Zardoz

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Zardoz

R

1974

1h 44m

Sci-Fi

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

49%

Tomatometer

41 Reviews

53%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

In the future, Earth is ruled by Eternals, an advanced and secret sect of beings who reign over a savage group called Brutals. The Eternals have created a god named Zardoz to intimidate the Brutals, making them believe that killing is their natural state. However, Zed (Sean Connery), a Brutal warrior, challenges that assumption when he enters the Zardoz monument and is captured by an Eternal (Charlotte Rampling). There, he learns the truth about the Eternals and the false god that rules society.

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Critics Consensus

Zardoz is ambitious and epic in scope, but its philosophical musings are rendered ineffective by its supreme weirdness and rickety execution.

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Pauline Kael

The New Yorker

09/21/2023

The film is a mass of inoperative whimsies and conceits; they're imperative even on the dumbest sci-fi level, because Boorman isn't enough of a writer to make them work together.

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Judith Crist

New York Magazine/Vulture

10/02/2019

[Zardoz] demonstrates how one can make a cheap sci-fi flick look like a cheap sci-fi flick by using mirrors and prisms as substitutes for imagination.

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William Thomas

Empire Magazine

03/27/2019

1/5

You have to hand it to John Boorman. When he's brilliant, he's brilliant (Point Blank, Deliverance) but when he's terrible, he's really terrible.

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Jul 5

2.5/4

A maddeningly inconsistent movie.

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Michael Walsh

The Province (Vancouver)

Apr 14

An ambitious undertaking, Zardoz has its share of little failures. Overall, though, it comes as close as any science-fiction film ever has to being a logically consistent, fully realized vision.

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

02/15/2024

This shallow utopia needs our hairy hero’s dose of he-manliness...

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Thomas V

@TomVee Aug 9

Genuinely out-there sci fi, with some big ideas couched in a mix of psychedelia, silly costumes, uneven, often cheesy dialogue and FX, and a muddled, confusing plot, but it all kinda works somehow and is definitely more than it seems at first glance. It's very much a product of the early 70s in its aesthetic, with movies like A Clockwork Orange, Sleeper, and Logan's Run coming to mind, not so much thematically, but in the use of color and fashions that are not too far removed from the swinging 60s. Thematically, it's interesting to see in our new age of AI and our growing paranoia about the elites that may control AI, pursue extreme longevity, and hold sway over our destiny.

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Jon D

@RT54138985 Aug 3

So bizarre, it's good. 4/5

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bob C

@RT46426964 Apr 9

If you like Sean Connery in a red diaper, man bun and long boots: ok. Otherwise junk. Junk with Charlotte Rampling, but.

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Ari V

@RT59419633 Apr 8

Perhaps I gave it a little extra for its time capsule qualities, but really not much. Genuinely surprising what quality PhiScifi this is. Not without a minor shortcoming here and there, put far deeper than its facade lets on.

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Taylor H.

@TH0809 Sep 21

Creative, original, relevant, with something to say.

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Eddy d

@RT21492917 07/23/2025

This is not a film for everyone, but for those who have the wit to understand its subtext, it is a hidden gem.

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John Boorman

Director

Sean Connery

Zed

Charlotte Rampling

Consuella

Sara Kestelman

May

Sally Anne Newton

Avalow

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Synopsis

In the future, Earth is ruled by Eternals, an advanced and secret sect of beings who reign over a savage group called Brutals. The Eternals have created a god named Zardoz to intimidate the Brutals, making them believe that killing is their natural state. However, Zed (Sean Connery), a Brutal warrior, challenges that assumption when he enters the Zardoz monument and is captured by an Eternal (Charlotte Rampling). There, he learns the truth about the Eternals and the false god that rules society.

Director: John Boorman
Producer: John Boorman
Screenwriter: John Boorman
Production Co: John Boorman Productions
Rating: R
Genre: Sci-Fi
Original Language: British English
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 1, 2013
Runtime: 1h 44m

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