Fitzcarraldo

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Fitzcarraldo

PG

1982

2h 40m

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

77%

Tomatometer

30 Reviews

92%

Popcornmeter

10,000+ Ratings

Opera-loving European Brian Fitzgerald lives in a small Peruvian city. Better known as Fitzcarraldo, this foreigner is obsessed with building an opera house in his town and decides that to make his dream a reality he needs to make a killing in the rubber business. In order to become a successful rubber baron, Fitzcarraldo hatches an elaborate plan that calls for a particularly impressive feat -- bringing a massive boat over a mountain with the help of a band of natives.

Critics Consensus

With a production as audacious as the feat it's depicting, Fitzcarraldo comes by its awe-inspiring spectacle honestly, even when it declines to examine the darker implications of its hero's dream.

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Pauline Kael

The New Yorker

09/12/2023

The film itself is a leaden variation on [Herzog's] Aguirre, the Wrath of God. It’s Aguirre without the inspired images or great subject.

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Michael Sragow

Rolling Stone

06/21/2022

My reaction is strictly, "So what?”

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Elliott Stein

Film Comment Magazine

12/12/2017

1/4

This botched, shapeless, gratuitous, ignoble, neo-colonialist film is so poorly made, written, edited, and directed that its centerpiece, its raison d'tre -- the honest-to-God hauling of a boat up a mountain before your eyes -- is meaningless.

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Keith Garlington

Keith & the Movies

08/20/2022

4.5/5

Much like the frazzled Fitz himself playing Caruso on his beaten up Victrola record player, we sense there is something special in the art we are consuming.

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Brian Eggert

Deep Focus Review

03/18/2022

4/4

Few motion pictures have captured the frenzied power of obsession with as much veracity.

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Yasser Medina

Cinefilia

09/26/2021

7/10

A film that moves like a ship through the flow of a river, where Herzog acts as helmsman. [Full review in Spanish]

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Sigmund A.

@Arkol Jun 23

Fitzcarraldo. He loves Italian opera.

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Hans H.

@HansHans May 10

Who would even think of taking a boat over a mountain but to make a movie of it wins the top award for audacity. Well done!

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Levi J

@Lev77 Mar 29

Fascinating, ambitious, very well-done film from the great Werner Herzog!

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Bucky R

@Bucky3085 Feb 23

This is an incredible feat of filmmaking. It's also a bit slow.

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Kevin S.

@ksiads Feb 11

The storyline gets a little outrageous but it is rescued by the imagery. The ship portaging cinematography becomes as taut as the ropes used to traverse the mountain,and the extreme long shot of the ship grinds inch by inch, increasing the scene’s tension in real time. I would place this movie next to my Kubrick favorites for visual fortitude.

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Jens B

@Jens97 Feb 1

"Fitzcarraldo" feels like Conrad’s journey into the heart of darkness, only here the threat comes from one’s own human hubris; slow but unstoppable, like the ship on Ucayali or over the hill.

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Synopsis

Opera-loving European Brian Fitzgerald lives in a small Peruvian city. Better known as Fitzcarraldo, this foreigner is obsessed with building an opera house in his town and decides that to make his dream a reality he needs to make a killing in the rubber business. In order to become a successful rubber baron, Fitzcarraldo hatches an elaborate plan that calls for a particularly impressive feat -- bringing a massive boat over a mountain with the help of a band of natives.

Director: Werner Herzog
Producer: Willi Segler, Lucki Stipetic, Werner Herzog
Screenwriter: Werner Herzog
Distributor: New World Pictures
Production Co: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 10, 1982, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 11, 2017
Runtime: 2h 40m