Last Summer
Janus Films | Release Date: June 28, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The PlaylistElena LazicMay 30, 2023
Breillat’s film is devastating because it exposes at the heart of a seemingly normal family a black hole where empathy should be. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesNicolas RapoldJun 29, 2024
If anything, Last Summer is more commercial-looking and less shocking than much of Breillat’s previous work, but her eye and her insights are sharp as ever. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreJun 29, 2024
A family drama as masterfully propulsive as a horror movie. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesJun 27, 2024
Last Summer is a provocation and a melodrama, and yet in Ms. Breillat’s hands these characters are precisely rendered humans—in their sensitivities, their wants, their vile follies. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 27, 2024
Last Summer is complex, tricky, at times very uncomfortable and thoroughly engrossing. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 12, 2024
It’s an unnerving portrait in forbidden desire and matched wills, sometimes acting as one barely controlled organism, often at fierce odds. Read full review
88
The Daily BeastNick SchagerJun 28, 2024
A drama expertly modulated to raise both eyebrows and pulse rates, led by a superb Léa Drucker performance that’s rooted in uncontrollable self-destructive passions and intense self-preservation instincts. Read full review
83
Original-CinKim HughesJul 5, 2024
The stubborn ambiguity of Last Summer — with its genuinely could-be-this, could-be-that head-scratcher of an ending — will either be a dealbreaker for viewers or proof of bold, irreverent storytelling that refuses to be neatly packaged. To be sure, the film isn’t judging so much as presenting a fraught scenario for its audience to consider. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJun 25, 2024
Don’t be fooled by the airiness of its wine-drunk aesthetic or the languor of its pacing: Last Summer is every inch a Catherine Breillat movie, and its effervescent sheen is nothing but a natural distraction from the uncertain gloom that comes with the fall. Read full review
83
The Film StageSavina PetkovaMay 26, 2023
The ambivalence of it all is a compelling force. And even if everyone is made to look pathetic at one point, we can safely say this is Breillat’s version of the old saying: “Love conquers all”. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJul 1, 2024
Breillat directs her cast with precise clarity, and her exacting staging produces both intensely evocative moments and a rare, quietly terrifying pugnacity that permeates the drama. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 26, 2023
It proves most daring in the ways the film departs from its more conventionally moralistic source, and especially in Breillat’s refusal to call either party a parasite. Read full review
75
Washington PostAmy NicholsonJul 12, 2024
The French provocateur Catherine Breillat gets her kicks with unnerving tales of sexual coercion, but a clothed, close-up first kiss in “Last Summer” may be her most excruciating to date. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJun 28, 2024
Breillat’s approach is technically intimate yet tonally detached -- languid as a summer’s day, sometimes unbearably so, and often uncomfortably warm. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenSep 8, 2023
The film somehow feels tight, open and leisurely, and cloaked in dread all at once. Read full review
60
ColliderTaylor GatesJul 10, 2024
Last Summer’s solid performances elevate it, but it never reaches the heights it could by digging more deeply into the themes and more firmly grounding us in the characters and their emotions. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 26, 2023
While the film never shocks it almost always compels, and Breillat crafts some images that keep tingling in the mind long after they’ve faded from sight. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Saffron MaeveJul 2, 2024
One can lodge the complaint that Last Summer is redundant, though Breillat’s aims differ significantly from el-Toukhy’s. The trouble lies instead with the inconsistency and loathsomeness of these aims. Read full review
50
Screen DailyWendy IdeMay 26, 2023
Despite the suitably transgressive nature of the subject matter, Catherine Breillat’s first film in a decade is an oddly muted affair: uncomfortable, certainly, but lacking the disruptive, confrontational jab and genuine shock factor of her earlier pictures. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 11, 2024
The narrative is too flat, too drily filmed by César-nominated cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie (8 Women) to induce much emotion or debate about Anne’s hypocrisy and abuse of power. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 26, 2023
Breillat’s movie rolls along capably enough while the affair is in progress, but it’s tested to destruction when things go wrong. She is not good at delivering the iciness crucial to the story’s third act, happier as she is with the sunny, languorous sexiness of the amour fou. Read full review
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