RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Check out the new RT Community
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Box Office
  • | In Theaters
  • | Opening
  • | Upcoming
  • | Best Of
  • | Certified Fresh
  • | Showtimes
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
Movies / On DVD / Pierrot Le Fou
Pierrot Le Fou

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Add to List
  • Get this Movie
  • Buy Poster External Icon
  • Bookmark and Share

Pierrot Le Fou (1965)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
80 %
Tomatometer

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

Reviews Counted: 30

Fresh: 24

Rotten:6

Average Rating: 7.4/10

Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins

Genre: Foreign Films

Synopsis: French auteur Jean-Luc Godard continues his fascination with the crime genre--after BREATHLESS and BAND OF OUTSIDERS--with PIERROT LE FOU. After escaping his stale, bourgeois marriage, Ferdinand... French auteur Jean-Luc Godard continues his fascination with the crime genre--after BREATHLESS and BAND OF OUTSIDERS--with PIERROT LE FOU. After escaping his stale, bourgeois marriage, Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a man on the run, encounters a captivating woman, Marianne (Godard's then-wife, Anna Karina). Striking up an immediate connection, the two begin a freewheeling affair that leads them to the Mediterranean Sea. There's one slight problem, though. Marianne is being pursued by a group of bloodthirsty mobsters who have chased her out of Algeria. Making matters worse for Ferdinand is the unfortunate fact that she turns out to be as much of a headache as his wife was, constantly referring to him as "Pierrot," much to his disdain. As their relationship reaches its boiling point, the hit men arrive, threatening to terminate both their relationship and their lives. Based on Lionel White's OBSESSION, PIERROT LE FOU is an example of a filmmaker's lack of preparation actually working to his benefit. Godard has said that he had no script on which to proceed, forcing him to make up the film as he went along. It is this seemingly improvised, brisk pacing--in addition to the performances of Belmondo and Karina--that makes the film such a fresh and original twist on an oft-mimicked genre. [More]

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina, Jean-Pierre Léaud

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina, Jean-Pierre Léaud

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Screenwriter: Jean-Luc Godard
Composer: Antoine Duhamel

[See More Credits]

Get This Movie

Rent DVD
 
 

Click on the "ADD" button to put this movie into your Netflix queue.

 
 
Buy DVD
 
 
Release:

Nov 24, 1998

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Pierrot Le Fou

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
Arrange By: Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

At its worst, in some of its improvised rambles, it demonstrates the value of a well-thought-out screenplay. At its exhilarating and poignant best, it proves that a film can play all sorts of postmodern games yet still touch its viewers’ emotions.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
05/28/09
Edward Porter
Sunday Times (UK)

This sparkling, anarchic 1965 thriller is vintage Godard.

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
05/28/09
Philip French
Observer [UK]

A wild-eyed, everything-in-the-pot cross-processing of artistic, cinematic, political and personal concerns, where the story stutters, splinters and infuriates its way to an explosive finale.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
05/22/09
David Jenkins
Time Out

An eye-poppingly vivid exercise in genre-busting filmmaking. Here is one of the most persistently intriguing directors of the 1960s at his most watchable and entertaining.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
05/22/09
Jon Fortgang
Channel 4 Film

Godard opens up his box of tricks and tips it all over the screen in a flurry of improvised, postmodernism that takes scattergun shots at consumerism, cultural imperialism and the Vietnam and Algerian wars.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
05/22/09
Ed Potton
Times [UK]

Engaging and beguiling - perhaps in spite of itself - and a vital part of film history.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
05/22/09
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]

Godard and his great cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, translate the ideas into some of the most visually exuberant French cinema of the Sixties.

Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | comment Comment
05/22/09
Tim Robey
Daily Telegraph

As a simple on-the-road crime thriller, it works well enough although parts of it don't make a lot of sense.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
05/22/09
Sky Movies
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

At times infuriatingly indulgent but is also an intoxicating, wildly inventive picaresque fantasy.

Full Review Source: Financial Times | comment Comment
05/22/09
Karl French
Financial Times
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
10/18/08
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Pierrot Le Fou was [Godard's] way of wrapping up the past before stepping forward into his next phase of overtly political filmmaking -- a magnificent mash-up before the manifestos to come

Full Review Source: Las Vegas CityLife | comment Comment
03/17/08
Matt Kelemen
Las Vegas CityLife

... plays like Godard's formal farewell to his past films, a last play with his old toys before putting them into storage and moving on to more serious concerns

Full Review Source: Turner Classic Movies Online | comment Comment
02/21/08
Sean Axmaker
Turner Classic Movies Online

It's one of Pierrot's unique charms that Godard doesn't regard Ferdinand and Marianne's situation with emphatic mockery or inordinate reverence.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
02/17/08
Eric Henderson
Slant Magazine

Pierrot le Fou is a movie in love with movies, but mostly it's a movie in love with itself.

Full Review Source: Las Vegas Weekly | comment Comment
01/24/08
Josh Bell
Las Vegas Weekly
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Denver Post | comment Comment
09/29/07
Denver Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

... endlessly charming and entertaining ...

Full Review Source: Los Angeles CityBeat | comment Comment
09/11/07
Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | comment Comment
09/08/07
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Provencal scenery is pretty, the movie-star chemistry is potent and Karina (then Mrs. Godard) has never looked more stunning.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
08/30/07
William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

So challenging and prolific has been Godard's 53-year career that virtually all of his films are as deserving of revival as Pierrot le Fou.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
08/09/07
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Made in 1965, this film, with its ravishing colors and beautiful 'Scope camerawork by Raoul Coutard, still looks as iconoclastic and fresh as it did when it belatedly opened in the U.S.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
08/09/07
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
See More Topics...

Related Forums for Pierrot Le Fou

Click here to be the first to post a message on this forum.

See All

More DVDs

Close
Top Rentals
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
79%
79%
Gran Torino
30%
30%
12 Rounds
23%
23%
Confessions of a Shopa…
—
The Code
39%
39%
Inkheart

More Rentals…

New On DVD This Week
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
22%
22%
Push
12%
12%
The Unborn

More New Releases…

RT On Current TV

What’s Hot On RT

Deconstructing Harry

Deconstructing Harry

Pt. 3: Cuaron's darker Prisoner of Azkaban

Best Mockumentaries

Best Mockumentaries

From Borat to Spinal Tap, this one goes to 11

Humpday Clip

Humpday Clip

An exclusive peek at the indie comedy!

Half-Blood Prince

Half-Blood Prince

How good is the 6th Harry Potter?

Other News

Close
  • Top Stories
  • Popular
  • Interviews
 
 

Comments

 
 
Top Stories
Headlines Comments
  
  • Weekly Ketchup: T.J. Hooker Film in Development
20
  • Warners Shortens Green Lantern Wishlist Source: Hollywood Reporter
96
  • Harold Ramis Talks Ghostbusters 3 Source: MakingOf.com
32
  • Spider-Man 4 Gets Its Third Writer Source: Latino Review
60
  • Warners Wins Favorable Ruling in Superman Case Source: Variety
18
  • Remo Williams Rides Again Source: Risky Biz
10
  • Mortal Kombat 3 Filming in September? Source: Slashfilm
82
  • MacGruber Gets a Director Source: Variety
39
  • PG-13 Turns 25 Source: VideoETA
8
  • Weekly Ketchup: Universal Takes on Asteroids
92
Popular
Headlines Comments
  
  • Deconstructing Harry, Day 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
67
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: Transformers and Ice Age Tie for Top Spot
59
  • Deconstructing Harry, Day 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
52
  • Weekly Ketchup: Universal Takes on Asteroids
46
  • Total Recall: Mock Docs That Rock
41
  • Critics Consensus: Bruno is Certified Fresh
41
  • Five Favorite Films with Kathryn Bigelow
39
  • RT on DVD: Knowing, Push, The Unborn Unleashed
26
  • Five Favourite Films with Jaime Winstone
19
  • Deconstructing Harry, Day 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
17
Interviews
Headlines Comments
  
  • RT Interview: Director Carlos Cuaron on Rudo and Cursi
0
  • RT Interview: Tony Scott on The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
10
  • Cannes 2009: RT Interview - Sally Hawkins on We Want Sex
2
  • RT Interview: Tilda Swinton on Julia
5
  • Hollywood Legend Debbie Reynolds Reflects On her Life in Showbiz
10
  • Exclusive: McG Talks Terminator Salvation
24
  • Georgia Groome - Fresh Talent on RT
5
  • RT Interview: Reading The Reader with Stephen Daldry
11
  • RT Interview: Oscar Nominee Melissa Leo
7
  • Carey Mulligan - Fresh Talent on RT
7
 
 

Sponsored Links

Around The Network

  • Pierrot Le Fou at Rotten Tomatoes

Fresh Links

Featured
Point-Counterpoint: Bruno
Point-Counterpoint: Bruno External Link

MSN's David Fear and Frank Paiva go head to head discussing the pros and cons of Bruno star Sacha Baron Cohen.

The New Cult Canon
The New Cult Canon External Link

The AV Club's Scott Tobias takes a second look at David Lynch's cult classic, Lost Highway.

Tom Cruise's 10 Best Roles
Tom Cruise's 10 Best Roles External Link

TIME takes us on a 25-year long journey into the superstar's career, giving us a look at his 10 best roles.

A Baywatch Comedy?
A Baywatch Comedy? External Link

BuzzSugar reports on Paramount's plans to rebirth the iconic TV show as a comedy film.

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Games| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo

IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive | Green Pixels


By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2009, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.