Variety
Driven by fantastic energy and a torrent of vivid images of India old and new, Slumdog Millionaire is a blast.
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Slumdog Millionaire
The big winner at the 2009 Academy Awards (eight Oscars in total, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay) is Danny Boyle's (Trainspotting, Sunshine) Slumdog Millionaire.
Jamal Malik (Patel), born into dire poverty, is an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai. The nation is watching as Jamal climbs that little ladder of cash on India's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' And climb he does, eventually one question away from winning the jackpot: 20 million rupees. But then the show breaks for the night, and police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much?
The police spend the night probing Jamal's past, recounting his life in the slums where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika (Pinto), the girl he loved and lost.
Less2008Rating: R13, contains violence & offensive language120 minsUK, USAEnglish, Hindi with English subtitles
ComedyDrama
- Director:
- Danny Boyle ('Trainspotting', 'Sunshine')
- Writer:
- Simon Beaufoy
- Cast:
- Dev PatelAnil KapoorSaurabh ShuklaRajendranath ZutshiFreida PintoIrfan Khan
Slumdog Millionaire | Awards
Winner of 8 Oscars, including Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay - Academy Awards 2009. Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay - BAFTA Awards 2009. Best Film (Drama), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Original Score - Golden Globes 2009. Audience Award winner at Toronto Film Festival 2008.
Slumdog Millionaire | Reviews
91%289 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® Score
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The New York Times
A gaudy, gorgeous rush of color, sound and motion, “Slumdog Millionaire,” the latest from the British shape-shifter Danny Boyle, doesn’t travel through the lower depths, it giddily bounces from one horror to the next. A modern fairy tale about a pauper angling to become a prince...
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San Francisco Chronicle
The movie takes audiences to the poorest sections of India and shows a level of poverty and human misery that's almost beyond our imagining - and yet so pervasive that people seem to take it in stride, as an unalterable fact. The movie provides an indelible education into how other people live, and that's a noble function. We get the range of modern Indian life, from the technological sophistication of its television stations to the primitive shacks in which people live in crushing proximity to one another. The film is so vivid that you can almost smell it, and there are images that will linger with viewers for a long time.
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Roger Ebert
When I saw "Slumdog Millionaire" at Toronto, I was witnessing a phenomenon: dramatic proof that a movie is about how it tells itself. I walked out of the theater and flatly predicted it would win the Audience Award. Seven days later, it did. And that it could land a best picture Oscar nomination. We will see. It is one of those miraculous entertainments that achieves its immediate goals and keeps climbing toward a higher summit.
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Los Angeles Times
A Hollywood-style romantic melodrama that delivers major studio satisfactions in an ultra-modern way, was made on the streets of India with largely unknown stars by a British director who never makes the same movie twice? Go figure.
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Hollywood Reporter
What's perhaps most fascinating about the film is Boyle's relentless focus on the realities of present-day India as a vehicle for his spectacle and laughs.
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Film Threat
Absolutely perfect family entertainment for anyone over the age of ten. It is a celebration of not just the usual triumph of the human spirit, but a celebration of the human experience.
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Empire Magazine
Danny Boyle's finest since "Trainspotting." In fact, it's the best British/Indian gameshow-based romance of the millennium.
Full reviewSlumdog Millionaire | Release Details
Slumdog Millionaire is available to stream in New Zealand now on Netflix and Google Play and Apple TV and TVNZ+ and Academy On Demand and AroVision.