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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Brazil
Universal acclaim
Based on 12 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 50 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Cult | Fantasy | Sci-fi
Written by:
Terry Gilliam
Charles McKeown
Tom Stoppard
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 18, 1985
DVD: July 13, 1999
Running Time: 142 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Kim Greist, and Jim Broadbent
Brazil is a surrealistic nightmare vision of a "perfect" future where technology reigns supreme. Everyone is monitored by a secret government agency that forbids love to interfere with efficiency. When a daydreaming bureaucrat (Pryce) becomes unwittingly involved with an underground superhero and a beautiful mystery woman, he becomes the tragic victim of his own romantic illusions. (Universal Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: 12 Monkeys Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Jabberwocky Monty Python and the Holy Grail Monty Python's Life of Brian The Brothers Grimm The Fisher King Tideland
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
The New York Times Janet Maslin
Brazil may not be the best film of the year, but it's a remarkable accomplishment for Mr. Gilliam, whose satirical and cautionary impulses work beautifully together. His film's ambitious visual style bears this out, combining grim, overpowering architecture with clever throwaway touches.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
This modern cult classic is a triumphantly dark comedy directed by one of the film world's truly original visionaries, Terry Gilliam. "Imagination" is this futuristic film’s middle name.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Dave Kehr
A ferociously creative 1985 black comedy filled with wild tonal contrasts, swarming details, and unfettered visual invention--every shot carries a charge of surprise and delight.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Staff (Not Credited)
One of those rare gems that prove equally stunning on both aesthetic and cerebral levels.
Film.com John Hartl
For all its occasional long-windedness and visual dazzle, Brazil may be the "Strangelove" of the 1980s.
San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
It's a glimmering hunk of fractured brilliance riddled with Orwellian paranoia encased in a production design seemingly pieced together from the shared dreams of Franz Kakfa and Salvador Dali, and shot from cruelly low angles.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
There is not a more daft, more original or haunting vision to be seen on American movie screens this year... A terrific movie has escaped the asylum without a lobotomy. The good guys, the few directors itching to make films away from the assembly line, won one for a change. [30 Dec 1985, p.84]
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
It remains a stunning achievement, if nearly as exhausting and frustrating as the Tex Avery bureaucracy it roasts, but Gilliam's stylistic dysfunctionalities, art-directed out of junkyards, are what still percolate in the forebrain.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)
Blindingly obtuse, excessively morose, the film is nevertheless dazzling in its inventive and massive sets and spectacular in its techniques...A powerful work that is both bleakly funny and breathtakingly assured.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Perhaps it is not supposed to be clear; perhaps the movie's air of confusion is part of its paranoid vision. There are individual moments that create sharp images (shock troops drilling through a ceiling, De Niro wrestling with the almost obscene wiring and tubing inside a wall, the movie's obsession with bizarre duct work), but there seems to be no sure hand at the controls.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Brazil doesn't add up to much, not only because its cautionary tales are familiar, but because it has no real point of view, nothing urgent under its facile symbols. And the story winds on and on looking for a finish. Three or four times I reached for my coat prematurely. [17 Feb 1986, p.26]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 50 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Santa gave it a10:
This film deserves a place on the Voyagers golden record-plate, if NASA should send its probe after the completion of Brazil!
Sheldon M gave it a10:
When government intrusion runs into every aspect of life, work is intolerably boring, as is entertainment. Technological progress is stunted. The most dangerous enemy of state is a maverick home repairman. The horrors of terrorism are hidden behind portable screens kept handy in public areas (officials apologize about any blood spatter). In Brazil life is so intolerable that escape into a polluted mud hole is cause for joy. Brazil is chilling assessment of the inevitable fruits of socialist attempts at utopia. I love this movie; it scares the hell out of me.
James K gave it a10:
Brilliant in every way, just dark enough and just thought provoking enough to be interesting without distracting.
Daniel R.d gave it a10:
Gilliam slashed at the bloated stomach of the 80's and all its juicy guts spilled forth in this film. All the tidy systemic organs mingling with the filthy, slimy entrails, muddled together on the cutting room floor. He makes no critique of the dystopian/utopian system depicted, only the shared humanity that is haplessly trapped in its process.
Antony C gave it a10:
Distopian, bleak, dirty, old, new and at times, funny as all get out; for those who fear for fate of the free world, this movie might just make you cry.
BOB gave it a10:
A classic cult film, if that is possible.
Ryan C. gave it a10:
A beautiful, dystopian mess.
