Film

Brüno

Name: Brüno
Genre: Comedy
Released: 2009
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten, Clifford Bañagale, Josh Meyers, Toby Holguin

Comedy
Strange
Relentless

Sacha Baron Cohen's flamboyant Austrian fashion reporter walks straight into real, unscripted situations — hunting lodges, cage-fighting arenas, a swingers' party, a Middle Eastern peace summit — and lets the ensuing chaos do the talking. Cruder and angrier than Borat, less interested in charming you than in cornering homophobia until it shows its face. Gasp-laugh comedy with genuine nerve; not for the squeamish or easily offended.

TMDb rating

2.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy a provocation that works by letting a committed performer walk into real public reactions, and you can laugh at discomfort without needing anyone to be spared.

Skip it if the joke is the same kind of shock again and again, and if crude gags about sex and bodies wear you down, the 83 minutes will feel long.

What it asks of you: It runs about 83 minutes, moves in quick sketches, and asks you to sit through raw bad taste more than to follow a plot.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan2006

Same director, same star, same guerrilla method: Cohen invents an oblivious foreigner, sends him into real America, and lets strangers' own prejudice and kindness do the talking. Somehow even more purely gleeful than Brüno.

But If you've seen it, you know every beat; if you haven't, a few scenes have aged into discomfort rather than shock.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan poster

Da Ali G Show2000

This is where Brüno started — fifteen-minute doses of the character proving the concept before the movie stretched him to eighty. Watch real politicians and pundits walk straight into Cohen's traps.

But Shorter sketches mean less build, and some interviews now feel very tied to their moment.

Jackass: The Movie2002

Strip away the satire and you're left with the raw ingredient Brüno runs on: real bodies, real reactions, real consequences, filmed by people who genuinely don't care what you think.

But There's no social point being made at all, just pain and idiocy — either the appeal or the dealbreaker.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Brüno

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Paris Is Burning1991

Both put an extravagantly performed queer persona in front of a hostile world, but one is fiction designed to expose homophobia for laughs, the other is real people living the exposure Brüno only pretends to risk.

A documentary about New York's Black and Latino drag ball culture in the 1980s, where flamboyance is armor, performance is survival, and being impossible to ignore is the whole point.

But It's tender and elegiac where Brüno is aggressive and cruel; anyone expecting jokes will find grief and joy instead.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan2020

Cohen returns to the well fourteen years later, older and angrier, aimed squarely at Trump-era America. The prank instincts are intact even as the world got harder to shock.

But Lightning rarely strikes the same field twice; several bits feel like echoes of earlier ones rather than escalations.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan poster

The Dictator2012

Cohen's most polished persona film — fully scripted, fully committed, still gleefully offensive, still willing to sit inside a joke long after good taste says stop.

But Losing the hidden-camera element removes the specific thrill Brüno runs on: real people's real bewilderment.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa2013

Takes the hidden-camera prank format and bolts on a flimsy plot and a surprising amount of heart under the transgression, closer to Brüno's structure than you'd expect.

But The character work is much broader and dumber; don't expect anything resembling satire.

Nathan for You2013

Nathan Fielder's deadpan version of the same trick — a persona so committed and strange that real people's businesses, patience, and dignity get quietly tested on camera.

But It's slow-burn awkward rather than loud-shock funny; the pace and tone are a world away from Brüno's chaos.

Brass Eye1997

Chris Morris's satirical newsmagazine spoof tricked real celebrities and politicians into endorsing absurd moral panics on camera — the meanest, smartest ancestor of Cohen's whole method.

But British and dated in its specific targets; some references need footnotes now.

Milk2008

Same raw nerve, opposite register: where Brüno cracks jokes to expose homophobia, Milk sits inside its consequences and asks you to feel them instead.

Sean Penn plays Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to major office in America, in a drama tracing the real, lethal cost of the prejudice Brüno spends ninety minutes provoking for laughs.

But A biopic with none of the anarchy — measured, mournful, entirely sincere where Brüno is entirely not.