Critical Response
The film has a 98% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, with 39 out of 40 reviewers giving positive reviews. It has received a score of 88 on Metacritic, based on 12 reviews.
Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, claiming the film was "hard to follow", but displayed an affinity to being "reminded of a Chaplin film, Modern Times, and reminded, too, that in Chaplin economy and simplicity were virtues, not the enemy."
Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan described the film as "the most potent piece of satiric political cinema since Dr. Strangelove". Janet Maslin of The New York Times was very positive towards the film upon its release, stating "Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a jaunty, wittily observed vision of an extremely bleak future, is a superb example of the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas, even solemn ones."
In 2004, Total Film named Brazil the 20th greatest British movie of all time. In 2005, Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel named Brazil in an unordered list of the 100 best films of all time. In 2006, Channel 4 voted Brazil one of the "50 Films to See Before You Die", shortly before its broadcast on FilmFour. The film also ranks at number 83 in Empire magazines list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time.
Wired ranked Brazil number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies. Entertainment Weekly listed Brazil as the sixth best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982. The magazine also ranked the film #13 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; for Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Maggie Gray) According to Gilliam in an interview with Clive James in his online programme Talking in the Library, to his surprise Brazil is apparently a favorite film of the far Right in America.
- American Film Institute Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
- AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Fantasy Film
Read more about this topic: Brazil (film)
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