Welcome to Sarajevo

R

1997

1 hr. 41 min.

Drama

List

78%

36 Reviews

Tomatometer

74%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Michael Henderson (Stephen Dillane) is a reporter covering the war in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He develops a competitive friendship with Flynn (Woody Harrelson), an arrogant TV reporter, as they cover the chaos and suffering occurring around them. When Henderson reports on a dilapidated orphanage, he becomes affected by the plight of its occupants. With the help of an American aid worker named Nina (Marisa Tomei), Henderson tries to find a way to smuggle the children out of the country.

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Audience Member

Movie that shows the life of war correspondents and explores the line between staying objective or helping innocent civilians in war-torn Sarajevo during the previous war in Europe. Unfortunately this movie has become very topical again with the war in Ukraine. It painfully illustrates that we learn nothing from history, only that we will repeat it.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/17/23

Full Review

Audience Member

There really isn't any plot, just life during wartime for some journalists in Yugoslavia showcasing the horrors of war. The Yugoslavian civil war was one of the more ugly, more complex, and most highly propagandized civil wars of the last century. Filmed in the immediate aftermath, the director makes extensive use of actual news footage to augment the staged scenes. This movie is an expression of the filmmakers opinion on an extraordinarily complex topic; nothing more, nothing less. There are numerous BBC documentaries available that are more informative, interesting, and accurate.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Being born and raised in Sarajevo and having survived the brutal siege and bombardment of the city, I have mixed feelings about this movie. It’s the first among the few movies made about the war in Bosnia. The movie follows a lot of cliches but it distinguishes itself by using the actual documentary footage from the scenes of life in Sarajevo during the siege, namely the massacre of the civilians in Ferhadija Street in central Sarajevo, who lined up and waiting in queue for the daily bread rations, ended up being killed, maimed and mutilated by a mortar fired by the occupying Serb forces. The makers of the movie obviously attempted to get more attention for the movie by casting two American actors, Woody Harrelson and the Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei. Sadly, Harrelson’s character was portrayed as a cocky, self centered and egoistical American stereotype (a shame for a good actor such as harrelson) while Tomei’s character is barely developed into something a little more than an extra but still less of a supporting actress. The best performance by far is that of Goran Višnjić, and many say (and I agree) that this was his breakthrough role that got him noticed by Hollywood. He followed on to appear in the video of Madonna’s “Power of Goodbye” and then ER. The Croatian actor does an excellent job speaking with a distinct Sarajevo accent which is not easily done by native speakers. Overall, the movie is good. For me, it is also emotional due to the documentary footage used in the movie, but I still watch it from time to time. In the end, the movie offers a message (vague and thin but still present) that hope lives on and that everything bad eventually comes to an end. It is also a story of personal redemption of the main character, the British journalist through whose eyes we actually watch the story. With some parts overdone (especially the nonsensical monologue by the boy from the church) and others started but not fully developed, the movie has its good and bad parts but overall, the makers of the movie did at least try to make an attempt to make the movie as authentic as possible which was quite challenging to do so soon after the war ended. The movie didn’t get a wide release in the United States, mainly because of the usage of the documentary footage featuring rather graphic scenes from the Ferhadija Street massacre. I still highly recommend this movie, especially to those who want to learn more about the region and the war itself - but only as an introduction. The subject itself is too complex and it’s still being written, and that it would be impossible to cover it fully in one movie.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

08/14/20

Full Review

brendan n

Welcome to Sarajevo was a film that missed the masses, and the mishandling of the film is the Weinstein's. They may have the reputation of being indie in spirit, but they also had a knack for letting films vanish. This is a great film and one of the better recent depictions on the subject. Winterbottom has been one of my favourite filmmakers for quite some time and finally tracking this down was a priority for me. Strong central performances and a relatable true story, that holds nothing back. 29/06/2019

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Suffers a bit from the "Mighty Whitey" hero cliché, but it's otherwise pretty great, especially in the third act.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

good movie. truthful, which makes it painful and makes you feel sad. and its just one of places where such things happen. and its even sadder that world dont care!

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/08/23

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Michael Winterbottom

Director

Stephen Dillane

Michael Henderson

Woody Harrelson

Flynn

Marisa Tomei

Nina

Emira Nusevic

Emira

Kerry Fox

Jane Carson

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Matt Roth

Chicago Reader

Weaving historical events into a fictional narrative always involves a major pitfall: important events risk becoming a hazy backdrop to the cliched struggles...

Rated: 1/4

Jun 16, 2022

Full Review

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Entertainment Weekly

Rated: A-

Sep 7, 2011

Full Review

Time Out

A crisp, rigorously unsentimental director, Winterbottom was a good choice for this project.

Jan 26, 2006

Full Review

Joe Leydon

The Moving Picture Show

By turns darkly comical and passionately angry

Jul 19, 2014

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Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Rated: 3/5

Oct 16, 2007

Full Review

Michael Dequina

TheMovieReport.com

A documentary would have more powerfully captured the horror of the Bosnian conflict than this synthetic, if well-acted and -intentioned, drama.

Rated: 2/4

Dec 23, 2006

Full Review

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Synopsis

Michael Henderson (Stephen Dillane) is a reporter covering the war in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He develops a competitive friendship with Flynn (Woody Harrelson), an arrogant TV reporter, as they cover the chaos and suffering occurring around them. When Henderson reports on a dilapidated orphanage, he becomes affected by the plight of its occupants. With the help of an American aid worker named Nina (Marisa Tomei), Henderson tries to find a way to smuggle the children out of the country.

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Screenwriter: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Production Co: Miramax
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): May 23, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $339.6K
Sound Mix: Surround

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