Not my favorite movie, but possibly the 'Best' movie I've ever seen.

Though I don't give it a 10, I'm happy to see someone giving a 10 to a movie that legitimately could be considered a 10 unlike something stupid such as Twilight.

I agree. I feel that we could follow the story step by step and see why such and such an event led to the next point and it was really easy to follow. Such a complex film could easily have left people confused but I was gripped by the film the entire way through.

Li'l Ze was a character who was very easy to hate and fear although he wasn't one dimensional, there were moments when you could see his vulnerability, particularly at Benny's leaving party where you see his insecurity and jealousy.

On the other hand, Rocket was a 'hero' you could really get behind.. You could see his life was hard and he could easily have been dragged into the criminal underworld but he stuck to his morals and it showed that eventually, following the rules normally pays off although there are difficulties along the way.

It was quite a hard film to watch at times with so many killings and it was a bit sad to think that the young kids at the end of it are going to start the cycle of Li'l Ze again, just with more of them. Sad but very believable story

A rare treat on IMDB: someone who's applying their brain, able to separate "personal taste" from "merit".
Ditto. Several films have brought me greater enjoyment but I wouldn't even dare place those films in the same league as this one, each of them earning a score from me that's at least 1 to 3 points below City of God. And yup! This is one of my rare 10s.
In terms of storytelling and craft, this film is capital-a Art of the highest order.
The overtly thin-skinned may find it too 'rough' whilst the maddeningly naive deem it to be an exaggerated and unrealistic representation of what was happening in the favelas, but I've yet to come across a solid, well-grounded argument that's anything more than pure opinion from the perpetual contrarians, Michael Bay-style action junkies, and the likes who're convinced this is a bad film and fans are deluded; many are quick to say it's heavily flawed but not one of them has ever provided an example or has been able to shake my conviction that this is, for what it entails when applied to films, flawless.
Conversely, in terms of reasons why it's oh so good, I could go on and on...


Ignorance is bliss... 'til it posts on the Internet, then, it's annoying.