Popular reviews

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  Review by liam f ★★★★ 6

  someone get that chicken an Oscar

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  Review by ksenija ★★★★ 5

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  just gonna live life to the fullest because benny didn't get a chance to

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  Review by CinemaCl🎃wn ★★★★★ 12

  One of the best films of the 21st century, City of God (Cidade de Deus) paints a disturbing portrait of life in the slums of Rio de Janeiro and covers the birth & flourishing world of gangsters, gang wars & drug deals spanning over 3 decades from 1960s to 1980s, all meticulously captured through the eyes of a young photographer who continuously finds himself in the middle of this milieu despite never wanting any part of it.

  There are several relevant characters introduced throughout the story and yet, it ingeniously follows the journey of every single one of them. The direction is as honest as it is ruthless, the script is uncompromising with its content, cinematography is raw, evocative & stylish, editing is…

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  Review by gabriel guimarães? ★★★★★ 9

  it felt weird seeing a lot of non-brazilians saying this is one of their favorite movies when i first started browsing through IMDb and Letterboxd. not that Cidade de Deus doesn't earn its enormous praise, but it's such a deeply brazilian movie! but i should have known: violence speaks all languages. shout out to Leandro Firmino for his flawless performance of one of the best villains of all-time, Zé Pequeno.

  "quem falou que a boca é tua, rapá?"

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  Review by Sir Jacob ★★★★ 9

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Damn Benny is the coolest!! I hope he doesn’t die tragically !

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  Review by ♦️•Lily•💋 ★★★★★ 4

  It should be illegal for films to be this good

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  Review by molly ★★★★★

  This was so impressive. How they managed to tell so many stories at once without any of them feeling unnecessary or a waste of time is mind blowing. This film is fantastically paced, It’s so rhythmic and edited better than anything else I’ve seen.

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  Review by Jizzmonkey ★★★★

  Style and substance melded is a beautiful thing.

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  Review by Lucy ★★★★½ 4

  WOAH

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  Review by PTAbro ★★★★ 10

  PTAbro's World Tour Stop 27: Brazil

  Drama. Romance. Comedy. Coming-of-age. Period Piece. Social Commentary. Crime Thriller. Biopic. The fact that City of God can squeeze all those different genres into one film and have it remain internally consistent and consistently entertaining is a downright miracle. Another incredible aspect of the production is the fact that nearly all of the actors had little to no filming experience at the time of shooting. I learned this afterwards, and still have trouble believing it, especially when I think back to Li'l Zé: easily one of the top villains on film of the '00s.

  While I might have had issues with the dependence on stylistic flourishes early on, they were either scaled back later…

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  Review by YI JIAN ★★★★★ 12

  ''Honesty doesn't pay, sucker.''

  Oh, the camera work! What style! What fluidity! Especially the opening scene where they show rocket stuck in the middle of the conflict between the gangsters and the police. I'm shedding tears of joy, it's as if my eyes have been baptized. Daniel Rezende’s editing was full of energy, absolutely wonderful!

  Took me way too long to watch this masterpiece!

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★★ 10

  Tell me what to watch for a week: Day 2

  Every now and then I come across these movies where, at a simple technical level, every single element is working in harmony and consistency of vision. The last movie I watched where I found this to be the case was Chinatown and now it's happened again with City of God. The only thing I knew about this movie going in was that it was directed by Fernando Meirelles (whose Constant Gardener is a personal favorite of mine) and that it was some of my best friends' favorite movie in high school. I was expecting it to be good, but not this good. City of God is a masterpiece.

  Maybe the…