Belle de Jour (1967)
Average Rating: 8.6/10
Reviews Counted: 40
Fresh: 38 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 3,222
Movie Info
Belle de Jour dramatizes the collision between depravity and elegance, one of the favorite themes of director Luis Buñuel. Catherine Deneuve stars as a wealthy but bored newlywed, eager to taste life to the fullest. She seemingly gets her wish early in the film when she is kidnapped, tied to a tree, and gang-raped. It turns out that this is only a daydream, but her subsequent visits to a neighboring brothel, where she offers her services, certainly seem to be real. This illusion/reality
Apr 10, 1968 Wide
Jan 22, 2002
Miramax Zoe
Cast
-
Catherine Deneuve
Séverine Serizy, Séver... -
Jean Sorel
Pierre Serizy -
Michel Piccoli
Henri Husson -
Geneviève Page
Madame Anais -
Francisco Rabal
Hyppolite -
Macha Méril
Renee Fevret -
Pierre Clémenti
Marcel -
Francis Blanche
Monsieur Adolphe -
Francoise Fabian
Charlotte -
Maria Latour
Mathilde -
-
Michel Charrel
Footman -
Dominique Dandrieux
Severine as a child -
Marc Eyraud
Barman -
Bernard Fresson
Le Grêle, Le Grêle, Le... -
Iska Khan
Asian client -
Francois Maistre
L'ensignant -
Georges Marchal
The Duke -
Muni
Pallas -
Bernard Musson
Majordomo -
Brigitte Parmentier
Severine as a child -
Marcel Charvey
Professor Henri
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All Critics (43) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (38) | Rotten (2) | DVD (10)
A delicacy, a passionate and compassionate study of erotica.
It is possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best.
Of all the supposedly challenging attractions playing locally in our supposedly more enlightened era, the most compellingly erotic and entertaining spectacle is still provided by Belle de Jour
This silly little masterpiece regards Deneuve as the goddess of light she really was -- a figment of our collective appetite for the unreal.
Every detail has been so carefully thought out that seeing it again is like seeing it in another key.
A wise, enormously enjoyable film about the power of fantasy -- a toast to the importance of dreams.
Luis Bunuel's cheerfully brazen satire of sexual repression, social decorum, and erotic fantasies is in the running for Bunuel's kinkiest film, and that's saying a lot.
Something that keeps us on our toes in Belle de Jour comes from Luis Buñuel's refusal to spell out what is real and what is not. Must this be so clear to us when the fantasy life of Séverine means so much to her?
A character study with surreal interludes and a rare film in which Buñuel depicts a member of the upper class with some sympathy and depth
...is a fascinating cinematic achievement that dares to connect Deneuve's porcelain beauty to a world of bourgeois rebellion.
One of the most acclaimed and accessible masterworks of surrealist cinema, an erotic meditaton about reality and fantasy that remains alluring and shocking decades after it was made, at least partly due to Catherine Deneuve's cool, mesmerizing performance
A surprisingly discreet film considering the erotic nature of the subject matter.
Icy sketch of prostitute's life by one of film's greatest directors
Oddly fascinating.
A radical work that both looks back at the director's own early surrealist cinema and anticipates the work of David Lynch.
Absolutely superb.
The use of dreams fused with reality works because the two things balance one another to create a whole, instead of detracting as a cop-out as most movies with this motif rely on.
One of master director Luis Buñuel's most wry and elegant films.
But beyond the artistry, this film stands as the most accessible of Buñuel's work.
I have seen few, if any, films that portray the inner struggles of a modern woman so honestly and beautifully.
Audience Reviews for Belle de Jour
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Foreign Titles
- Belle de jour - Schöne des Tages (DE)
- Belle de Jour (Beautiful of the Day) (UK)


Top Critic