This is a film that, for all its brutal horrors, keeps a kernel of hope and faith in the inherent decency of humankind (or some of it at least).

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2024

The film makes brilliant if often harrowing cinema. But Garrone’s boldest strokes are also subtle.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 4, 2024

Sarr and Fall are wonderful young actors and excel in displaying joy and fear, presenting a warming and believable brotherly dynamic.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2024

This is a movie with passion and sweep, although I was less sure about the fantasy-reverie sequences.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 2, 2024

Io Capitano is a deeply moving film that takes us into a world utterly removed from our own.

| Mar 29, 2024

There have been other films about the perils of illegal immigration, but few have struck me with the force of Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 28, 2024

This is no walk in the park, but a work of exceptional value. [Full review in Spanish]

| Mar 27, 2024

Very well-made, well-acted, and ultimately very harrowing.

| Mar 22, 2024

Io Capitano’s strongest asset is Seydou Sarr’s performance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 13, 2024

The films of Italy’s Matteo Garrone always bloom at the meeting point of two different realisms: social and magic. They’re alive to the hardships of ordinary life, but also its comedy and strangeness...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 8, 2024

It keeps us close beside Seydou, and it discovers its most lasting impressions and deepest meanings in Sarr’s wondrous performance.

| Mar 7, 2024

!f you’ve ever wondered what an immigrant’s backstory might be, you ‘re not alone. It’s a subject worth exploring. That’s why this sobering but illuminating parable by Italian writer/director Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah) is so compelling.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 29, 2024

Io Capitano tells an immigrant story, demanding accountability for both direct evils and everyday complicity.

| Feb 24, 2024

It’s well-directed, beautifully shot, and features superb performances by newcomers Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 23, 2024

This is storytelling at its most visceral, painted on a broad canvas that reminded me of a saga by David Lean. In a year when all five Oscar contenders for International Film are so worthy, this one captured my heart

| Feb 23, 2024

Io Capitano combines magic realism and ultrarealism to give audiences insight into the emotional journey of two lovely and loving young men who share a dream that threatens to tip over into nightmare. Harrowing and uplifting.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 23, 2024

Italian director Matteo Garrone mixes magic realism and brutal reality, but what's most impressive is the profoundly moving work of actors Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 23, 2024

Io Capitano is as unflinching as it is robust with empathy.

| Feb 23, 2024

Putting names and faces to immigration statistics is important, and “Io Capitano” does that.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 23, 2024

[Io Capitano] begs to be called important. And yet it is most striking for how little it illuminates, and for how cheaply it turns human struggle into mere spectacle and sentiment.

| Feb 23, 2024