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Les misérables

Play trailer 1:53 Poster for Les misérables R 2020 1h 44m Crime Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
88% Tomatometer 194 Reviews 89% Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Verified Ratings
Members of a Parisian anti-crime squad become overwhelmed by simmering neighborhood tension and violence.
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Les misérables

Les misérables

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Critics Consensus

Les Misérables transcends its unwieldy story with compelling ideas and an infectious energy that boils over during a thrilling final act.

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Critics Reviews

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Robbie Collin Daily Telegraph (UK) 11/22/2020
4/5
Fleet of foot and fiery of belly, this new Les Mis is an attention-commanding debut from a filmmaker with a finger on his home town's ever-quickening pulse. Go to Full Review
Mark Kermode Observer (UK) 09/06/2020
4/5
Slips stealthily from astute observation to urgent action, reminding us of Hugo's maxim that "there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators." Go to Full Review
Kevin Maher The Times (UK) 09/05/2020
4/5
It is the most incendiary crime film to emerge from French cinema since Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine. Go to Full Review
Julian Singleton Cinapse Jul 12
Les Misérables examines the valid reasons why those without a social voice turn to violence for expression, while acknowledging that violence as part of a cycle of retribution that must be broken at all costs. Go to Full Review
Brandon Stanwyck InSession Film 07/17/2024
B+
It’s disconcerting how relevant Les Misérables is, isn’t it? Which one am I talking about? You pick. Go to Full Review
Philipp Engel Cinemanía (Spain) 06/20/2024
'Les Misérables' reflects on the meaning of political struggle and says goodbye to violence in this new film about the Parisian suburbs. [Full review in Spanish] Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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02/10/2020 Started off very slowly and then escalated into a violent and disturbing ending. In all honesty I really dont know if I liked it or not. See more 01/25/2020 Thought provoking. Captures some of the current cultural issues in multicultural France (Europe). Well done. See more Jonathan K @aFIREintheattic Sep 8 I don't really agree with that ending. It builds to this huge, intense climax then just… literally fades to black in this vignette, iris-out shot. I can appreciate it in theory but don't actually enjoy this kind of thing in practice. The film is clearly going for the moral dilemma/ambiguity/nuance of it all in showing that everyone's flawed, and that good and bad live on both sides. Which, fair enough. Both outcomes presented at the end would've been terrible, so maybe the point is just: "Does it really matter if we show which it is?" But for me, showing one outcome -- or even both in some clever two ending scenarios split -- would've hit harder. It would've made the ending as visceral as it deserved to be. Other than that? Pretty solid, gritty, Training Day-style French crime drama. See more 03/14/2022 A film with a beautiful aesthetic. But it is a fiction that totally distorts the reality of the French suburbs. According to the film, the victims would be these city scum. It's quite the opposite. No relation to the work of Victor Hugo. See more 01/24/2022 On the craft: Fantastically cast, flawlessly acted, super camera, good music. About the content: There is no good and evil here, only overload on all sides. The individual can no longer fix it, the problem is structural. I would like to see more films like this, political films in the best sense, that relentlessly show the problem without pretending to know the solution. See more 08/19/2021 No, not that one. This is a hard hitting Parisian drama, set in the aftermath of the French World Cup win in 2018. It's an impressive mash of The Wire (the greatest TV show ever made, not sure I've mentioned that before) End Of Watch (2012) and La Haine (1995). A cop, Laurent, has just moved to Paris from the provinces, joining a police crime squad, and is given a tour and introduction to the neighbourhood by the other two cops in his team, taking in the local youths from the projects who work for different gangsters in the area. An incident involving the three cops sets in motion a chain of events that affects all strands of society within this small district, in the space of just a couple of days. It's a race against the clock for all of the groups mentioned above, and that's not to dismiss this as your average action thriller. Les Miserables is nothing like that at all, it's an uncompromising, bleak, and frank drama with moments of shocking violence. This is a directorial debut for Ladj Ly, and it really is some inaugural film, showing some serious promise for future offerings. See more Read all reviews
Les misérables

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Movie Info

Synopsis Members of a Parisian anti-crime squad become overwhelmed by simmering neighborhood tension and violence.
Director
Ladj Ly
Producer
Toufik Ayadi, Christophe Barral
Screenwriter
Ladj Ly, Giordano Gederlini, Alexis Manenti
Distributor
Amazon Studios
Production Co
Rectangle Productions, Lyly Films, Srab Films
Rating
R (Language Throughout|Disturbing/Violent Content|Sexual References)
Genre
Crime, Drama
Original Language
French (France)
Release Date (Theaters)
Jan 10, 2020, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 9, 2020
Runtime
1h 44m
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1)
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