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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
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35
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32
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47
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71
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54
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92
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73
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20
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58
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57
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87
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Honeydripper
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50
Look
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Married Life
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Meet Bill
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Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
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OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
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Pathology
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Penelope
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XXY
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Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
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Zombie Strippers
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4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
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91
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
74
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Roman de gare
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
71
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Jellyfish
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Son of Rambow
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Body of War
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Battle for Haditha
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Fugitive Pieces
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
54
Mister Lonely
52
Noise
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Look
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Dark Matter
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Unsettled
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Behind the Sun
Miramax Films
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sexuality
Starring
José Dumont,
Rodrigo Santoro,
Rita Assemany,
Luís Carlos Vasconcelos,
Ravi Ramos Lacerda,
Flavia Marco Antonio,
and
Othon Bastos
Set in the Brazilian badlands in 1910, Behind the Sun tells the story of two families locked in a generations-old deadly feud. It started out as a battle over land, but now it's escalated into a series of reprisals that is claiming the lives of the young men on both sides. (Miramax Films)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Karim Ainouz
Ismaïl Kadaré (novel Broken April)
Sérgio Machado
Walter Salles
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Walter Salles
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 11, 2002
Video: June 11, 2002
Theatrical: December 12, 2001
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
105 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Brazil / France / Switzerland |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Portuguese (with English subtitles) |
Original Portugese title "Abril Despedaçado," which translates as "Broken April"

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
LA Weekly
Ernest Hardy
That tragedy looms heavily in Behind the Sun only makes its life-affirming moments -- resonate more deeply and powerfully in a film that is one of the year's best.

90
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
Carvalho's superb cinematography, Antonio Pinto's score and a dedicated cast and crew admirably sustain this poetic and uncompromising film.

90
New Times (L.A.)
Luke Y. Thompson
Beautiful to watch and universal in theme by any name.

88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
A compelling existential tableau: sweating bodies, creaking mills turned by numbed oxen, people facing the daily and seasonal cycles of life with little hope of breaking free. Behind the Sun is forceful stuff.

88
Chicago Tribune
Mark Caro
When a culture offers little more than death upon death, appreciating life's everyday beauty is as good an answer as these characters -- and this filmmaker -- can provide.

80
Village Voice
Jessica Winter
The movie's subject is brotherly love in all its extremes; the trajectory is grimly inevitable, and yet its final descent still manages to startle.

80
Variety
David Rooney
Consummately crafted and stunningly shot in magnificent locations deep in Brazil's remote northeastern badlands, the film unapologetically courts the commercial curve of the international arthouse arena with its rustic exotica and sensory overload of poetic imagery, giving it something of a grandiose air.

80
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Salles is a master storyteller, and the film's pacing is flawless.

80
Time
Richard Schickel
This movie is more emotionally remote than Salles' fine "Central Station." But it is starkly beautiful and says something potent to a world in which nations, like these families, engage in mindless blood feuds.

75
Boston Globe
Renee Graham
This is a deeper film, delving into the twisted motives that rule lives, the lethal cycles that shackle progress, and, ultimately, the courage it takes to choose life.

75
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
A gorgeously photographed, sun-baked fable.

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
This tale is both redemptive and tragic, if occasionally melodramatic.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
A powerful allegory.

70
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
The blend of grim violence with romantic whimsy tilts toward sentimentality. Mr. Salles has the confidence of a storyteller too entranced by his tale to worry about the resistance of his audience, which he thus effortlessly overcomes.

63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The story, which was inspired by an Albanian novel and the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus, ends with a literary patness. But it's still a potent tale of fraternal love and the loss of innocence.

60
Film Threat
Chris Barsanti
A film with a bare-bones story told with such potency that its occasional flights of heavy-handed symbolism are easily excused.

58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
It's all so visceral that it overwhelms the near-abstract story and smothers what passes for characters.

50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
It has some of the simplicity and starkness of classical tragedy, but what made me impatient was its fascination with the macho bloodlust of the two families.

40
Chicago Reader
Hank Sartin
The appearance of circus performers in any film not by Fellini usually bodes ill, and it does so here.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
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