If you enjoyed epic Brazilian crime dramas such as “City of God”, “Pixote”, and the “Elite Squad” films, I urge you to seek out this underappreciated film from one of Brazil’s most renowned directors.

| Sep 23, 2022

We know the massacre is going to happen from the off, and yet, despite this, the tension doesn't build much, perhaps because the film is over-long.

| Jan 9, 2018

"Carandiru" is a soulful movie that eschews glamour and formula to present a thoughtful meditation on an endemic prison reality that reaches far beyond the confines of the richest city in South America.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 14, 2009

Carandiru could have been a great prison drama, but it mixed its genres so thoroughly in an attempt to make it entertaining and accessible that I felt it lost its bite.

| Original Score: B | Jun 21, 2007

Humanity struggles out from under a maximally oppressive system, commenting by haunting metaphor on life outside the prison walls.

Full Review | Feb 3, 2005

A searing expose of conditions in the Brazilian penal system.

| Sep 24, 2004

...most successful as a anthropological primer on the makeshift societies men erect under duress

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 7, 2004

We're served up meaty, often spicy, slices of sadly wasted lives.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 13, 2004

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 13, 2004

No matter how contrived the format seems at times, every one of the hard-luck tales is violently good pulp.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 12, 2004

"Carandiru" ultimately falls prey to the cliches that pervade so many mediocre prison movies.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 12, 2004

| Original Score: D | Aug 7, 2004

It has the resonant feel of myth, buoyed by simultaneously vicious and compassionate performances from the men on both sides of the bars.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 1, 2004

Though Carandiru seems a bit slow, it's actually a 'tease' of sorts, leading up to a riveting and pretty horrifying final 45 minutes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 30, 2004

The movie has a tactile reality. You can almost smell it.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 15, 2004

For all the time spent with the inmates, they don't feel like real people.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 9, 2004

Turns out to be more of a jumbled and overlong prison-set soap opera.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 2, 2004

Has moments of raw, unflinching power.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 30, 2004

The finest prison drama in recent memory.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 25, 2004

More successful as an overslick prison-genre exploitation movie than as a vehicle of social protest...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 21, 2004