A crime film with an impressive 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes has just been added to Amazon Prime Video. This 2002 epic is widely celebrated for its kinetic visual style, editing and gripping narrative.
The film follows the ruthless rise of organised crime in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, through the lens of Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), an aspiring young photographer trying to survive the chaotic environment he was raised in.
City of God shows Rocket’s journey as he tries to build an honest life, while also depicting a contrasting reality: that of Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino), his childhood acquaintance who systematically becomes the area’s most brutal drug lord.
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The film, co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, cast for its main roles directly from real Rio favelas, bringing an intense, unfiltered realism to the performances.
It is known for its fast-paced, episodic narrative structure, with Scorsese-style rapid cuts and voiceovers familiar to fans of classic Hollywood crime dramas.
City of God was nominated for four Academy Awards – including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay – and is frequently ranked among the greatest action and international films of all time.
On Rotten Tomatoes, reviewers praised many elements of the film, including the cast’s realism. One commenter wrote: “The constant rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire, the sun-scorched grime, the extraordinary performances from a cast of mostly non-professional actors, it all drops you squarely into a world most of us will never know and probably not fully recover from seeing.”
They added: “That it still shocks and dismays while leaving a sliver of hope is the mark of genuinely great filmmaking. If you haven’t seen it, stop what you’re doing and add this to your queue.”
Another wrote: “It is impossible to not come away mesmerized and haunted by the story and the powerful portrayal of a childhood deformed by an unforgiving and crime-prone environment and the attempt to rise to power and fortune on the one side and on the other to legitimacy and recognition.”
A third called it “nothing short of a masterpiece of world cinema – relentless, brutal, and heartbreakingly human.”
In August 2024, HBO premiered a sequel to City of God – a series titled City of God: The Fight Rages On, set twenty years after the timeline of the original movie. It shows Rocket (with Alexandre Rodrigues returning to his role) as an adult, now a professional photojournalist documenting a new era of conflict involving drug traffickers, rising local militias, and state police.
City of God is now available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
