Souleymane's Story
Kino Lorber | Release Date: August 1, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
83
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyAug 7, 2025
Souleymane’s Story immerses us in an unrepresented world of African migrants in France with a ticking clock urgency that puts most thrillers to shame. Read full review
91
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 10, 2024
Best of all, Lojkine’s film comes with a refreshing generosity of spirit. Read full review
90
The New YorkerJustin ChangAug 8, 2025
The film’s considerable power depends entirely on its moment-to-moment persuasiveness, on a set of narrative and aesthetic choices that, as presented—in a series of swift, kinetically composed, and jaggedly edited scenes—seldom feel like choices at all. Read full review
90
The New York TimesNatalia WinkelmanJul 31, 2025
Boris Lojkine’s Souleymane’s Story, an affecting film about struggle set over two days in Paris, is the rare character study that does not only build empathy with its hero’s pain but channels its sensation. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsJul 30, 2025
While “Souleymane’s Story” throws many roadblocks in this Guinean man’s way, it’s pretty clear where we’re heading. And while that predictability does slightly undermine the weightiness of the journey, the ending, a cathartic revelation, is granted immeasurable pathos due to Sangaré’s overwhelming openness as an actor. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenOct 17, 2025
Needless to say, Souleymane’s Story is not an easy watch. It’s a tough, unsparing and often heartbreaking look at life for the migrants who make the online world tick, and a jolt for those of us who use it unthinkingly. Read full review
80
Little White LiesMarina AshiotiOct 17, 2025
The tight framing ensures we never lose focus of the anxiety gnawing away at him, while small gestures of humanity are balanced against the harshest measures our punitive society can impose. Read full review
80
The GuardianPhil HoadOct 16, 2025
The issues are fundamentally the same: the enforced invisibility of a class of economic migrants who are now so numerous that many game the system, doubling their exploitation. Sangaré’s exemplary, unfeigned performance helps them speak. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyOct 15, 2025
This is a nervy study of how poverty wears people down, eroded by uncertainty and the grinding effort to stay afloat. Read full review
80
VarietyJessica KiangMay 25, 2024
If the hero’s dire situation is a ticking clock, Lojkine’s intelligent and empathetic film places us right alongside him, with each cog of circumstance and each gear of good fortune grinding against him at every turn. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMay 25, 2024
A realistic and very humanistic look at one immigrant’s grueling daily life in Paris, where he struggles to make a living and obtain legal status. Read full review
80
Screen DailyAmber WilkinsonMay 25, 2024
Non-professional Sangare is magnetic throughout, whether on the saddle or an interview hot seat. Read full review
78
The Film VerdictStephen DaltonMay 25, 2024
The Story of Souleymane is more than its individual parts. Scenes fly by, prompted by the move-move-move! ethos of the hustling immigrant. This is a film told close in close quarters. On several occasions, the camera is so close to our hero that you can smell the desperation coming off his skin, which, as richly and darkly lensed by Tristan Galand, is mutedly lustrous. Read full review
75
Washington PostTy BurrAug 15, 2025
Souleymane’s Story presents its hero’s life as an open-air prison. Scrupulously researched by Lojkine and co-writer Delphine Agut, it’s brutally frank about the predatory practices of some of Souleymane’s fellow West Africans. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineClayton DillardJul 29, 2025
Petty humiliations accumulate into a quietly blistering indictment of a culture that’s conditioned immigrants to hustle, wait endlessly, and smile through it all, as if their sanity weren’t constantly under strain. Read full review
67
IndieWireChristian ZilkoJul 31, 2025
Sometimes Souleymane feels like he’s sprinting through a race with no finish line, and sometimes he’s running into an unmovable brick wall. The film exists in the space between those opposing outcomes, and its contradictions become its greatest strength as it depicts the endless exhaustion of navigating a system that doesn’t care about you nearly as much as it claims to. Read full review
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