Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall aiming a gun at someone in his bar in A History of Violence (2005). Image via New Line Cinema By Thomas Butt Published Jul 8, 2026, 11:03 PM EDT Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself. Sign in to your Collider account Add Us On follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap After years of market oversaturation , the idea of "comic book adaptations" are now often synonymous with bland, formulaic, and cookie-cutter filmmaking. But in 2005, legendary director and horror icon David Cronenberg showed just how personal, stylized and idiosyncratic a movie based on a comic can be with A History of Violence. Based on the 1997 graphic novel by John Wagner, the film, which stars Viggo Mortensen , Maria Bello , Ed Harris , and William Hurt , is currently streaming on HBO Max, and despite the 21 years since its release, it's still as relevant as ever. A perfect blend of lurid action, B-movie plotting, and cerebral takes on aggression and Americana, A History of Violence stands the test of time not just as a good crime movie, but as a testament to how deftly visual art can be translated to film.
Viggo Mortensen holding a handgun in A History of Violence Image via Warner Bros. Pictures David Cronenberg is a director notably unafraid to tackle garish subjects and portray grotesque creations, especially when it comes to body horror, where he created genre-defining classics like Videodrome and The Fly. Despite his fondness for outrageous visuals, Cronenberg has always been about more than gory images and shock value; even his most garish films carry a meditative, somber quality that grapples with the fragility of life and lack of control humans have over their selves and their identities . Because of this, he was an ideal candidate to bring A History of Violence to life on the big screen.
The film, which plays as a gripping B-movie with the intelligence of a rich character drama, makes excellent use of the range of every character. It marked the first collaboration between Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen, a star whose internal complexity and comfort in perverse waters made him a perfect match for the director (they would team up again three more times). Mortensen plays Tom Stall, a seemingly mild-mannered and upstanding diner owner in small-town Indiana. Stall's former life as a mob hitman comes back to ha…