Brazil

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Brazil

R

Released Dec 18, 1985

2h 22m

Comedy

Sci-Fi

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

98%

Tomatometer

55 Reviews

90%

Popcornmeter

100,000+ Ratings

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro), he meets the woman from his daydream (Kim Greist), and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

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Critics Consensus

Brazil, Terry Gilliam's visionary Orwellian fantasy, is an audacious dark comedy, filled with strange, imaginative visuals.

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Pauline Kael

The New Yorker

It's like a stoned, slapstick 1984: a nightmare comedy in which the comedy is just an aspect of the nightmarishness.

Jan 3, 2018

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Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

[A] darkly funny and truly visionary retro-futurist fantasy.

Mar 12, 2011

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Variety Staff

Variety

Brazil offers a chillingly hilarious vision of the near-future.

May 30, 2007

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Yasser Medina

Cinefilia

Gilliam, with a finely tuned aesthetic, constructs it as an Orwellian, nightmarish satire, which always raises its dark tone when it interrogates the omnipotence of the bureaucratic State on the basis of a dystopia. [Full review in Spanish]

Rated: 8/10

Jan 20, 2024

Full Review

Paul Kanieski

KSQD Community Radio

From our post-9/11 viewpoint, Brazil’s biting social commentary comes across like an unheeded polemic against the slippery slope of surveillance and information gathering done in the name of national security.

Jul 24, 2023

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Howard Waldstein

CBR

What the film lacks in terms of a pandering narrative, it makes up for in lush backdrops, fantastic practical effects, and very real observations on surveillance states.

Jul 18, 2023

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thiago s

Filme ruim, o roteiro é fraco, as cenas são fracas, o elenco é mais ou menos, e ninguém ajuda a melhorar o filme, a história é fraca, e o filme deveria ter cenas bem melhores.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/25

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Roberto T

Almost a great movie. This is a movie that has scenes and details (like the candidate posters) that are just exceptional, but overall it is difficult to get fully stuck in.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/26/25

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Donathan T

An all-time great. No other movie is like this one - terrific special effects, terrific actors, terrific soundtrack, terrific setting. Hits on all marks.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/20/25

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Garrett B

Visually striking and great performances, Brazil is one of the most finest films in cinema history (and a surprising twist ending).

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/15/25

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Kevin P

A severely underrated dark satire that retells George Orwell's 1984 with a post-modern lens in the hands of Monty Python's Terry Gilliam. So much great commentary being shown rapid-fire with all the detailed sci-fi Orwellian urban landscape and surreal imagery. The titular jazzy cover version of Brazil is so catchy and it's no wonder it's still being used in so many movie trailers to this day. Plenty of great performances that are mostly either very deadpan or very serious (sometimes both) that give the movie a unique uneasy vibe, like everything wrong with our ever-increasingly apathetic, materialistic, dysfunctional, dishonest, and invasive modern world.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

12/13/24

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Isa B

An excellent satire on how unnecessarily complicated government can be. Sam Lowry is a low ranking bureaucrat with little-to-no ambition. His powerful mother is constantly pushing him to move up, while Sam is content to live in his dreams. One critique I have with Brazil is it's unnecessarily long. It could stand to lose 30 minutes or so, mainly of the dream material where Sam is sword fighting that monster. I found that to be a bit excessive. Had it been a bit shorter and more to the point, I would give the film a higher mark. Don't get me wrong, Brazil is a very good film just the way it is. Though, in my opinion, there is a great film in there, just not this edit. I still definitely recommend it. 90/100

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

12/01/24

Full Review

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Terry Gilliam

Director

Jonathan Pryce

Sam Lowry

Robert De Niro

Archibald "Harry" Tuttle

Katherine Helmond

Mrs. Ida Lowry

Ian Holm

Mr. M. Kurtzmann

Bob Hoskins

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Synopsis

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro), he meets the woman from his daydream (Kim Greist), and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Director: Terry Gilliam
Producer: Arnon Milchan
Screenwriter: Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown, Tom Stoppard
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Production Co: Universal Pictures
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Sci-Fi
Original Language: British English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 18, 1985, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $3.7M
Runtime: 2h 22m
Sound Mix: Dolby Stereo, Surround, Dolby A
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

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