Les Misérables
Amazon Studios | Release Date: January 10, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 10, 2020
The film becomes an enthralling, edifying, terrifying, sometimes funny and improbably stirring portrait of a multiethnic, polycultural cauldron where fury against injustice and neglect hovers near the boiling point. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 6, 2020
Victor Hugo would watch this film and weep. Read full review
90
The New York TimesGlenn KennyDec 5, 2019
Ly shows command of staging and shooting throughout, simulating documentary form while maintaining a tight grip on narrative coherence. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 2, 2019
Ly’s considerable skill aside, what makes Les Misérables such an immersive experience is the crackling sense of authenticity that is the film’s birthright. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiJan 15, 2020
The way Ly and cinematographer Julien Poupard choreograph the film is amazing, especially the third act, which can be breathless at times. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 14, 2020
With Les Misérables, Ly delivers a passionate protest on behalf of an entire generation, whose future has largely been foreclosed. His, on the other hand, is astonishingly bright. Read full review
88
TheWrapBen CrollMay 20, 2019
Ly rather cleverly inoculates his film to charges of repetition by outright owning them. Of course, you’ve seen stories like before. The film freely admits, these exact same stories, these preventable tragedies and pointless injustices have been manifesting themselves for hundreds of years. Read full review
83
Original-CinKaren GordonJan 22, 2020
Les Miserables is an intense ride, a gripping action-filled police procedural that leaves you with grappling with social issues and youth when the movie ends. Read full review
83
The PlaylistCaroline TsaiMay 20, 2019
Ly makes it hard to paint these characters in broad strokes, no matter how we might try. Read full review
83
The Film StageRory O'ConnorMay 20, 2019
Ly makes a concerted effort to go beneath the topsoil of conventional Parisian crime films. Indeed, his script takes the time to show seemingly inconsequential things that go on behind the suburb’s closed doors, moments of rich contextual value if not obvious narrative importance. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellSep 8, 2020
As a study of injustice and systemic deprivation, and in its description of the conditions necessary for revolution, Ly’s film is in its very being a modern Les Misérables. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeSep 8, 2020
It’s that sense of beauty – of the possibility of redemption – that prevents Les Misérables from being crushed by the grim weight of the world it depicts. It’s a world in which Ly grew up, and his love of these neighbourhoods, in all their hardscrabble glory, is tangible. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerSep 3, 2020
Don’t confuse it with Russell Crowe staring out of a window. After a patient build-up, Les Misérables becomes a Molotov cocktail of a movie, tense, explosive and urgent. A powerful fiction debut from documentarian Ladj Ly. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 5, 2020
Thanks to one of the most indestructible poster campaigns ever designed, the words Les Misérables can’t help but call a child’s face to mind. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekJan 11, 2020
There’s nothing exactly like it: It has a bracing, melancholy energy all its own. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 30, 2019
An actor with a handful of shorts under his belt — including a Cesar-nominated 2017 one that served as the basis for this feature — Ladj Ly juggles a variety of perspectives, subcultures and intersecting storylines like a pro. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 28, 2019
It’s a hugely impressive debut and visually arresting from first to last. Read full review
80
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 20, 2019
For all its familiarity, Ly’s film is executed with enormous confidence and energy, building up to an apocalyptic ending that delivers on a gradual build-up of nervous tension. Read full review
80
CineVueMartyn ConterioMay 20, 2019
Although the handling of certain plot dynamics on occasion isn’t as strong as its potent aesthetic finesse, Ly mounts a thriller operating as a savage indictment of social policies and underhand police tactics and ass-covering corruption. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 5, 2020
Fence-straddling point-of view and well-worn story beats aside, Ly has crafted a tight, gimmick-free thriller. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Johanna SchnellerJan 17, 2020
In the final act, cops and street children fight a desperate battle in an abandoned apartment block. It’s a metaphor, but it’s earned. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 15, 2020
As a slice of life, Les Misérables is satisfying enough, but as the film wears on, the movie goes beyond the slice of life. It steers in the direction of drama and consequences, as the story narrows, and pressures come to a boil. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 15, 2020
It’s rough and observant, stacked with finely etched characters whose sympathies keep shifting along with ours. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJan 10, 2020
There is a strong emotional connection to Victor Hugo’s giant novel, which has been turned into a Broadway musical, movies and TV shows. This version remains a tale of downtrodden Parisians and dogged policemen who hound them. Only now we get 21st-century twists: teens with drone cameras, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and a Romani circus. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyJan 10, 2020
Les Misérables is a gripping experience, tense and upsetting. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleJan 9, 2020
Ly’s film excels in its lively verisimilitude, its terrific cast and its intensity. Les Miserables is a powder keg, always at risk of detonating. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubAllison ShoemakerJan 8, 2020
It’s not subtle, and it’s not pleasant. It’s angry, and it’s honest. Hugo would approve. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiJan 6, 2020
The film serves as both caustic update to Victor Hugo’s monolithic novel and cautionary tale about the future. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 20, 2019
The scalding final sequence of Ly’s film is powerful enough to obliterate the occasionally clumsy path by which it gets there. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghJan 24, 2020
When it reaches its boiling point, Les Misérables absolutely roils. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMay 20, 2019
Ly surveys all his characters without judgment, but a longer, richer version of this movie might have distributed its sympathies to even more powerful effect. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMay 20, 2019
Heavy-handed and predictable in spots, yet engrossing and provocative in others, it’s an impressive if somewhat unruly debut Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 20, 2019
While I admired the one-day-in-David-Ayer-hell energy of the movie, I also found it bombastic and contrived. It’s the police drama as police baton.
60
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 20, 2019
It’s a furious work of social geography that satisfies slightly less as a character piece: In its ambitious attempt to dramatize the violent anxieties of men on both sides of the law, Les Misérables risks selling some victims a little short. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 20, 2019
The director may want to confront these issues head on – the racism and violence just below the surface. Indeed, raising it above the surface is the point. But much of the drama and humanity get blitzed by the molotov cocktails. Read full review
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