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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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
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.
|
Carandiru
Sony Pictures Classics
 |
|
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong bloody violence/carnage, language, sexuality and drug use
Starring
Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos,
Milhem Cortaz,
Milton Gonçalves,
Ivan de Almeida,
Ailton Graça,
Maria Luisa Mendonça,
Aida Leiner, Rodrigo Santoro,
and
Gero Camilo
Based on a true story, Carandiru is an adaptation of the book Carandiru Station by Drauzio Varella. Through the eyes of a doctor who worked in So Paulo's infamous Casa de Detneco, over twelve years, it tells stories of crime, revenge, love and friendship, culminating in the fateful massacre of 1992. (Sony Pictures Classics)
| GENRE(S): |
Crime
|
Drama
|
Foreign
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Hector Babenco
Fernando Bonassi
Victor Navas
Dráuzio Varella (book Carandiru Station)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Hector Babenco
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: September 21, 2004
Video: September 21, 2004
Theatrical: May 14, 2004
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
146 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Brazil / Argentina |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Portuguese (with English subtitles) |
Nominated, Golden Palm, 2003 Cannes 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
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
A prison movie of unusual richness and jarring power.
88
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Carandiru, which ends with actual footage of the prison being demolished in 2002, marks a terrific comeback for Babenco - it's the roughest picture of life behind bars since "Midnight Express."
80
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Crust
Carandiru is Babenco's fourth film set inside some type of incarceration facility and meshes his documentary style and fondness for realism with the escapism of storytelling found in "Kiss of the Spider Woman." It plunges us deep inside a corrupt system and its sincere empathy creates a stirring mix of emotions.
80
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Long, grim, but utterly engrossing.
80
LA Weekly
John Patterson
Babenco's kindly, concerned eye seeks out the humanity in even the worst of his characters, and by the time he re-creates the massacre, with shocking power and force, one has been equally captivated and appalled at the world he shows. The result is one of the richest prison movies in years.
80
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
Exudes a throbbing flesh-and-blood intensity so compelling that it's impossible to avert your eyes.
80
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
No element in the story, or collection of stories, has much novelty: yet the picture grips, because we sense that the director clearly knows he is treating familiar material and forges ahead out of passion.
80
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
The film splits the difference between the brutal reality of the cable-TV prison series "Oz" and the romanticized fantasy of "The Shawshank Redemption" and provides a vivid, well-rounded gallery of inmate portraits.
80
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
It is Carandiru's ability to humanize its central characters ... that gives the movie its wrenching, tragic power
80
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
The movie is powerful, if numbing. What movie about a massacre isn't?
78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
It has the resonant feel of myth, buoyed by simultaneously vicious and compassionate performances from the men on both sides of the bars.
75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Angry and tragic, Carandiru is finally, in its own way, uplifting.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Searing and hypnotic docudrama.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Harrowing but compassionate.
75
USA Today
Mike Clark
The warden implores the prisoners to relinquish their weapons, and out of the cells come flying a zillion blades of all sizes. In a Mel Brooks movie, this bit would be funny. Here, it sums up the chilling situation in five seconds.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Lays on the compassion a little thick, yet its heartfelt squalor stays with you.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
In a prison filled with vivid, Dickensian characters, several stand out. There is, for example, the unlikely couple of Lady Di (Rodrigo Santoro), tall and muscular, and No Way (Gero Camilo), a stunted little man. They are the great loves of each other's lives.
75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Harrowing, realistic, humanistic.
70
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
The movie observes and dramatizes, yet seeks no overriding social moral.
63
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
Babenco does a better job with place than with people: His explosively overcrowded jail is a teeming tenement, which makes the inevitable climax feel, finally, like something real.
63
Premiere
Aaron Hillis
Stylistically, Carandiru is definitely less monochromatic than an "Oz" rerun.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
A sprawling prison drama that seeks, by turns, to endear itself and then traumatize its audience.
60
Variety
Deborah Young
A low-structure, high-involvement Brazilian free-for-all destined to take its place among hellish prison films, Carandiru plants a fist in the viewer's stomach.
60
Film Threat
Staff (Not credited)
A large, magnificent cast brings this story vividly to life, supported by superb art direction and technical contributions. Capped by Babenco's vigorous, often ferocious direction, the film is a towering achievement, offering an unforgettable portrayal of the lives and plight of the forgotten.
50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
This film's rhythms suggest nothing so much as a weirdly macho telenovela, full of family drama, isn't-it-ironic humor and maudlin twists of cruel fate.
50
Village Voice
Jessica Winter
Carandiru's every scene is cut from factory-issue prison-genre cloth to fit jailhouse stock characters.
50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Director Hector Babenco's sentimental, unconvincing adaptation of Varella's book, is a soft, simplistic look at a tough, complicated subject.
50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Babenco's hard work is undercut by his squarely theatrical notion of realism: Specifically, how did the touring company for "West Side Story" wind up in such an awful spot?
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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