Petite Maman
Neon | Release Date: December 3, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
93
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinKaren GordonMay 6, 2022
There is magic in French writer/director Céline Sciamma’s beautiful new film Petite Maman. Running just 72 minutes, this spare and gentle little film has an emotional core that feels true and authentic. Read full review
100
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMay 3, 2022
Petite Maman is what every film should be: powerfully, even arrestingly original; grounded in emotional truth; hyper-specific; deeply universal; strange; mesmerizing; and not a minute longer than necessary. It is, in short, a small wonder. Read full review
100
ObserverEmily ZemlerApr 25, 2022
It’s a small film that leaves behind big ripples. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreApr 24, 2022
The mechanics of Sciamma’s film are simple, but they’re realized so delicately, and with the help of such unaffected child performances, that they feel miraculous. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonApr 22, 2022
What’s most refreshing about Petite Maman is that it doesn’t play coy with its magic, nor does it separate it from the sadder, darker reality that surrounds it. Read full review
100
The Associated PressLindsey BahrApr 21, 2022
Sciamma is able to bring to life essential truths of what it is like to be that strange age and the sometimes frightening, sometimes wonderful vastness of a limitless imagination. And she even does it without a background score to manipulate our tear ducts. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangApr 21, 2022
Petite Maman generates continual surprise and delight, paradoxically, by treating even the strangest circumstances with a wry matter-of-factness. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 21, 2022
With delicacy, minimal dialogue and lucid, harmoniously balanced images, Sciamma (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”) invites you into a world that is by turns ordinary and enigmatic. Read full review
100
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeNov 22, 2021
Petite Maman is short and sweet, yet fearlessly profound. A mix of fairytale, ghost story and rites-of-passage journey, this is at heart a cinematic parable about healing intergenerational wounds, about breaching the barriers that inevitably grow between parents and children. Read full review
100
Little White LiesAimee KnightNov 22, 2021
Petite Maman becomes a profound meditation on inheritance. Read full review
100
EmpireHelen O'HaraNov 17, 2021
A story even more delicate and moving than Sciamma’s last effort, this takes an unusual and thoughtful look at girlhood, motherhood and friendship. It’s enchanting. Read full review
100
CineVueMatthew AndersonNov 16, 2021
In the cyclical, ethereal narrative of this inventive, tender story of love and loss, one of the finest filmmakers of our time spins a spellbinding magical web. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 10, 2021
Quiet and reverent, as if filmed entirely in hushed tones, Sciamma’s film is supremely confident in its every element. Read full review
100
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMar 4, 2021
It’s particularly resonant, packed with emotion and insight that will move the director’s admirers (who should consider watching it alongside their own children) and probably garner her some new ones. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 4, 2021
Céline Sciamma’s beautiful fairytale reverie is occasioned by the dual mysteries of memory and the future: simple, elegant and very moving. Read full review
92
PolygonKatie RifeApr 21, 2022
Petite Maman is the work of an unusually sensitive filmmaker, and it speaks to Sciamma’s skill as a director that she’s able to express the nuances of this complicated dynamic through such simple actions and words. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattApr 28, 2022
Sciamma's elegant, melancholy fable captures something lovely and ineffable: a brief glimpse into life's great mystery. Read full review
91
ColliderRoss BonaimeApr 25, 2022
With Petite Maman, Céline Sciamma crafts a staggeringly gorgeous fairy tale about the little things we don’t get to learn about the ones we love, the struggles of loss, and the loveliness of those that came from the path behind us. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 4, 2021
The result is at once both the most ordinary and most enchanted thing that Sciamma has made so far, a wise and delicate wisp of a movie. Read full review
91
The Film StageOrla SmithMar 4, 2021
Petite Maman is, amongst other things, a beautiful ode to mother-daughter love and a melancholy acknowledgment of the distance that always exists in that relationship, when both parties are separated by age and responsibility. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 22, 2022
What you see is exactly what you think you’re seeing from the moment of your first guess. What you feel is another story—one of calm, almost inexplicable enchantment. Read full review
90
Rolling StoneDavid FearApr 19, 2022
Sciamma is weaving a spell here, so pure in its emotional resonance that it breaks your heart even as it heals wounds. Read full review
90
SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiNov 16, 2021
Petite Maman is richer in its simplicity; a lovely slice-of-life tale that knows that loss is so enormous and monumental that we can only linger with it for brief moments. Read full review
90
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiSep 13, 2021
Petite Maman is the kind of film that lays itself bare without ever being over-the-top, shaping itself into a story that lingers in one’s memory for a while after it’s over. Read full review
90
Screen DailyWendy IdeMar 4, 2021
Like its dappled forested backdrop, the film is a thing of pensive beauty rather than volatile drama. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 4, 2021
In their children, parents often see reflections of the kids they once were. But daughters can’t access those same memories without a little magic. And that’s just what Petite Maman delivers: the spell that makes such a reunion possible, if only in our imaginations. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 15, 2021
Be careful with Petite Maman; the movie is small and quiet, but if you let your guard down, it might devastate you. Read full review
88
ObserverSiddhant AdlakhaOct 7, 2021
A poignant and moving coming-of-age story, and an example of the way cinema can make real both memories, without losing their bitter honesty, and dreams, without compromising on their glowing promise. Read full review
88
Slant MagazinePat BrownMar 4, 2021
The film evinces Céline Sciamma’s profound knack for visual economy, communicating much with silent looks and structured absences. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyNov 22, 2021
The most magical moments are the most ordinary, as Claire Mathon’s camera sneaks up on the two little girls in peals of laughter as they make a mess with pancakes or divvying up the parts in the script for (a fantastic-sounding) murder-mystery. Read full review
80
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerOct 7, 2021
With a gentle touch, Sciamma crafts a profound, easily digestible film that takes heavy themes and makes them bite-sized. She looks at the way we speak to one another, and to ourselves, at every age, and how these conversations are inevitably dulled in the schism between a child and their parent. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfMay 4, 2022
Petite Maman is a fine balance of heartache and whimsy. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 5, 2022
It’s a slight film, but as befits something as introspective and spooky as this, it’s not delicate or dainty. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 18, 2022
Petite Maman immerses the viewer in all the things you might have forgotten about childhood — what’s funny to a child, what’s valued, what’s priceless, what will be remembered and valued in years to come. Just watching the almost-identical Sanz sisters play and interact becomes fascinating, like witnessing from the outside some lovely and enclosed world. Read full review
75
Film ThreatHanna B.Nov 16, 2021
Heartfelt and genuine sentiments abound, making Petite Maman one of the finest titles of the year, one that can appeal to the (weird) kid in all of us. Read full review
75
The PlaylistCaitlin QuinlanMar 4, 2021
Its achievement lies in the space it creates for these children to open up a dialogue they rarely get to have – one that inevitably asks more questions, but that welcomes them as mature thinkers, keen to understand more about those raising them and the conditions in which they are being raised Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyApr 28, 2022
Petite Maman feels more like an extended short story. That’s only in part owing to its having a runtime of just 72 minutes. It also has a deceptive uneventfulness and a sense of everything being casually . . . just so. Read full review
More From This Movie

93 Critic Reviews

7.7 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL