In a 2016 international critics' poll conducted by BBC the film version of Carlos, Toni Erdmann, and Requiem for a Dream were tied for 100th place in a list of the 100 greatest motion pictures since 2000.

Ilich Ramírez Sánchez—who adopts the code name of "Carlos" early in the film—is a grim and elusive Venezuelan Marxist terrorist whose life is tracked as he executes dozens of assassination plots, abductions, and bombings across Europe and the Middle East in the cause of Palestinian liberation.

The film begins in Paris in 1973, where the young Ramírez Sánchez is endeavoring to prove himself as a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) fighter, and ends with his capture in Sudan, in 1994.

In between, Carlos and his fellow terrorists wreak havoc on the Left Bank in Paris, storm OPEC's headquarters in Vienna, and carry out other devastating acts of politically motivated violence.

When André is arrested, French agents of the domestic intelligence service, the DST, want to know more about Ilich, who has by now adopted the nom de guerre "Carlos."

Leading a group of six militants—leftists from German Revolutionary Cells and Palestinian militants including Anis Naccache—Carlos seizes control of the OPEC headquarters, taking ministers and accompanying delegates hostage.

This intense activity of geopolitical destabilization, orchestrated by Carlos who is trafficking arms, handling huge sums of cash and leading the life of the "Godfather of European terrorism", is soon to come to an end.

The last place offering refuge is Sudan: Carlos is by now retired and tracked by the secret services of several countries, abandoned by his closest allies, a long way from the center stage of international politics.

With the complicity of the Sudanese authorities, and due to immobility from a testicular condition, he is captured on August 14, 1994 and brought back to Paris to stand trial for crimes that have not been forgotten in France.

His lawyer plans to bring two more lawsuits, one that argues the film breaches pre-trial judicial secrecy laws and a second that demands Carlos be paid royalties for his life's role in providing material for the scriptwriters.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Despite its hefty running time, Carlos moves along briskly, thanks to an engaging story, exotic locales, and a breakout performance by Edgar Ramirez.

[17] IndieWire's Todd McCarthy found the film to be "a dynamic, convincing and revelatory account of a notorious revolutionary terrorist's career that rivets the attention during every one of its 321 minutes" and praised Assayas' "ever-propulsive style that creates an extraordinary you-are-there sense of verisimilitude, while Edgar Ramirez inhabits the title role with arrogant charisma of Brando in his prime.

Think of The Bourne Identity with more substance, or Munich with more of a pulse, and you begin to have a sense of what the French filmmaker accomplished with this globetrotting and epic look at one man's rise to the station of international guerrilla leader and terrorist celebrity".

[19] In his review for USA Today, Anthony Breznican wrote, "The closest cousin to Carlos, cinematically speaking, might be There Will Be Blood—another epic view inside a mind of twisted humanity".

It's shot in Scope, boasts the fleet way with narrative, camera movement and cutting that are characteristic of Assayas at his best and has a sense of scale, depth and seriousness of purpose that is essentially cinematic", but felt that "the third and final part runs out of steam a little".

[22] In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote, "Carlos is gripping stuff, despite its incongruously fashionable rock soundtrack and a grossly over-played final section.

[25] Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "And Carlos, while matching the Coppola and Lean films in length and breadth, misses out on depth ... No masterpiece, Assayas' movie is a fast-paced, knowing trip through two decades of violence on two continents".

[26] In her review for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote, "Played by Mr. Ramirez with jolts of charisma and, smartly, little of the usual movie-star charm—if not much depth or nuance—Carlos is a difficult character on which to hang such an ambitious, inherently cumbersome tale".

[27] In his review for New York magazine, David Edelstein wrote, "In retrospect, it's a bit of a blur, and you might opt to see Assayas' condensed version (alternating in some theaters), which clocks in at a trim two and a half hours.

[28] In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Betsy Sharkey wrote, "In the end the collaboration between Ramirez and Assayas creates a fiercely astute portrait of a terrorist that neither romanticizes nor demonizes him, but rather dismantles the myth to take some measure of the man underneath.

I assume that anyone who will recognize and follow each and every event and the historical players portrayed in Carlos must have worked in foreign diplomacy back when the rest of us were busy watching the Fonz".