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A Dry White Season

Play trailer Poster for A Dry White Season R Released Sep 20, 1989 1h 37m Drama Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
82% Tomatometer 74 Reviews 75% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
Teacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) mostly ignores the problems of apartheid in South Africa until he discovers that the son of a gardener (Winston Ntshona) at his school has been killed by corrupt policeman Stolz (Jürgen Prochnow). Du Toit persuades human rights attorney Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) to try the long-shot case against Stolz. During the trial, Du Toit's transformation into an advocate for justice is so absolute that it distances him from his family.
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A Dry White Season

A Dry White Season

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Critics Consensus

A striking triumph for director Euzhan Palcy, A Dry White Season offers a condemnation of real-world injustice in the shape of a gripping legal thriller.

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Critics Reviews

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Peter Bradshaw Guardian This is a role showcasing Brando’s remarkably effective, quasi-Shakespearean English accent, which snaps his entire performance into shape. Rated: 4/5 Jun 20, 2024 Full Review Terry Kelleher Newsday Paicy revamped a screenplay by Colin Welland and succeeded in turning the original Andre Brink novel into a movie that works more than acceptably a a thriller. But the relationships form the heart of the story. Rated: 3.5/4 Jan 4, 2023 Full Review Harper Barnes St. Louis Post-Dispatch The cast, clearly dedicated to the project, is uniformly excellent, and there is no sense in the skillfully built, suspenseful flow of the story that this is Palcy's first major feature. Jan 4, 2023 Full Review Juan Rodriguez Flores La Opinion Euzhan Palcy finds sensibility and optics that allow her close proximity to such delicate territory. [Full review in Spanish] Jan 6, 2023 Full Review Hal Lipper Tampa Bay Times [Brando] is absolutely brilliant. Rated: 3/5 Jan 4, 2023 Full Review Rick Chatenever Santa Cruz Sentinel It does justice to its "message" by being an excellent movie. Being devastating is one thing; being relevant is something else. A Dry White Season uses its creative and fictional devices to achieve a degree of truth rare on any sort of screen. Jan 4, 2023 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Alec B A movie of subtle rage and pointed observations about the ways minds are changed (and just as often not changed) as well as the near impossible yet necessary task of resisting totalitarianism in all of its forms. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/20/24 Full Review Anjum K Lack of urgency, when demanded in such a film makes it languid and desirous to get over with, although the topic was quite stirring. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 10/13/23 Full Review Audience Member A movie of subtle rage and pointed observations about the ways minds are changed (and just as often not changed) as well as the near impossible yet necessary task of resisting totalitarianism in all of its forms. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review steve d Powerful film extremely well acted. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member The only saving grace of this hackneyed political cinema on apartheid is Marlon Brando's brief but towering Oscar-nominated performance as a lawyer defending a black South African wrongly tortured by Afrikaner policemen. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member Saw this back in 1989 in my 20's and never forgot it, ahead of it's time in content. Saw Ladysmith Black Mambazo live in the early 90's because of this movie. Been a fan of both ever since. Great movie and music. Until 911 even some of the most worldly travelers of the U.S. were saying 'what war?' throughout the 80's and 90's. It's only in the last decade Americans really began to take an interest in international plights and politics. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Read all reviews
A Dry White Season

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Cast & Crew

Scandal 88% 61% Scandal Watchlist Chattahoochee 11% 50% Chattahoochee Watchlist Reversal of Fortune 92% 78% Reversal of Fortune Watchlist Monsignor 0% 17% Monsignor Watchlist Cal 91% 78% Cal Watchlist Discover more movies and TV shows. View More

Movie Info

Synopsis Teacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) mostly ignores the problems of apartheid in South Africa until he discovers that the son of a gardener (Winston Ntshona) at his school has been killed by corrupt policeman Stolz (Jürgen Prochnow). Du Toit persuades human rights attorney Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) to try the long-shot case against Stolz. During the trial, Du Toit's transformation into an advocate for justice is so absolute that it distances him from his family.
Director
Euzhan Palcy
Producer
Paula Weinstein
Screenwriter
Colin Welland, Euzhan Palcy
Distributor
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Production Co
Sundance Productions
Rating
R
Genre
Drama, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 20, 1989, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Sep 16, 2008
Box Office (Gross USA)
$3.3M
Runtime
1h 37m
Sound Mix
Surround
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