A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.
Acting
Chweneyagae's eyes do the work dialogue never could.
Direction
Hood makes Johannesburg both suffocating and strangely beautiful.
Score
Kwaito beats that thrum with the character's heartbeat.
Director
Gavin Hood
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tsotsi was the first South African film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, bringing township cinema to global audiences who'd never heard tsotsitaal spoken on screen.
The baby was played by twins, and director Gavin Hood used documentary-style shooting in actual Johannesburg townships—some locals didn't realize they were in a movie until later.
ZA
