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Brazil (1985)

tomatometer

98

Average Rating: 8.6/10
Reviews Counted: 43
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 1

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

89

Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 1

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

audience

89

liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 93,863

My Rating

Movie Info

Brazil constitutes Terry Gilliam's enormously ambitious follow-up to his 1981 Time Bandits. It also represents the second installment in a trilogy of Gilliam films on imagination versus reality, that began with Bandits and ended in 1989 with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. To create this wild, visually audacious satire, Gilliam combines dystopian elements from Orwell, Huxley and Kafka (plus a central character who mirrors Walter Mitty) with his own trademark, Monty Python-esque, jet black

Mar 31, 1998

Universal Pictures

Cast

All Critics (43) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (1) | DVD (25)

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

March 12, 2011 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | Comment
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Brazil is a stinging, Strangelovian satire of the power of the bureaucracy in an Orwellian landscape.

October 16, 2008 Full Review Source: ReelViews | Comment
ReelViews
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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

May 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
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Terry Gilliam's ferociously creative black comedy is filled with wild tonal contrasts, swarming details, and unfettered visual invention -- every shot carries a charge of surprise and delight.

May 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A superb example of the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas, even solemn ones.

May 20, 2003 Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

For all its occasional long-windedness and visual dazzle, Brazil may be the Strangelove of the 1980s.

January 1, 2000 Comment
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

An energetically quirky social metaphor, political commentary and action/sci-fi farce all balled up into one outrageously enjoyable experience, provided you like the work of Terry Gilliam.

January 29, 2012 Full Review Source: IGN DVD | Comment
IGN DVD

Gilliam crams the screen with such a proliferation of bizarre and comic details that you'll want to revisit this particular nightmare again and again.

December 20, 2011 Full Review Source: Movie Talk | Comment

Gilliam at his incomparable best - a glorious, elegant mess.

December 6, 2011 Full Review Source: SFX Magazine | Comment
SFX Magazine

Influenced by Kafka, Orwell, and Kubrick, Gilliam's darkly humorous futuristic satire is narratively flawed and excessive in many ways, but it displays its creator's wildly vivid imagination and is intermittently witty.

April 10, 2009 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment

Brazil serves up one of the most breathtakingly imaginative worlds ever to be put on screen.

April 18, 2008 Comment
KPBS.org

Brazil -- a black comedy that remains ahead of its time -- is one of the most audacious fantasies ever made.

May 30, 2007 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

The bleak Brazil reaches for greatness but just falls short.

March 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment (1)
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

If anyone ever doubts the visionary significance of Terry Gilliam's once bright genius as a filmmaker of enormous depth and cynical humor, you need only to visit upon his career-topping 1985 masterpiece of surreal satire.

October 22, 2006 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comment
ColeSmithey.com

Gilliam's Orwellian vision is memorable and distinctive

June 21, 2006 Full Review Source: Cinemania | Comment

Fortunately the story of an alternative future is realised with such visual imagination and sparky humour that it's only half way through that the plot's weaknesses become apparent.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Brilliant all around; Gilliam at his peak

October 28, 2005 Comment
Film Threat
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Brazil

As I've always slated this film without completing I thought I would give this the full viewing that my Flixster friends request. Over 2 and a half hours later, I can confirm, that I completely agree with my original review, it was painful to watch and whilst I do appreciate the creativity and ideas here, I truly

April 30, 2007
76Majikat

Super Reviewer

Mired in poor presentation for years, Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil was eventually released the way that it was meant to be seen by the good folks at the Criterion Collection. It's an amazing amalgam of poetry and prose juxtapositioned against a lavish backdrop of an unnamed society in a time and place that none

April 24, 2007
FilmFanatik
Tim Salmons

Super Reviewer

Brazil Quotes

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Latest News for Brazil

December 16, 2010:
Terry Gilliam's Brazil Turns 25
Twenty-five years ago, Terry Gilliam took on the studio system and won. The result? "Brazil."

October 23, 2006:
RTIndie: David Lynch, Terry Gilliam Living on the Edge of Hollywood
It's a tough time to be a veteran in the indie game. Why are celebrated auteurs David Lynch and...

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Foreign Titles

  • Brasil (ES)
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