Belle de Jour Reviews

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.

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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?

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

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

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

...is a fascinating cinematic achievement that dares to connect Deneuve's porcelain beauty to a world of bourgeois rebellion.

Full Review | Original Score: A+

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

Full Review | Original Score: A

A delicacy, a passionate and compassionate study of erotica.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

It is possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

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

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This silly little masterpiece regards Deneuve as the goddess of light she really was -- a figment of our collective appetite for the unreal.

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A surprisingly discreet film considering the erotic nature of the subject matter.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

Icy sketch of prostitute's life by one of film's greatest directors

| Original Score: 5/5

Oddly fascinating.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A radical work that both looks back at the director's own early surrealist cinema and anticipates the work of David Lynch.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

Absolutely superb.

| Original Score: 5/5

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.

| Original Score: 5/5

Every detail has been so carefully thought out that seeing it again is like seeing it in another key.

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One of master director Luis Buñuel's most wry and elegant films.

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But beyond the artistry, this film stands as the most accessible of Buñuel's work.

Full Review | Original Score: A

A wise, enormously enjoyable film about the power of fantasy -- a toast to the importance of dreams.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

I have seen few, if any, films that portray the inner struggles of a modern woman so honestly and beautifully.

Full Review | Original Score: 92/100