The movie centers on Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu, who manages the Hôtel des Mille Collines and lives a happy life with his Tutsi wife and their three children. During the struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda, over 1 million people were brutally murdered in three months, but Paul saves over thousand lives by housing Tutsi refugees.
25 January 1969
1 October 1962, Nigeria
9 July 1965, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
26 January 1955, Padua, Veneto, Italy
26 March 1979, Phokeng, North West Province, South Africa
30 July 1948, Casablanca, French Protectorate of Morocco [now Morocco]
29 November 1964, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
30 March 1970, KwaMashu, South Africa
1971, Diepkloof, Gauteng, South Africa
26 December 1976, Zomba, Malawi
28 October 1974, San Juan, Puerto Rico
13 May 1971, South Africa
December1971, Hollywood, Florida, USA
September 24, 2010
Like "Schindler's List," "Hotel Rwanda" shows how the madness of genocide and war converted one man's context of wealth and success from capitalism to humanitarianism. Don Cheadle honors Paul Rusesabagina by tapping his brave face and internal rage.January 14, 2005
Move past the big picture, of race hatred, arbitrary maps and guilt over what the UN and the West can't or won't do, and find the human story within the inhumanity of war.January 07, 2005
The great strength of Hotel Rwanda is that it's not about superhuman heroism but simply about human decency.June 24, 2006
There's a tidiness and sense of convenience in the film's stock characterisations and button-pushing plotting that detracts from its impact. The film doesn't just contrive to contain the slaughter, but also its own anger.January 07, 2005
The almost forgotten but all too real African genocide documented in Hotel Rwanda hits us as suddenly and as hard as it does Paul Rusesabagina, the accidental hero played so masterfully by Don Cheadle.December 07, 2007
This is a solid film, but it is the truth that holds the power, not the direction.July 14, 2007
The film belongs to Don Cheadle as Paul and, not surprisingly, he walks away with it.April 16, 2009
Don Cheadle gives a beautifully restrained tour de force performance as a singular voice of reason at the epicenter of writer/director Terry George's depiction of Rwanda's outbreak of genocide in 1994 when Hutu militias slaughtered one million Tutsis withAugust 17, 2010
potentially fantastic material...unfortunately, [Terry] George's attempt is too mired in movie-of-the-week sensibilities...to do any justice to its subject matterMay 05, 2007
The filmmakers want to respect history and not exploit it as so much slasher movie fodder.September 26, 2005
Showing traces of the well-meaning paternalism that dogs many Western films about Africa, Hotel Rwanda doesn't go far enough in indicting Europeans and Americans for protecting their own while failing to intervene in time to stop the mass killings.January 07, 2005
It has a genuine power: the ability of film to beam light onto dark days of history, making it impossible for us to look away, reminding us of what we should never forget.