that was incredibly heart breaking! another one of the foreign lenguage movies that could beat any of the 8 nominees for best picture!! and Zain was spectacular !!! in a fair world he'd be nominated for best actor easily

it's a dark, very dark movie, have a lot and lots of pain it and are you in a good mood so watch it..

Absolutely incredible film making. Devastating, brutal and all those other adjectives that describe being born into poverty in a developing country.

Nadine Labaki has created a masterpiece. Zain Al Rafeea's performance is among the greatest pieces of child acting I've ever seen. Khaled Mouzanar wrote the screenplay and the score, which is beautiful. Christopher Aoun's cinematography is also on the nail.

This film is superb. I hope many, many people watch it.


9.5/10

This is an incredibly hard film to review, simply because it truly puts into perspective just how useless any criticism against it is. The point of this movie is not to be a cinematic masterpiece, but to shock. And shock it does.

It succeeds for almost the entirety of its runtime in showing, through the use of non-professional actors and a social-realism directing style, the hardest truths about our rotten world. It fails, however, in the target it directs its social commentary at, often feeling indecisive or lost regarding what message it is trying to convey.

Labaki’s premise was the exploration of the lack of value a child’s life has in an environment like the one her film portrays, which does ultimately come through in the final product.

Despite a shaky finish where most of its faults are exposed, the large majority of the film is of mandatory viewing. In the end, reviewing it is meaningless because most of us will not be fit to judge it in the slightest, and could come off as unbearably out-of-touch if we try.

The original title of the film is Capharnaüm.

Such a powerfull movie with great script and with important messages..It's a must watch movie i can't believe it took me so long to watch it..Kid's perfomance deserved an oscar for sure he was perfect.8.7/10

Heartbreaking, all the more so considering this is an authentic examination of refugee life. Given extra resonance by a cast of amateurs; people who have experienced the world that the film depicts. Young Zain deserves an Oscar!

Perhaps a tad too long and a shade stretchy in its concept, yet the film drenches you in the personality that is Zain. The very young actor embodies this role fully.

A rough life, but sweetnes and love is found anywhere, even in the darkest of places. It's only so heartbreaking to see how this young boy tries to do everything he can to do the right thing, and yet the world around him is not letting him. Shockingly real for how it must be in real.

It had me in tears.

Best film I've watched in ages.

The last shot of him smiling had me uncontrollably bawling my eyes out. I couldn't stop for a good five minutes. Wow! What an extremely difficult watch but completely necessary for everyone to see. We get so caught up in our own lives sometimes, other's misery becomes merely an inconvenience to us and, whether we'd like to admit it or not, our empathy gets a little rusty. But it's movies like this that hopefully wakes as up and makes us want to do good in the world.

Yet another great film from Nadine Labaki. Deeply moved by Zain's relation with his sister Sahar, a child trying to protect another child from getting married, well that speaks volumes!
And boy do Lebanese dictionary just filled with creative swears

I really suffer watching this film. It is so well made with a painful plot. In terms of the art it is great. In terms of the story it is brutal. All the acting is amazing. It is so well made that I don't know if I watched kind of a documentary because it felt extremely real. Misery and poverty ache because they exist the same in every continent.

Eagerly awaiting the superhero spin-off film, "Cockroach Man".