YMMV / City of God

• Award Snub:
  • Brazilians revolted when it wasn't even nominated for Best Foreign Film by the Academy. Not even four nominations in main Oscar awards the following year fixed it.
  • The same with its Best Director nomination. Only Fernando Meirelles got credited despite the film having two directors (Katia Lund being the other). As a result, this prevented 2004 being the first year where two female directors got a Best Director nomination.
• Complete Monster: In the original novel, the prison gang leader only known as "Sheriff" stands out as a despicable monster despite not even being affiliated with Lil Zé. Ruling over his unit of the Lemos de Brito penitentiary with an iron fist, the Sheriff has implemented a system of sexual slavery where weaker inmates are made to serve his gang as their "wives". A thuggish Serial Rapist himself, the Sheriff spends years raping and torturing his personal slave for sadistic pleasure.
• Director Displacement: Fernando Meirelles tends to get all of the credit for the film even though he co-directed with Katia Lund.
• Memetic Mutation: In Brazil, the Cluster F-Bomb phrase "Dadinho é o caralho, meu nome agora é Zé Pequeno, porra!" (translated as "The fuck I'm Dadinho! My fucking name is Zé Pequeno now!")
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If you don't hate Lil' Zé when he massacres a whorehouse or even when he gleefully kills Buscapé's brother, you'll DEFINITELY hate him when he deals with the street kids and rapes Mané's wife.
  • Blacky (Neguinho) begins to cross it when his girlfriend cheats on him, and he beats her to death so brutally that she looks like a car crash victim. He finally crosses it when Bené saves his life from Lil' Zé, and he answers later by killing Benny, albeit accidentally.
• Nightmare Fuel: The scene of a child Lil' Zé gunning down the inhabitants of the No-Tell Motel while they're either restrained or unarmed. The idea of somebody so young committing an act of mass murder is deeply disturbing. The worst part is, he was an actual real life criminal, and the film's portrayal isn't that far off from reality.
• Retroactive Recognition: Seu Jorge (Knockout Ned) is a singer and later appeared in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Also, Alice Braga (Angélica), who went to Hollywood for films such as I Am Legend and Predators, and later hit drama series, Queen of the South.
• Too Cool to Live: Bené.

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