Directed by John Frankenheimer
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.
Sob o Domínio do Mal, El Mensajero del miedo, 谍影迷魂, 恐怖分子, Κάτω από εναν Αλλον Ηλιο, 谍网迷魂, 맨츄리안 켄디데이트, Botschafter der Angst, 맨츄리안 캔디데이트, Ruterdame dreper, Và e uccidi, Mantshurian kandidaatti, Un crime dans la tête, O Enviado da Manchúria, El mensajero del miedo, 满洲候选人, Hjärntvättad, Маньчжурский кандидат, A Mandzsúriai jelölt, Przeżyliśmy wojnę, Ο Άνθρωπος της Μαντζουρίας, המועמד ממנצ'וריה, Mandžuský kandidát, Kandidaten fra Manchuriet, Mançuryalı Aday, Манджурският кандидат, Манжурський кандидат, El embajador del miedo, کاندیدای منچوری, El missatger de la por, 影なき狙撃者, กระชากแผนลับ ดับมหาอำนาจ, 諜網迷魂, Манџуријски кандидат, Mandžūrijas kandidāts
CanadaR 
USAPG-13 
UK 
AustraliaM 
Germany16 
Sweden15 
PortugalM/14 
Netherlands16 
Brazil14 Netherlands16 Netherlands16 Australia Brazil Canada Germany Netherlands Portugal Sweden UK USA 
Uhhhhhh can we talk about how absolutely deranged Janet Leigh's character is and how this is never addressed? She's gotta be some sort of secret brainwashing operative, right?
The Manchurian Candidate is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful movie I've ever known in my life.
The only Hollywood movie that belongs to the French New Wave.
Am I allowed to say this is the greatest American film? The most American film? The most anti-American film? In any case I don’t think you can overrate it; it’s at once the sum of its well-oiled and wonderfully jagged parts and beyond them, conjuring up and sustaining the kind of immersive, absurdist delirium that movies were invented for, all while keeping a (queens high) poker face. Not only is Frankenheimer’s live TV blatancy perfect for a story about media manipulation and mind control, but the material also brings out gifts he’d never tried to use: he etches a surrealist streak not just through the dream sequences but the waking moments as well, revelling in the same “dime-store symbolism” Welles…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
78/100
Bit of a nosedive (this was previously my favorite film of '62), because I can no longer persuade myself that the whole is greater than—or even equal to—the sum of its parts. Marco and Rosie's meet-weird on the train ("Are you Arabic? Let me put it another way: Are you married?"), for example, introduces a fascinating character in whom the movie ultimately has almost zero interest; Janet Leigh all but vanishes thereafter, turning up now and again as a completely generic girlfriend who just looks concerned about stuff. Likewise, the hallucinogenic garden-club nightmare/flashback, while a masterpiece of sustained black comedy, isn't integrated into Raymond's assignment, nor does it even seem necessary for its own sake (since the brainwashed men…
The missing link between Orson Welles and Brian De Palma. An experimental satirical thriller about how the Hollywood apparatus produce fictions that can play sleight of hand with any kind of paranoia and ressentment. Axelrod script remains one of the funniest of its era and Frankenheimer directs everything with playful energy he really rarely conjure elsewhere. Droll, very nasty and still chilling on its implications near six decades later.
Somewhere in this film is an incisive criticism of McCarthyist hysteria. We have a character who uses a senator as an instrument to peddle anti-commie paranoia. The tactic is to get this person to interrupt press briefings by shouting about the amount of ‘card carrying commies’ there are in congress. The genius is that the number keeps changing. This changes the question, the unproven claim is not challenged and instead the conversation focuses on ‘how many are there?’
This is such a smart way of showing how you can magic up hysteria and paranoia out of nothing. But this viewpoint is not the film’s viewpoint. This is a film about how the Soviets and wider communist nations have actually managed…
They’re calling me the Manchurian candidate folks, I don’t know if you’ve heard this or not but they are. They’re saying I’m the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being they’ve ever known in their lives; they’re saying that. In fact they’re saying I’m actually the most Manchurian person in the history of our country believe it or not—there has never, ever been a better Manchurian they’re saying. And they’re not saying that about my opponent folks; she’s not a man so, how could she be a Manchurian? They’re also saying Frank Sinatra is interested in me and what I can do with my hands; and I’ll show him too. He’s crazy about me, Frank is. A beautiful man. Very…
criterion is not about to catch me slipping. I will be well researched when I get trapped in that closet. (Watching this on tubi lol)
THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES
Pretty cool. Was expecting MK Ultra and got Sigmund Freud which is a trade-off I’ll take. Absolutely loved the garden club hotel lobby/communist hypno demonstration scene and the constant shifting of the backgrounds, speaker and audience. I think I might prefer the Demme remake tho, sacrilegious as that may be.
This movie is Angela Lansbury in full badass mode and Frank Sinatra in full anxious mode and the combination of the two: full hypnotization mode. Bye bye, ace of spades, the queen of diamonds has taken over.
