Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Carandiru

EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Carandiru reviews
71
7.7 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Crime  |  Drama  |  Foreign

Written by: Hector Babenco
Fernando Bonassi
Victor Navas
Dráuzio Varella (book Carandiru Station)

Directed by: Hector Babenco

Release Date:
Theatrical: May 14, 2004
DVD: September 21, 2004

Running Time: 146 minutes, Color

Origin: Brazil / Argentina

Summary

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)

What The Critics Said

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.

Read Full Review >
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."

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
80

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Long, grim, but utterly engrossing.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
80

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Exudes a throbbing flesh-and-blood intensity so compelling that it's impossible to avert your eyes.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
80

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

It is Carandiru's ability to humanize its central characters ... that gives the movie its wrenching, tragic power

Read Full Review >
80

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The movie is powerful, if numbing. What movie about a massacre isn't?

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Angry and tragic, Carandiru is finally, in its own way, uplifting.

Read Full Review >
75

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Searing and hypnotic docudrama.

Read Full Review >
75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Harrowing but compassionate.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
75

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Lays on the compassion a little thick, yet its heartfelt squalor stays with you.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
75

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Harrowing, realistic, humanistic.

Read Full Review >
70

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The movie observes and dramatizes, yet seeks no overriding social moral.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
63

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Stylistically, Carandiru is definitely less monochromatic than an "Oz" rerun.

Read Full Review >
63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

A sprawling prison drama that seeks, by turns, to endear itself and then traumatize its audience.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
50

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Carandiru's every scene is cut from factory-issue prison-genre cloth to fit jailhouse stock characters.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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?

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

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.

chitra v. gave it an8:
This is a movie which is a compelling depiction of humanity:who decides whom to judge and why ? Glad this prison is closed now but what about the international prison Guantanomo..three hundred Pakistanis alone there taken in connivance with the country's government!

Barry S. gave it a9:
Near masterpiece - ignore those jaded critics who mark it down.

Penelope P. gave it a 7:
Interesting and tragic film with only the smallest glimmer of hope. Albeit characters can appear stereotypical its characters evolve within this film, not always for the best. It asks the viewer for compassion for charcters regardless of their crimes and status. It is touching and powerful- definately worth viewing.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use