Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Bus 174
ThinkFilm Inc.


9.4

based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

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.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

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

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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What results is a thoughtful, analytical yet still emotional film, meticulously investigated and absolutely compelling.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

So wrenching and absorbing that you can easily lose sight of the sophistication of its techniques.

The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis

This gripping Brazilian documentary shows a bus hijacking that spirals out of control because of police incompetence.

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.

Empire Will Lawrence

This powerful film offers no excuses for Sandro’s actions, but his situation demands our empathy.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It all adds up to a searing portrait of social misery.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

This is provocative stuff--and not just for its searing indictment of Brazilian society.

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.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Engrossing, smartly made documentary.

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.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A fascinating account, if less urgently compelling than it might have been.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The drivel they call "reality TV" pales in comparison with the gripping big-screen documentary Bus 174.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

Riveting and courageous documentary.

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.

Chicago Reader Patrick McGavin

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

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.

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
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Swag V. gave it a10:
Haunting. While I can't say it's among the best movies ever made, it's one that has stuck with me afterwards as long as anything.

Candy gave it an8:
Amazingly shocking tale of a very sad and desparate young man with no specific agenda that escalated because no one was in control, not him, not the hostages, and especially not the police. The fact that the police killed him at the end was unavoidable but also inhumane. I put it up there with Munich for movies to watch just to get a glimpse into what someone is capable of doing when pushed to the point of no return and feeling no help from those who we pay our taxes for to help.

Rosie gave it a 10:
You cannot help but feel for Nacimiento. To think that there are so many kids just like him out there. Tired of being "invisible", his cry for attention got him killed.

Ola A. gave it a 10:
It's the best movie I've seen for a long time, Padilha's film like a truly important voice. A voice that should concern anyone, especially those of us living in larger cities, anywhere. I cried, which I haven't done for years in a theatre; not out of pity, this movie is so much more than just a poor melancolic flirt. I cried near the end as people are rioting, fighting to get hold of Sandro, to lynch him; the non-futility of how real problems are generally dealt with, so saddeningly apperent in that moment.. We live in a world where judgement is passed out from those of us who can afford it, with no consideration other than in the interest of keeping us separated from those who can not. As expressed so clearly in this film, they have no voice to begin with. It seems stories like that of Sandro, could have been told on so many occasions, stories that seem so banal to us they make no more than three rows in any paper. _This_ is the true horror? For once there is an attempt to give us a view with fuller perspective - go see this amazing documentary.

Donna J. gave it a 10:
It was compelling. As the credits rolled in the dark theater afterwards, there was total silence. Our breath had been taken away. We were waiting to exhale. I spent the next day at work, telling anyone who would listen, they had to see this film, and then we'd talk about it.

Mio O. gave it a 10:
The so-called "reality TV" pales in comparison with the gripping big-screen documentary "Bus 174."

Bus 174 ThinkFilm Inc.

Bus 174
ThinkFilm Inc.