Set in 1975, the film depicts 5-year-old Loung, who is forced to train as a child soldier while her siblings are sent to labor camps during the Khmer Rouge regime.

The Khmer Rouge draws closer, captures Phnom Penh, and then forces all families to leave the city as refugees, under the pretext that it will be bombed by Americans.

Pa Ung denies working for the government when questioned by the Khmer Rouge soldiers, knowing that he will be killed if discovered.

After days of travel, they are captured by Khmer Rouge soldiers and taken with other refugees to a labor camp, where they have to build their own shelter and are forced to work under harsh conditions.

Aside from hard work, the camp preaches the regime propaganda, and any foreign items (including life-saving medicine) are forbidden and carry the death penalty.

On the road, she reunites with Chou and Kim who stay for a night in a temporary refugee camp managed by Vietnamese troops, where the siblings join a group of children.

The movie ends with the adult Loung and her siblings praying with the monks for their lost family members in the ruins of a Buddhist temple.

The site's critical consensus reads, "First They Killed My Father tackles its subject matter with grace, skill, and empathy, offering a ground-level look at historic atrocities that resonates beyond its story's borders.

[9] Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film four out of four stars, stating that it was Jolie's best work as a director yet, made without any compromise to its "journalistic" storytelling.

He noted that "[t]he ace in Jolie's deck here is the knowledge that a girl as young as Loung can't comprehend the larger meaning of what's happening to her, and is therefore unlikely to expend precious emotional energy connecting cause-and-effect dots or lamenting what was lost.