Fitzcarraldo

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Fitzcarraldo

PG

1982

2h 40m

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

77%

Tomatometer

30 Reviews

92%

Popcornmeter

10,000+ Ratings

Opera-loving European Brian Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) lives in a small Peruvian city. Better known as Fitzcarraldo, this foreigner is obsessed with building an opera house in his town and decides that to make his dream a reality he needs to make a killing in the rubber business. In order to become a successful rubber baron, Fitzcarraldo hatches an elaborate plan that calls for a particularly impressive feat -- bringing a massive boat over a mountain with the help of a band of natives.

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Critics Consensus

With a production as audacious as the feat it's depicting, Fitzcarraldo comes by its awe-inspiring spectacle honestly, even when it declines to examine the darker implications of its hero's dream.

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Pauline Kael

The New Yorker

09/12/2023

The film itself is a leaden variation on [Herzog's] Aguirre, the Wrath of God. It’s Aguirre without the inspired images or great subject.

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Michael Sragow

Rolling Stone

06/21/2022

My reaction is strictly, "So what?”

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Elliott Stein

Film Comment Magazine

12/12/2017

1/4

This botched, shapeless, gratuitous, ignoble, neo-colonialist film is so poorly made, written, edited, and directed that its centerpiece, its raison d'tre -- the honest-to-God hauling of a boat up a mountain before your eyes -- is meaningless.

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Keith Garlington

Keith & the Movies

08/20/2022

4.5/5

Much like the frazzled Fitz himself playing Caruso on his beaten up Victrola record player, we sense there is something special in the art we are consuming.

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Brian Eggert

Deep Focus Review

03/18/2022

4/4

Few motion pictures have captured the frenzied power of obsession with as much veracity.

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Yasser Medina

Cinefilia

09/26/2021

7/10

A film that moves like a ship through the flow of a river, where Herzog acts as helmsman. [Full review in Spanish]

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Isaiah Y

Aug 12

Notable Herzog film with a memorable performance by Klaus Kinski

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Thomas S

Aug 1

All this for that... Watch "Burden of dreams" instead : the shooting process is more interesting than the movie itself

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Amy M

Jul 22

I find it interesting when people attempt to assign current cultural values to the past. This film demonstrates how destructive humans can be when trying to live out a dream

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BowTangey M

03/17/2024

You have to see it to believe it.

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Lars N

11/14/2023

Loooooong but fascinating. A bizarre spectacle more than a compelling narrative.

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Alec B

10/13/2023

Beautifully articulated madness. The impressive spectacle is matched by Kinski's brilliant and unhinged performance.

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Werner Herzog

Director

Klaus Kinski

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo'

Claudia Cardinale

Molly

José Lewgoy

Don Aquilino

Miguel Angel Fuentes

Cholo

Paul Hittscher

Captain (Orinoco Paul)

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3%

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93%

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Synopsis

Opera-loving European Brian Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) lives in a small Peruvian city. Better known as Fitzcarraldo, this foreigner is obsessed with building an opera house in his town and decides that to make his dream a reality he needs to make a killing in the rubber business. In order to become a successful rubber baron, Fitzcarraldo hatches an elaborate plan that calls for a particularly impressive feat -- bringing a massive boat over a mountain with the help of a band of natives.

Director: Werner Herzog
Producer: Willi Segler, Lucki Stipetic, Werner Herzog
Screenwriter: Werner Herzog
Distributor: New World Pictures
Production Co: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 10, 1982, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 11, 2017
Runtime: 2h 40m

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