Popular reviews

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  Review by laird ★★★★★ 6

  I read a 1950s horror comic last month in which a mad scientist kidnaps two starry-eyed youths who are madly in love and locks them in a cage without food or water as part of a sadistic experiment which he proposes will prove that the bonds of love will easily crumble once the two begin to starve and their primitive animal instincts take over. Luis Buñuel wasn't so sadistic, but he certainly shared this scientist's (and Freud's) view that men are driven by repressed and irrational animal forces that, given the right set of circumstances, will overpower the (sometimes arbitrary) norms, barriers and boundaries of polite society.

  Los Olvidados has the superficial appearance of a social problem melodrama--fatherless, impoverished youths…

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  Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★ 5

  Buñuel slays it!

  This movie is a pretty uncomfortable watch as it’s a brutal look at poverty in 50s Mexico. It follows a gang of kids navigating a life of crime both to survive and often just generally being assholes to hopeless people. This along with the animal cruelty and the implied rape make it visceral but difficult to deny the power of. It’s spectacular in its scope and weight, reminding me most closely of City of God.

  It feels more like the Italian neo-realists than Buñuel’s other work. Buñuel tends to lean most into the surreal and aside from the dream sequence, this is firmly grounded in reality.

  It was despised by those in power at the time of…

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 9

  ***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***

  SPANISH REVIEW:

  Luis Buñuel es otro de mis directores gigantes del cine, y estoy orgulloso de presentarles la primera mejor película de su entera filmografía, la cual está considerada también como una de las mejores películas mexicanas de todos los tiempos por una versión de la revista "SOMOS" publicada en 1994, ocupando el segundo puesto justo después de ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa! (1936), de Fernando de Fuentes. A pesar de que Luis Buñuel haya nacido en España, me enorgullece decir que Los Olvidados es un verdadero tesoro nacional cuyas generaciones posteriores preservarán afectuosamente con admiración y respeto. Los Olvidados se ha convertido en un ícono del cine nacional y es…

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  Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★★ 5

  I've never been more conflicted than ever on what to label such an effort but whichever category you would place it in, whether it be Mexican realism or surrealism, Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados is still one of the finest films about poverty to have ever been made. The films of Luis Buñuel were always weird in some way or another but nevertheless, they always made for extremely fascinating results and offer a scathing critique of some sort which exposes a sort of cleverness that ranks him among the greatest filmmakers of his own kind. But Luis Buñuel was truly a one of a kind filmmaker if one were to speak in that regard, whether we go from surreal comedies like…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 4

  I expected this to be another Bunuel satire or something with at least a touch of humor to it, but instead, it was a brutal, sometimes bizarre story of poverty, juvenile delinquency, and general tragedy. It follows a group of kids as they cause trouble, but quickly focuses on two of them--Jaibo and Pedro. Jaibo is a burgeoning sociopath, and Pedro is just a kid who wants to be good but doesn't always succeed. Jaibo preys on Pedro, using him as an accomplice and victim.

  Pedro is unloved, lost, and impotent, and the world treats him poorly for it. His mother scorns him, Jaibo uses him, and the authorities do not listen to him. In the end, he is treated…

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  Review by DallasFrance ★★★★½ 4

  All the bourgeoisie skewering Luis Bunuel does in the 60s and 70s came from a place of real anger, and mid-career films like Los Olividados show the empathy he felt for impoverished youth and families.

  Even when Pedro (Alfonso Mejia) wants to straighten out and gain back his mother’s trust, an older bully implicates him in a crime he didn’t commit. Even when the head of a juvenile rehabilitation “farm school” shows faith in Pedro by sending him on an errand, his life on the outside immediately interferes with going back. And even when Pedro’s mother realizes she lost faith in him too soon, she’s powerless to help him turn things around.

  Buneul’s range as a filmmaker is stunning. While there are a couple of the experimental flourishes he’s known for, Los Olividados is much closer to neo-realism than surrealism. He could truly do it all.

  
  Luis Bunuel Ranked

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  Review by Graham ★★★½

  Luis Buñuel delivered a harsh and direct 85 minutes of Mexican gorgeousness, focusing of the wee shites of Mexico City in the 50's.

  Living in the slums and getting by through all manner of crime and misdemeanor, these young people, their parents and other characters from the area had a tough time of it in the nation's capital. On release, the Mexican big-wig's were not at all happy with it and tried to have the film banned as they did not appreciate the reflection it presented of a poor city filled with crime and poverty.

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  Review by Milo Paulus ★★★★½ 8

  Luis Buñuel's disquieting and difficult masterpiece Los Olvidados is a landmark in 50's neo-realism and an unflinching lament for the human condition lacking sentiment or sugarcoating — also one of the first and finest features about juvenile delinquents.

  "I hope they'll kill every one of them before they are born."

  This line — being uttered by an old, blind man near the end of the film — perfectly encapsulates the pure awfulness of the world these young boys live in. They live in a world of petty crime, intense poverty, judicial injustice, parental disdain, obtuse violence, loss of innocence and inner distrust. In Los Olvidados Buñuel paints a portrait of Mexico City that seems to smother the inhabitants and the…

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  Review by Stephen Gillespie ★★★ 2

  Defined by rawness and unflinching realism, this doesn’t always connect but does have real impact.
   
  Age and iteration have made the plotting feel awkward and I found it hard to always engage. There are also moments that don’t work, and a bitterness that at points seems relentless; however, the sparing touches of Bunuel’s trademark surrealism really work.

  You can feel the influence exuding off of it. You can feel its urgent message and there’s a moody authenticity to it. I feel I just prefer the films that came in its wake.

  One to rewatch in a better frame of mind, perhaps.

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  Review by Raphael Georg Klopper ★★★★★ 3

  This movie is entirely based on real life events and all its characters are authentic.

  That was the intro letter, and oh boy it wasn’t lying! Basically making a warning that if you go any further than the credits, the only thing you’re about to watch and feel are gut-punches by each two minutes into the film. The Young and the Damned, or better: Los Olvidados.

  Buñuel’s first masterwork after more than (decades, years) hiatus, after struggling among his new Mexican phase and making melodramas, and finally getting the creative freedom to finally return making films, he was sure to not disappoint in making something that would both surprise and shock audiences much like his previous works had already done,…

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★★ 4

  The people of Los Olvidados live their lives in the shadows, locked securely away to avoid emotionally, mentally, or physically troubling their betters. Unseen, they can be safely reduced to abstract ideas, a social problem to be discussed over tea and cakes, while servants obediently busy themselves with cleaning and obsequiousness. Those who decide they can solve the problem — those who voluntarily engage with the forgotten masses, the people who exist to be pitied — do so with great pride, spouting noble philosophies and talking with false modesty about their own immense impact. For them, too, these hobbyists of charity, the poor are merely abstract ideas: noble victims who need only the sage advice of a good man to…

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  Review by 🏳️‍🌈Vidyuth Mahesh🏳️‍🌈 ★★★ 7

  los olvidados feels like helplessly floating right above the surface of a pond dissolved with sand, gravel, mud and dirt. black and white taints the mexican city as a monochromatic realm stuck in a stasis of helpless suffering. it effectively traps you within this stasis, and forces you to witness the tattered souls trying to find good while experiencing and committing crimes and hate. it's a film drenched in internalized rage and cynicism, but an earned and understandable one. however, remaining in this stasis, even for the very brief runtime of 85 minutes, can get pretty tedious. the constant barrage of misery without any real moments of levity gives off a sense of monotony, and as the film is sorrowful…