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Biutiful (2010)

tomatometer

64

Average Rating: 6.4/10
Reviews Counted: 138
Fresh: 88 | Rotten: 50

Javier Bardem's searing performance helps to elevate Biutiful, as does Alejandro González Ińárritu's craftsmanship, but the film often lapses into contrivance and grimness.

77

Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 7

Javier Bardem's searing performance helps to elevate Biutiful, as does Alejandro González Ińárritu's craftsmanship, but the film often lapses into contrivance and grimness.

audience

74

liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 17,560

My Rating

Movie Info

Biutiful is a love story between a father and his children. This is the journey of Uxbal, a conflicted man who struggles to reconcile fatherhood, love, spirituality, crime, guilt and mortality amidst the dangerous underworld of modern Barcelona. His livelihood is earned out of bounds, his sacrifices for his children know no bounds. Like life itself, this is a circular tale that ends where it begins. As fate encircles him and thresholds are crossed, a dim, redemptive road brightens, illuminating

May 31, 2011

$5.1M

Roadside Attractions

Cast

All Critics (138) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (91) | Rotten (50) | DVD (6)

Ińárritu has a delicate yet searing sense of intimacy, which cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto captures with hand-held determination.

February 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Denver Post | Comment
Denver Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Watch Bardem here -- his eyes speak heart-rending volumes.

February 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

With the exception of an otherworldly prologue that remains mysterious well into the film, Biutiful is an unusually linear feature for Ińárritu, but no less involving or challenging than his previous works Babel, 21 Grams and Amores Perros.

February 10, 2011 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

An overloaded agony parade of a film that's such a grim march to devastation that it should be hard to watch. And, OK, it is. But with Bardem at its center, it's like watching a lush train wreck.

February 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Bardem] draws from a deep, deep well of love, pain, and who-knows-what-else.

February 3, 2011 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | Comment
Philadelphia Inquirer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

"Biutiful" is devastating.

February 3, 2011 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Bardem and Ińárritu draw you in to a story that says so much about not only its individual characters but also of life, exile, love, family and death.

July 14, 2011 Full Review Source: Digital Spy | Comment
Digital Spy

A strong presentation of a film that could prove to be key in the evolution of a potentially major talent.

June 29, 2011 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

Unwatchable without Javier Bardem's affecting, devastatingly committed performance, Biutiful plunges the viewer into a shapeless, sprawling character study that functions as nothing less than a punishing reminder of how rotten the universe can be.

June 21, 2011 Full Review Source: Flicks.co.nz | Comments (3)
Flicks.co.nz

Even though this movie piles it on, I can see its positive values and the potential it would have to reach the hearts of its audience.

June 16, 2011 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comment
Window to the Movies

Bardem faultless, Inarritu not so much

May 26, 2011 Full Review Source: Movie Habit | Comment
Movie Habit

An intermittently striking film with a few immensely effecting moments of catharsis, stretched out over an unnecessarily long running time desperate to hammer home every last twitch of agony.

May 24, 2011 Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com | Comment
BrianOrndorf.com

Excellent performance by Javier Bardem lifts a movie that often drags.

May 24, 2011 Full Review Source: Akron Beacon Journal | Comment

Biutiful is an exploration of fatherhood, guilt, culpability and mortality.

April 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Cinema Autopsy | Comment
Cinema Autopsy

It's The Human Centipede for people who think they're too fancy for The Human Centipede.

April 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Movies.com | Comments (2)
Movies.com

Strikes a wrong chord.

April 3, 2011 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comments (2)
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Javier Bardem was Oscar-nominated for his performance and the film got a nod for best foreign-language film, but don't let that fool you; it's a stodgy, self-important slog.

March 31, 2011 Full Review Source: The Age (Australia) | Comment
The Age (Australia)

The fleeting line between life and death is explored in Biutiful, a well acted yet depressing portrayal of a man in purgatory.

March 24, 2011 Full Review Source: Matt's Movie Reviews | Comment
Matt's Movie Reviews

This cinematic journey of one man along the boundaries of life and death is an extraordinary work of genius.

March 23, 2011 Full Review Source: Screenwize | Comment
Screenwize

The film, whatever its intentions, winds up just being deeply depressing and, at nearly 2 1/2 hours, it's a very long slog indeed to the finish.

March 23, 2011 Full Review Source: At the Movies (Australia) | Comment
At the Movies (Australia)

What a film! Javier Bardem has always been impressive and convincing, but he's never been better than this.

March 23, 2011 Full Review Source: FILMINK (Australia) | Comment
FILMINK (Australia)

The film seems ponderous, weighed down and elongated by an overactive poetic sensibility

March 21, 2011 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile

A towering performance from Javier Bardem is the leading light in this poetic tragedy from director Alejandro González Ińárritu in which a man finds redemption in the quagmire of his life

March 21, 2011 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile

Simultaneously intensely personal and profoundly universal, Biutiful shows there can be grace, and yes, even beauty in death.

March 17, 2011 Full Review Source: The Vine | Comment
The Vine
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Biutiful

Uxbal's life is quite a mess: he's a sngle father of two, and struggles to raise them, primarily by working on the wrong side of the law trying to help out illegal immigrants. Besides navigating the underside of Barcelona to make end's meet, he also has to deal with his bipolar ex-wife who is a danger to their kids. Oh

May 12, 2011
cosmo313
Chris Weber

Super Reviewer

Successes of Amores Perros,21 Grams and Babel were for sake of both Arriaga's scripts and Inarritu's directing.A movie like The Burning Plain proves that Arriaga failed as a director and his movie isn't touching and believable at all without inarritu's directing.In Biutiful the same happened and without Arriaga even

July 22, 2011
Alireza64ir
Alireza M

Super Reviewer

    1. Tito: It's dangerous to trust a man who is hungry.
    – Submitted by Chad E (2 months ago)
    1. Ana: What is it? A booger?
    – Submitted by Chris P (10 months ago)
    1. Uxbal: Don't forget me, my love, please.
    – Submitted by Chris P (10 months ago)

Latest News for Biutiful

December 28, 2010:
Javier Bardem Biutiful Interview
During a recent interview, Javier Bardem discussed his work on the new film "Biutiful," and his...

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