is a family drama and a parable at the same time. With enormous precision, director Nichols stages an archaic story... more