‎Babel (2006) directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Babel

2006 Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

If You Want to be Understood...Listen

Tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the Moroccan desert, touching off an interlocking story involving four different families.

Brad Pitt Cate Blanchett Gael García Bernal Peter Wight Harriet Walter Michael Maloney Dermot Crowley Rinko Kikuchi Elle Fanning Trevor Martin Adriana Barraza Alex Jennings Mohamed Akhzam Matyelok Gibbs Claudine Acs Michael Peña Jamie McBride Clifton Collins Jr. Aaron D. Spears Koji Yakusho Mónica del Carmen Nathan Gamble André Oumansky Wendy Nottingham Linda Broughton Lynsey Beauchamp Aline Mowat Michel Dubois Shirley Dixon Show All…

Alternative Titles

火線交錯, 巴别塔, Вавилон, 바벨

drama

143 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Lucy ★★★★ 4

one gun... really fucked everything up and made everyone sad
Review by brat pitt ★★★★½ 1

me before watching babel (2006): can't wait to see brad pitt & cate blanchett as a couple! love them :)
me after watching babel (2006): ple a s e... kill me , i beg
Review by CinemaClown ★★★½ 4

From the director of Amores Perros & 21 Grams, Babel is the third & final chapter of Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu's Trilogy of Death which once again employs the multiple-narratives structure interconnected by a single event, further explores the prevalent themes of the last two chapters while adding a few more & features captivating performances from its much more diverse cast to finish the trilogy on an admirable note.

Set in 3 different countries & interweaving 4 distinct plot lines, the story of Babel is triggered by a rifle bought by a Moroccan herder whose sons, while testing it, end up wounding an American woman who was vacationing there with her husband. When the two are unable to return home on time, their children's caretaker…
Review by DirkH ★★½ 3

A film about language and communication would normally grab my interest immediately. For the better part of this film the sheer quality and topics of most of the separate stories managed to do just that. There is enough to enjoy here, with strong performances and interesting subjects.

It is, however, also infuriatingly moronic in its contrived and forced narrative link. It makes a capital mistake in that it feels the incessant need to 'mean something'. It does so by force feeding us a link that is supposed to give the separate stories a common meaning/purpose. What it fails to recognise is that the stories by themselves manage to bring across the commonality just fine, keeping the uniqueness of their narrative and clearly distinct feel.

It is extremely annoying that in its attempt to please its audience and naive need to tie up loose ends it fails to see the quality that is already there.
Review by feedingbrett ★★★★ 8

Very few climbed up the cinematic ladder as swiftly Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu did, with three remarkable films by 2006, starting with Amores Perros and ending with Babel, it paved the way of a beautiful future for the director, with notable actors keen to collaborate with him and studios wanting to tap onto his creative resources, knowing that this is a man who possesses a passion and skill of storytelling, knowing that under his guidance, they are in safe hands.

Inarritu’s third, and hopefully not final, collaboration with Guillermo Arriaga returns to the loose and unstructured narrative format, assembling multiple characters and multiple dramatic instances, as the connecting threads slowly surface, sourced from a singular event that would either directly or…
Review by lucy ★★★ 1

i still stand by the fact that brad pitt is an underrated actor.

Recent reviews

Review by chriscassing ★★½

Honestly just give me two hours on Cheiko’s storyline and I’m good. Only compelling part of the film in my opinion.
Review by Jacob (a.k.a. Tied to Your Apron) ★★★★½

The disparity in quality between Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett's performances here and in Benjamin Button is incredible.
Review by josefsz ★★★★

Rating is mostly for the Japanese segment alone, which is fantastic.
Review by MitchPeiffer ★★½

Ohhhh I get it. The movie goes silent because the girl is deaf! This movie is so proud of itself. I was told this was the one of the best movies of the young century...
Review by Yuna ★★★★½

Watched this on the plane to Taipei. I cried when i heard Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Bibo no Aozora...lol
Review by Max Nobel ★★★

Knowing how to show
Things but not how to make them
Say something larger.
Review by austin1006 ★★★½

Interesting film. I felt as though some character choices in this movie didn’t make much sense; one choice in particular made by a character from the Mexican story line was straight up unbelievable. The Moroccan story line was really good; however, there’s a scene involving a gunfight and boy let me tell you those are some of the worst sounding guns I’ve ever heard in a movie. The Japanese story line is the best one in my opinion, but it is so loosely connected to the other storylines. Overall it is a good movie that is worth seeing (mainly because of some very strong acting). But it is far from Iñarritu’s other films such as The Revenant and Birdman. 7/10.
Review by Joshua Gaul ★★★★

A movie I didn't expect to like, but was surprisingly moved by. It's a little overlong and tedious at moments; the Japanese segment of the film feels like a completely different movie. But, in the end, the universal message of all of us having interconnected, mostly sh*tty lives is very uplifting.
Review by J0hj0h ★★★★★

Intriguing and suspensful.