1985 Comedy Named 'Best Picture' Stars Robert De Niro in Unlikely Role

When you think of Robert De Niro, your mind could take you to any number of Martin Scorsese films, or even The Godfather Part II.

Back in 1985, however, the renowned Oscar winner, 82, went a bit "against type" and played a juicy supporting role in Terry Gilliam's finest film to date (as many have argued). The director behind 12 Monkeys, 85, released a sci-fi comedy a decade earlier titled Brazil - and its visionary nature is still discussed and dissected to this day.

At the time, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named it Best Picture of 1985, and Brazil can also be spotted on Rotten Tomatoes' sprawling list of 300 Best Movies of All Time. Here's the official synopsis of the fantasy stunner, which holds an impressive 98% average critics' rating on the review-aggregation website:

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) 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 (De Niro), he meets the woman from his daydream (Kim Greist), and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies...

There's also plenty of fans' appreciation of Brazil, meanwhile. On a movies-centric Reddit thread, for example, one user boldly proclaimed the film to be "probably one of the greatest dystopian movies I have ever seen." Another user commented in the thread, "This is my favourite film of all time. A lot of that is probably due to not knowing a single thing about it when it just came up on the tv and I sat and watched it alone. Watching it unfold with no explanation or preconceptions made it one of the most enjoyable movie experiences I've ever had."

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This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 4:54 PM.