City of God (2002 film)

City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus) is a 2002 Brazilian epic crime film directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund. The screenplay, written by Bráulio Mantovani, is adapted from the 1997 novel by Paulo Lins, though the plot is also loosely based on real events. The film portrays the rise of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro between the late 1960s and early 1980s, culminating in a war between drug dealer Li'l Zé and vigilante-turned-criminal Knockout Ned. Its tagline is, "If you run, the beast catches you; if you stay, the beast eats you."
The film features a cast including Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Jonathan and Phellipe Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Daniel Zettel, Seu Jorge, and the film debut of Alice Braga. Most of the actors were actual residents of favelas such as Vidigal and Cidade de Deus itself.
City of God received widespread critical acclaim and earned four nominations at the 76th Academy Awards: Best Cinematography (César Charlone), Best Director (Meirelles), Best Film Editing (Daniel Rezende), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Mantovani). At the previous 75th Academy Awards, it was Brazil's submission for Best Foreign Language Film but was not selected as a finalist. In 2015, the Brazilian Film Critics Association (Abraccine) ranked City of God 8th on its list of the 100 greatest Brazilian films.
Following the success of City of God, Meirelles and Lund created the City of Men TV series and its 2007 film adaptation. Both projects share some actors (notably leads Silva and Darlan Cunha) and the same setting as City of God.
The film opens in medias res in the 1980s within the titular Rio de Janeiro favela. A gang led by the ruthless drug lord Li'l Zé chases a runaway chicken. The bird halts between the gang and the film’s narrator, Rocket (Buscapé), a young aspiring photographer. This tense standoff frames the nonlinear narrative, which chronicles the favela’s descent into violence over two decades.
The story flashes back to the 1960s, when Cidade de Deus is a fledgling housing project plagued by poverty. Rocket, then a child, observes his older brother Goose (Marreco) and two friends—Shaggy (Cabeleira) and Clipper (Alicate)—known as the "Tender Trio." These amateur thieves rob gas trucks and businesses, sharing proceeds with residents who shield them from police. Their cautious approach contrasts with Li'l Dice (Dadinho), an ambitious preteen who idolizes the trio.
Li'l Dice manipulates the Tender Trio into raiding a motel, insisting they rob wealthy guests. The trio agrees but forbids killing. During the heist, Li'l Dice, left as a lookout, fabricates a police arrival, prompting the gang to flee. He then massacres the motel occupants, drawing intense police scrutiny. The trio disbands: Clipper joins a church, Shaggy dies in a police shootout, and Goose is murdered by Li'l Dice after stealing his loot. Witnessing this, Benny (Bené), Shaggy’s brother and Li'l Dice’s friend, becomes complicit in the betrayal.
By the 1970s, the favela morphs into a violent drug hub. Li'l Dice, now "Li'l Zé," dominates the trade with Benny, eliminating rivals except Carrot, Benny’s childhood friend. Rocket, now a teenager, navigates the chaos, pursuing photography and a romance with Angélica. His life intersects with Li'l Zé when he visits a drug den during a raid; recognizing Rocket as Goose’s brother, Benny spares him.
Li'l Zé’s empire faces threats from the "Runts," preteen thieves disrupting Carrot’s territory. When Carrot refuses to act, Li'l Zé forces a Runt named Steak n’ Fries (Filé com Fritas) to kill a peer, cementing his tyranny. Meanwhile, Rocket’s attempts at honest work fail after the Runts loot his supermarket job. He nearly turns to crime but is dissuaded by Knockout Ned (Mané Galinha), a principled bus clerk and ex-Army sharpshooter.
Benny, seeking escape, plans to leave with Angélica. At his farewell party, a conflict erupts when Li'l Zé confronts Benny over abandoning him. Blacky (Neguinho), a disgruntled dealer who had his turf stolen by Zé in the earlier raid, accidentally shoots and kills Benny during a botched assassination attempt. Carrot, fearing retaliation, kills Blacky. Grief-stricken, Li'l Zé targets Carrot but first assaults Ned and rapes his girlfriend. Ned retaliates by allying with Carrot, sparking a gang war.
A year later, the war rages on. Ned, now a media figure, is betrayed by his own vengeance, killing a guard during a bank robbery. Rocket, now working for Jornal do Brasil, photographs the chaos. After Li'l Zé demands photos of his gang, Rocket’s images are accidentally published without consent. While he believes that this will endanger his life and forbid him from returning to the favela, unbeknownst to him, it is revealed that Li'l Zé was trying to gain the media spotlight anyway and approves of the photos. Marina, the journalist who published the photos, offers for Rocket to spend a night at hers as a form of apology, finally losing his virginity in the process.
The narrative returns to the opening chicken chase. Amid a police standoff, Carrot’s gang ambushes Li'l Zé. Ned kills Li'l Zé’s ally Tiago but is slain by Otto, the son of the bank guard who earlier witnessed his father's murder at the hands of Ned. The police arrest Li'l Zé and Carrot but release the former after seizing the last of his assets as a bribe. The Runts, aspiring to power and seeking revenge for their murdered comrade, execute Li'l Zé. Rocket photographs the corrupt exchange but opts to publish Li'l Zé’s corpse, securing his journalism career over exposing police corruption, knowing that the latter could make him a target of the police.
The film concludes with the Runts plotting their takeover, perpetuating the cycle of violence. Rocket’s choice underscores his role as an observer, capturing the favela’s brutal reality while seeking escape through his art.
City of God was filmed on 16mm film stock.
On the bonus DVD, it is revealed that the only professional actor in the film was Matheus Nachtergaele, who played the supporting role of Carrot. Most of the remaining cast were from real-life favelas, and in some cases, even the real-life City of God favela itself. According to Meirelles, amateur actors were used for two reasons: the lack of available professional black actors, and the desire for authenticity. Meirelles explained: "Today I can open a casting call and have 500 black actors, but just ten years ago this possibility did not exist. In Brazil, there were three or four young black actors and at the same time I felt that actors from the middle class could not make the film. I needed authenticity."
Beginning around 2000, about a hundred children and young people were hand-picked and placed into an "actors' workshop" for several months. In contrast to more traditional methods (e.g. studying theatre and rehearsing), it focused on simulating authentic street war scenes, such as a hold-up, scuffle, and shoot-out. Much came from improvisation, as it was thought better to create an authentic, gritty atmosphere. This way, the inexperienced cast soon learned to move and act naturally. After filming, the crew could not leave the cast to return to their old lives in the favelas. Assistance groups were set up to help those involved in the production to build more promising futures.
Meirelles went into the film with the intention of staying true to the "casual nature" of the violence in the novel by Lins. Critic Jean Oppenheimer wrote on the production of the film saying that: "A second guiding principle was to avoid glamorising the violence" and that "many of the killings are either shown indistinctly or kept out of frame."
Because the real Cidade de Deus favela was in the middle of a conflict, a large majority of the film was shot in Cidade Alta, a different favela within Rio. During the production, slumlords did not allow for the production company to have their own security, so local security guards were hired for the safety of the set.
Lund and Meirelles filmed the short film Golden Gate as a test run while casting for City of God was in the initial stages.
The score to the film composed by Antonio Pinto and Ed Córtes. It was followed by two remix albums. Songs from the film:
The film was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. The film could not be part of the official selection because Walter Salles, one of the executive producers, was in the festival jury. In Brazil, City of God garnered the largest audience for a domestic film in 2002, with over 3.1 million tickets sold, and a gross of R$18.6 million ($10.3 million). The film grossed over $7.5 million in the U.S. and over US$30.5 million worldwide.
On Rotten Tomatoes, City of God has an approval rating of 91% based on reviews from 165 critics, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads, "City of God offers a shocking and disturbing—but always compelling—look at life in the slums of Rio de Janeiro." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 79 out of 100 based on 33 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Colin Kennedy from Empire awarded the film a full 5 out of 5 stars, comparing it favorably to Goodfellas and writing in his review, "At once a laboratory for cinema technique and a victory for raw heart, this is a snot-nosed, blood-stained masterpiece. If you see even one or two better movies this year, you will be very lucky indeed." In 2008, the magazine chose City of God as the 177th best film of all time.
Film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film 4 stars out of 4, writing in his review, "City of God churns with furious energy as it plunges into the story of the slum gangs of Rio de Janeiro. Breathtaking and terrifying, urgently involved with its characters, it announces a new director of great gifts and passions: Fernando Meirelles. Remember the name."
Filmmaker Robert Altman stated, "I don't know how Fernando Meirelles made City Of God. It's so courageous, so truthful. I think it's the best picture I've ever seen". Meirelles himself cited Altman's work as an influence on his own career.
The film was not without criticism. Peter Rainer of New York magazine stated that while the film was "powerful", it was also "rather numbing". John Powers of LA Weekly wrote that "[the film] whirs with energy for nearly its full 130-minute running time, it is oddly lacking in emotional heft for a work that aspires to be so epic – it is essentially a tarted up exploitation picture whose business is to make ghastly things fun".
Ivana Bentes, a Brazilian film critic, criticised the film for its depiction of the favela and her view that it glorified issues of poverty and violence as means of "domestication of the most radical themes of culture and Brazilian cinema ... as products for export." Bentes targets the film specifically in saying that: "City of God promotes tourism in hell".
City of God was ranked No.3 in Film4's "50 Films to See Before You Die", and No.7 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. It was also ranked No.6 on The Guardian's list of "the 25 Best Action Movies Ever". It was ranked No.1 in Paste magazine's 50 best movies of the decade of the 2000s. Time listed it as one of the 100 greatest films of all time.
In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed City of God as the 17th best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its members.
The film appeared on several American critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2003.
It is ranked No.38 on the BBC list of best 100 films of the 21st century.
Brazilian rapper MV Bill, a resident of Cidade de Deus, said the film had "brought no good to the favela, no social, moral, or human benefit." He said, "The world will know that they exploited the image of the children who live here in Cidade de Deus. What is obvious is that they are going to carry a bigger stigma throughout their lives; it has only become greater because of the film."
City of God won fifty-five awards and received another twenty-nine nominations. Among those:
In an interview with Slant Magazine, Meirelles states he had met with Brazil's former and current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who told him about the impact the film has had on both policies and public security within the country. The film has also sparked major increase in film productions, with over 45 being done during 2002. Films such as The Motorcycle Diaries and The Intruder are some of the films which have used Brazil for film production.
The 2013 documentary City of God – 10 Years Later reunites the cast and crew of City of God and takes a look at how their lives have changed after the original film's release. In a BBC article written at the time of the documentary's release, Firmino mentions that the cast had mixed careers after the film's release. Firmino says that Jefechander Suplino, who played Clipper, could not be found by the documentary producers. His mother, however, believes him to still be alive, but is unaware of his whereabouts. Seu Jorge, who played Knockout Ned, had a better career after the film and became a major musician, performing at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony.
City of God: The Fight Rages On, a miniseries set two decades after the events of the film, premiered in August 2024.