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The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de Motocicleta) (2003)

tomatometer

84

Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 154
Fresh: 129 | Rotten: 25

The Motorcycle Diaries is heartfelt and profound in its rendering of the formative experiences that turn Ernesto "Che" Guerva into a famous revolutionary.

82

Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 7

The Motorcycle Diaries is heartfelt and profound in its rendering of the formative experiences that turn Ernesto "Che" Guerva into a famous revolutionary.

audience

91

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 67,318

My Rating

Movie Info

Brazilian director Walter Salles Jr. follows up the Golden Globe-nominated Behind the Sun with this filmed adaptation of Argentinian-born Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's journals of the same name. The Motorcycle Diaries stars Gael García Bernal (Y Tu Mamá También, Amores Perros) as a young, pre-revolution Guevara, a 23-year-old medical student in 1952 traveling across South America on a motorcycle with his friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), who co-wrote the source

R,

Drama

Jose Rivera

Feb 15, 2005

$16.7M

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All Critics (162) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (129) | Rotten (25) | DVD (31)

A marvelous road picture and boys-become-men adventure, full of the best kind of idealism.

October 15, 2004 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
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A dull, unsatisfying experience -- as well as inconclusive.

October 8, 2004 Full Review Source: Miami Herald
Miami Herald
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Well-acted, beautifully shot and broad and personal, The Motorcycle Diaries is nonetheless undermined in the end by a clunky search for meaning and depth that seems forced.

October 8, 2004
Detroit News
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Quietly exhilarating, soulful and sincerely romantic.

October 8, 2004 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press
Detroit Free Press
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It's about the gradual wakening into awareness, the graduation from carefree youth to responsible adulthood.

October 7, 2004 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Whether you want to see The Motorcycle Diaries as entirely a personal story or as social and political allegory, it captures a far different and far more vulnerable Ernesto Guevara than the one we think we know.

October 6, 2004 Full Review Source: Salon.com
Salon.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Subtly political biopic won't interest most teens.

December 15, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media

Has a huge heart.

December 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Eye for Film
Eye for Film

A thought-provoking film, grounded in breathtaking scenery and engaging performances.

September 27, 2006
Christianity Today

For most of the viewers, regardless of their political beliefs, THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES is a journey worth taking.

June 29, 2005 Full Review Source: Draxblog Movie Reviews

This is the kind of movie that a serious student of the art of filmmaking will relish.

April 17, 2005
Cinema Sight

In a time when so many 'biopics' are predictable love-fests, it's great to see a film that digs back into a famous person's youth and explains HOW he became so influential.

March 3, 2005 Full Review Source: DVD Clinic
DVD Clinic

The two leads are strong; but while the trip may have substantially moved the two travelers, the film doesn't move much until the last half-hour.

February 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Hollywood Report Card
Hollywood Report Card

As a movie, The Motorcycle Diaries is beautiful, with strong acting, breathtaking location cinematography and a vibrant story. As history, it is more dubious.

February 18, 2005

The understated drama frequently takes a backseat to magnificent scenery, lusciously photographed by cinematographer Eric Gautier.

February 11, 2005 Full Review Source: Kalamazoo Gazette
Kalamazoo Gazette

Many of the people they meet are unremarkable. In fact, the two main characters aren't all that interesting, either.

January 28, 2005 Full Review Source: Laramie Movie Scope
Laramie Movie Scope

... marble immortals begin their lives as mere human children, susceptible to the delights and terrors of a humming and limited world.

December 26, 2004 Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Left me less than sated and unprepared for its apolitical stance on a subject who was known for his leftist radicalism.

December 13, 2004 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Sells Communism like a toothpaste commercial.

December 13, 2004 Full Review Source: Classic Film and Television | Comment (1)
Classic Film and Television

Filled with the vigour and humour of youth and the depth of idealism, but carried on a tide of visceral human experience

December 9, 2004 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile
Urban Cinefile

Once you realize the film's structure, it becomes ... well, a bit on the dull side. The movie feels a lot longer than its 128 minutes.

November 24, 2004 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

'The Motorcycle Diaries' explores the age-old soul of travel -- travel as means to find yourself.

November 17, 2004 Full Review Source: Lawrence.com

Portrait of the revolutionary as a young man

November 10, 2004 Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews
rec.arts.movies.reviews

...[E]asily one of the warmest and accessible foreign language films released in the United States this year

November 7, 2004 Full Review Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette

With his expressive face Bernal seems to show us the exact moment when Guevara turned into a revolutionary determined to rescue the poor of the earth.

November 7, 2004 Full Review Source: Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Roanoke Times (Virginia)

Walter Salles' intelligent film captures the essence of Che Guevara as a young man but is less convincing in dramatizing his evolving political consciousness.

November 6, 2004 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

Audience Reviews for The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de Motocicleta)

As a road trip film, it's stellar. As a historical insight into the events and psychological gear grinding that influenced the revolutionary leader known as Che Guevarra, it falters.
May 29, 2013
Kevin Cookman

Super Reviewer

Whatever the intentions of its filmmakers what ultimately succeeds here is the opening of South America as more than simply a world party/nightclub stop as two young professionals put their promising lives on hold for a bit in order to sightsee their own unknown and surprisingly impoverished continent.
July 4, 2012
UniversalDreamer

Super Reviewer

    1. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?
    – Submitted by Wasfi A (5 months ago)
    1. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: You gotta fight for every breath and tell death to go to hell.
    – Submitted by Karen M (10 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Die Reise des jungen Che (DE)
  • Motorcycle Diaries (UK)
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