Brazil (1985) poster
1985 · sci-fi · drama · comedy

Brazil

Directed by Terry Gilliam2h 23m1985
ElsewhereIMDb7.8222kRT98%Metacritic84TMDB7.74k
  • sombre
  • intense
  • surreal
  • signature
Movie DNA

Sombre, steady, measured sci-fi / drama, surreal in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Our read · Brazil (1985) reads as a sombre, steady, surreal sci-fi · drama · comedy entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Brazil

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want bureaucratic dystopia as dark comedy that curdles into nightmare.

ends devastatingit will wreck youbuilds to a gut-punch finalegrips by minute 22attention 5/5feels its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violencebody horror

Skip it tonightYou need a clear happy ending or patience for Gilliam's labyrinthine satire.

If Brazil is your film
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself