A stark depiction of life outside the city: terrifying, unsettling, but never losing the sense of comedy.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 24, 2024

“A gateway drug to world cinema … aesthetically pure… the world was bigger after I watched City of God.”

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 13, 2023

What is the value of human life? And why are we so reckless with the fate of the youth of the world?

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 18, 2022

A cold, hard look at reality from a specific moment in time, specific place in the world and specific point-of-view. A brilliant film that shines in every department. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 26, 2021

This Brazilian import is a dazzling achievement that marked Fernando Meirelles as a world-class filmmaker (his subsequent credit would be The Constant Gardener, the best film of 2005).

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 11, 2021

Sometime I find it hard to judge performances in a foreign language but I have to say the performances in City of God are very strong, particularly that of Leandro Firmino as Little Ze.

| Apr 1, 2021

A powerful, darkly skewed coming-of-age film that peerlessly makes use of its obscure setting and striking authenticity.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 29, 2020

A masterpiece of modern filmmaking.

| Aug 13, 2020

What makes City of God so breathtaking is director Fernando Meirelles' passion for these people - he gives us the color, the music and the humor...

| Dec 30, 2019

City Of God is the very definition of cinematic lightning in a bottle.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 31, 2018

It's point-blank perspective on murder and growing up amidst the violence will leave U.S. moviegoers feeling a macabre sense of satisfaction, immediately followed by horror, as they witnesses the vicious cycle of violence repeats itself anew.

| Mar 13, 2018

I came away from this film impressed by its narrative control but unmoved by anything it had to say.

| Nov 8, 2011

Another passionate piece of Latin American filmmaking, which documents a tragic period in Rio's history and highlights the horrors of life in poverty-line communities. Technically a remarkable filmmaking achievement too.

| Nov 8, 2011

Powerful, but only for 17 and up.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 22, 2010

Each chapter is endowed with powerful, uncompromising, beguiling and, sometimes, deceptive momentum. What seem like innocuous turns become so critical to the narrative that they tie into the ruthless idea at hand: You never see the bullet that kills you.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 25, 2010

Brazillian director Mereilles' splashy feature debut, a dynamically exciting portrait of Rio's violent gangs, immediately established himsef as an international talent to watch, and the Oscar nods only reaffirmed that status.

| Original Score: A- | Dec 31, 2009

City of God delivers a bruising, visceral experience of the vicious spiral of violence that draws kids into a life of crime, brutality and murder as the only avenue open to them.

| Jun 17, 2009

Fernando Meirelles' Brazilian slum epic is a profound, stylistically expansive depiction of three decades of child gang warfare on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro with non-actors playing their poverty-ridden lives for the camera.

| Original Score: A+ | Jun 12, 2009

The visceral and artistic excitement remains surface-bound.

| Original Score: C | Nov 12, 2008

Director Fernando Meirelles creates an aura of fear unlike any film in recent memory.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 14, 2007