Curator Watchlist
A pulpy, high-concept Nazi-hunter thriller with a terrific cast and an enjoyably paranoid premise, but its tonal stiffness and occasionally absurd plotting keep it from fully landing. It’s most rewarding if you like serious actors committing hard to a wildly implausible setup.
Where to watch: Buy
Thu · 2h 5m
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Starring: Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason
Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman discovers a sinister and bizarre plot, masterminded by Dr. Josef Mengele, to rekindle the Third Reich.
Franklin J. Schaffner
Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason
A pulpy, high-concept Nazi-hunter thriller with a terrific cast and an enjoyably paranoid premise, but its tonal stiffness and occasionally absurd plotting keep it from fully landing. It’s most rewarding if you like serious actors committing hard to a wildly implausible setup.
The Boys from Brazil is one of those movies where the premise alone does half the work: Nazi hunters, Josef Mengele, and a plan to recreate Hitler. It sounds outrageous because it is, but the film mostly plays it with grim, old-school seriousness, which gives the absurdity a strange charge instead of deflating it entirely.
What keeps it watchable is the cast. Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, and James Mason bring real authority to material that could easily collapse into nonsense. The movie’s pleasures are less about surprise than accumulation: a sense of dread, a trail of clues, and the uneasy feeling that the conspiracy might actually be too big to dismiss.
It doesn’t quite become the great thriller it wants to be, partly because the pacing is heavy and the concept is inherently ludicrous. But as a piece of 1970s paranoid entertainment, it has a durable, off-kilter appeal. If you’re in the mood for something intelligent, grim, and a little ridiculous, it’s worth the trip.
Jacob Knight (3.5★) · 335 likes
Masterpiece Theater Presents: Would You Kill Baby Hitler?
theriverjordan (3.5★) · 255 likes
“The Boys From Brazil” gets the old thespian gang together for one last Nazi hunt. By the time you realize just how ridiculous the conceit of “Brazil” truly is… the film’s legendary leads have already sold you on an all-expense paid trip to Cuckoosville. Which - I assume - is somewhere in South America. “Brazil” stars Laurence Olivier as a retired Nazi hunter, who agrees to take on a final target in the post-war absconded criminal Dr. Josef Mengele, played… more
Kenneth Clark (3.5★) · 189 likes
What are the odds that Mengele himself watched this movie (which came out a few years before his death) and thought to himself, “damn why didn’t I think of that?”
William Cooper (2.5★) · 172 likes
"Who would believe such a ridiculous story?" My thoughts exactly. That line is said by Laurence Olivier half way through this movie but completely summed up my thoughts on it. I'll watch anything on WW2 and those evil basterd NAZIS but this is a bridge too far. I just wanted to see NAZIS hunted down and killed, not some crazy story about cloning Hitler 94 times and recreating his exact environmental upbringing in them. The whole plot played like a farce to me. Not even the stellar cast could save this for me.
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (3.5★) · 158 likes
In this adaptation of Ira Levein's novel, a fantastic cast joins forces to stop the sinister Josef Mengele, who has taken refuge in Brazil, from carrying out a diabolical new experiment. Heywood Gould's writing does a good job of keeping you engaged and invested throughout the story's intricacies. Director Franklin J. Schaffner strikes a nice balance between the film's tension and thriller components and Gregory Peck's campy performance as the infamous Dr. Mengele, who is both intimidating and mildly entertaining… more
A tense 1970s conspiracy thriller with a hunted-man structure, international intrigue, and a similarly grim sense of menace.
Shares the postwar Nazi-hunter obsession and the procedural satisfaction of tracking hidden war criminals.
A classic paranoia thriller that turns political conspiracy into a chilling, high-concept nightmare.
For viewers drawn to shadowy organizations, institutional dread, and the cool, bleak texture of 1970s conspiracy cinema.
A smart, anxious spy thriller where ordinary investigation opens onto a much larger, more sinister system.
Not genre-similar in plot, but it matches the methodical, investigative momentum and 1970s procedural realism.
A masterclass in paranoia, surveillance, and the slow collapse of certainty.
For its political urgency, conspiracy structure, and relentless sense of institutional rot.
A meticulous, suspenseful manhunt thriller with a cold, procedural approach to danger.
A dry, intelligent espionage film with a similar taste for bureaucratic unease and offbeat menace.
Bleak, adult-minded espionage with moral fatigue and a deeply cynical worldview.
For audiences who enjoy absurdity colliding with bureaucracy, paranoia, and darkly comic dystopian logic.
Nazi hunting, postwar conspiracy, genetic manipulation, identity and inheritance, paranoia, moral obsession, fascism and its afterlife, thriller investigation
1970s thriller, paranoid suspense, historical drama, science fiction concept, war aftermath, conspiracy, bioethics, campy seriousness, political villainy, slow burn