A sweeping tale of how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro.

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2010)

A promising young photographer (Alexandre Rodrigues) attempts to stay out of a gang war unfolding between his contemporaries in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. In the United Kingdom the film was ranked 3rd in Film4's "50 Films to See Before You Die".
City Of God is a little too in thrall to certain American crime epics, particularly in its occasionally jokey approach to violence, but possessed of such raw, vital energy that these and other faults are liable to pass most viewers by. The result is a breakneck tour of one of the world's most forbidding neighbourhoods. In Brazil, the film garnered the largest audience for a domestic film in 2002.