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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
75
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66
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74
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48
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56
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Song of Sparrows, The
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60
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69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
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57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Bus 174
ThinkFilm Inc.
MPAA RATING: Not Rated
Starring
Yvonne Bezerra de Mello,
Sandro do Nascimento,
Rodrigo Pimentel,
and
Luiz Eduardo Soares
In the summer of 2000, in Rio de Janeiro, a 21-year-old hijacked a commuter bus and held its passengers hostage. The police were flummoxed as local TV crews arrived en masse to cover the headline-grabbing events as they unfolded. BUS 174 balances this potentially sensationalistic material with accounts by the police, the victims, the witnesses and friends and family of the hijacker. (Film Forum)
| GENRE(S): |
Crime
|
Documentary
|
Foreign
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
José Padilha
Felipe Lacerda
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: October 8, 2003
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
122 minutes, B/W / Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Brazil |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Portuguese (with English subtitles) |
Original title "Ônibus 174"; International Jury Award (Best Documentary), 2002 Sao Paulo International Film Festival

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
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Tense, engrossing, and superbly structured, Bus 174 is not just unforgettable drama but a skillfully developed argument.

100
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
By the end, you realize you've seen an extraordinary movie, easily one of the best of the year.

100
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
By the end, you realize you've seen an extraordinary movie, easily one of the best of the year.

100
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
The results are as riveting as any action movie ever made.

90
LA Weekly
Ernest Hardy
Tough and relentless, dazzlingly researched and crafted. At its core is compassion for those who are angry, violent and uneducated.

90
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Edited with an impeccable sense of timing and rhythm, with each new revelation and insight planted at just the right moment, Bus 174 examines an already gripping story from a moving and untold perspective.

90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
What results is a thoughtful, analytical yet still emotional film, meticulously investigated and absolutely compelling.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Far from being atypical, the events of June 12 and the litany of tiny nightmares that led up to that day are brutally obvious.

88
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
A lot of ground for one film to cover, but this smart, absorbing movie, which has been sharply edited by Felipe Lacerda, never feels like it's spreading itself too thin.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
If you have seen the masterful 2002 Brazilian film "City of God" or the 1981 film "Pixote," both about the culture of Rio's street people, then Bus 174 plays like a sad and angry real-life sequel.

88
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
It is to Padilha's enormous credit that he steadfastly kicks aside our own culturally imposed frames of reference, insisting that we see the truth, and the humanity, within this very real story.

83
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Although it shares a bitter interest in slum desperation with last year's Brazilian-underbelly docudrama ''City of God,'' Bus 174 pulls ahead, I think, by not confusing cinematic pizzazz with the content of misery.

80
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
So wrenching and absorbing that you can easily lose sight of the sophistication of its techniques.

80
The Hollywood Reporter
Richard James Havis
This gripping Brazilian documentary shows a bus hijacking that spirals out of control because of police incompetence.

80
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Alternating between the sad facts of Nascimento life -- which included a stretch at one of Rio's notorious prisons -- with the events unfolding outside the botanical garden, the film is a pulse-pounding piece of documentary reportage, and a terribly important account of a social problem in developing countries that won't be going away anytime soon.

80
Empire
Will Lawrence
This powerful film offers no excuses for Sandros actions, but his situation demands our empathy.

80
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
It all adds up to a searing portrait of social misery.

80
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
This is provocative stuff--and not just for its searing indictment of Brazilian society.

75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
A unique portrait of modern crime and punishment, gives us terror without filters, a tragic event captured in all its initial immediacy and anguished aftermath.

75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Engrossing, smartly made documentary.

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's a chilling tale that leaves us with the fear that Latin America's exploding social problems may well be beyond solution.

75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
A fascinating account, if less urgently compelling than it might have been.

75
New York Post
V.A. Musetto
The drivel they call "reality TV" pales in comparison with the gripping big-screen documentary Bus 174.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Jennie Punter
Riveting and courageous documentary.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
The film takes us behind bars to hear horror stories from prisoners. They're illuminated by a black light to hide their identity. The effect is like looking at an X-ray. Moments like this attest to Padilha's artistry as a filmmaker.

70
Chicago Reader
Patrick McGavin
Padilha allows neither easy answers nor ironic commentary, producing on both sides of the conflict a world of inconsolable grief.

70
Film Threat
Merle Bertrand
An amazingly powerful piece of cinema. Actually, it's more an amazingly powerful piece of news journalism; the kind of in-depth stories told in all their complexity that such fluff American network "news" magazines as "Dateline" could only dream about telling.

50
Variety
Deborah Young
A tense documentary with multiple layers of meaning.


The average user rating for this movie is 9.4 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
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