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The Gods Must Be Crazy

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The Gods Must Be Crazy

PG

Released Aug 28, 1981

1h 48m

Comedy

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Popcornmeter

85%

Tomatometer

27 Reviews

84%

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25,000+ Ratings

The tribal people in a remote African desert live a happy life, but it is all torn to pieces when a Coca-Cola bottle falls from a plane. With the villagers fighting over the strange foreign object, tribal leader Xi (N!xau) decides to take the bottle back to the gods to restore peace. His journey to the "end of the world" eventually has him crossing paths with a bumbling scientist (Marius Weyers) and a band of guerrillas who take a schoolteacher (Sandra Prinsloo) and her class hostage.

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Variety Staff

Variety

Film's main virtues are its striking, widescreen visuals of unusual locations, and the sheer educational value of its narration.

Jul 6, 2010

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Sheila Johnston

Time Out

Offensively racist and too gormless even for the kids at whom it is evidently aimed: Third World cinema of a quite... uncommon kind.

Feb 9, 2006

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

This movie's a nice little treasure.

Rated: 3/4

Oct 23, 2004

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Dan Webster

Spokesman-Review (Washington)

The issue of existence, and how we define it, has been explored before, but never in a funnier -- or more poignant -- fashion than South African director Jamie Uys does it here.

Rated: 4/4

Jul 27, 2024

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Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

It became a surprise hit in America.

Rated: B-

Sep 10, 2023

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Austin Kennedy

Sin Magazine

The comedy has a Keystone Cops feel and the film is also occasionally touching. These kinds of silly movies just aren't made anymore and that's too bad.

Rated: 3/4

May 13, 2012

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g j

The section set with the Kalhari Bushman tribe is something quite special. The rest of the film is a silly, meandering and fairly puerile 'comedy', bereft of any real humour that must have felt dated even by 80's standards.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

09/06/24

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Fer S

Out-of-the-box but I could not get into it, not my type of humor. It is a short movie yet it fet like hours and I only found one joke funny. However I am giving it 2 stars because of the story on how it was made.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

09/01/24

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Matt O

An incredible, illuminating environmental & cultural destruction epic, maybe it was the first ever of its kind. When the coke bottle falls from the sky...it creates a shocking juxtaposition of cultural differences and human attitudes. The filmmaking, very raw, makes for great viewing. The slapstick comedy is a solid metaphor for how lame, stupid, myopic the modern era is compared to the Kalahari desert and its people. When our hero, Xi, goes on his quest only to be locked up in prison, real emotion flows. A gem of a movie.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

06/13/24

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Howard H

Enjoyed as it should be...

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/07/24

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Kyle C

Hilariously satirical and ahead of its time. The slapstick humor plays out almost like an old silent film, but the narration takes it up a notch. The timing is just spot on every time. It gets a little slow at times, but ends on a high note.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/01/24

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Idan Charles L

One of the funniest movies of the 80s

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/23/24

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Jamie Uys

Director

Marius Weyers

Andrew Steyn

Sandra Prinsloo

Kate Thompson

N!xau

Xi

Louw Verwey

Sam Boga

Michael Thys

Mpudi

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Synopsis

The tribal people in a remote African desert live a happy life, but it is all torn to pieces when a Coca-Cola bottle falls from a plane. With the villagers fighting over the strange foreign object, tribal leader Xi (N!xau) decides to take the bottle back to the gods to restore peace. His journey to the "end of the world" eventually has him crossing paths with a bumbling scientist (Marius Weyers) and a band of guerrillas who take a schoolteacher (Sandra Prinsloo) and her class hostage.

Director: Jamie Uys
Producer: Jamie Uys
Screenwriter: Jamie Uys
Distributor: Jensen Farley Pictures, 20th Century Fox
Production Co: CAT Films
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: Afrikaans
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 28, 1981, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $30.0M
Runtime: 1h 48m

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