Central Station
Central Station Image
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Metascore
80 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 24 Critics What's this?

User Score
9.0 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 22 Ratings

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  • Starring: Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira
  • Summary: A young boy's (Oliveira) mother is killed in front of Rio de Janeiro's Central Station. Homeless and with nowhere to turn, he is reluctantly befriended by a lonely and cynical woman (Montenegro). Resisting her initial impulse to make a quick profit off the child, she commits to returning him to his father in Brazil's remote Northeast. The trip becomes a quest for their own identities: one boy's search for his father, and one woman's search for her heart. (Sony Pictures Classics)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 24
  3. Negative: 0 out of 24
  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    100
    Fernanda Montenegro gives a landmark performance.
  2. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Joshua Klein
    80
    While the cinematography is gorgeous and the script extremely sharp, Central Station owes much of its strength to its two mismatched leads.
  3. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    80
    Filled with moments of real poignancy and gentle epiphanies, the film is also marked by strong Christian undercurrents, but, like everything else in Salles's film, they're handled with extraordinary delicacy and never feel exclusionary.
  4. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    60
    This 1998 film held my interest for two hours, even taking on an epic feel when it turns into a road movie. It's not bad by any means, but it also happens to resemble a lot of other movies.

See all 24 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 10
  3. Negative: 1 out of 10
  1. Houldine
    10
    The best brazilian movie of all time and count with the extraordinary performance of Fernanda Montenegro, who should did win Oscar. Simply wonderful!!!… Expand
  2. Welington
    10
    A masterpiece!!!!!
  3. JimG.
    7
    Enjoyable portrait of the universal search for family.
  4. DougS.
    1
    This a terribly amateurish boring movie that I would not wish on anyone. Don't waste your time, get something else.

See all 10 User Reviews

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