IMDb RATING
7.5/10
5.9K
YOUR RATING
Set during occupied France, a faithless woman finds herself falling in love with a young priest.Set during occupied France, a faithless woman finds herself falling in love with a young priest.Set during occupied France, a faithless woman finds herself falling in love with a young priest.
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 1 win & 1 nomination total
Emmanuelle Riva
- Barny
- (as Emmanuele Riva)
Marco Behar
- Edelman
- (as Marco Béhar de la Comédie Française)
Marc Eyraud
- Anton
- (as Marc Heyraud)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe film won the Award of the City of Venice at the 22nd Venice International Film Festival. Jean-Paul Belmondo was also nominated for the Best Foreign Actor Award at the 16th British Academy Film Awards.
- GoofsAt 1:33:20, when the two elderly ladies are visiting Barny, the background behind the window is clearly fake, revealing it was a studio set.
- Quotes
Léon Morin: The invisible church. It extends far beyond the visible church.
Barny: What is the invisible church?
Léon Morin: All human beings of goodwill.
- Alternate versionsThe theatrical release version is 111-minute long, which is the version used for the 2011 Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray release. The remastered 4K version, used for the 2019 Kino Lorber Blu-Ray release, is the longer director's cut, at 128 minutes.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Le fils de Gascogne (1995)
Featured review
For someone seeking a movie that approaches faith, spirituality, and doubt in an intelligent, respectful manner, without pushing any particular agenda, Jean-Pierre Melville's Léon Morin, Priest may well be an excellent choice. It is a thinking film that does not tell anyone what to think, a wry film that does not take its subject lightly, and a contentious film that does not devolve into belligerence.
Perhaps you are weary of watching incendiary exposés in which smug non-believers do their best to make fools of people who are devout but not particularly articulate, quick witted, or well educated. It could be that you are interested in religious discussions that offer more than joking, mocking, and self-righteous phonies trying to out-Jesus one another in the name of social status.
Maybe you find no appeal in films that feature religion as little more than a means of identifying who to blow up, or perchance you have had enough of seeing reasonable questions about religious dogma summarily cast aside as blasphemy by a bunch of mindless sheep* that would not know their savior from a hole in the ground.
These are all cases that bode well for Léon Morin, Priest being a good movie to watch, because it is nothing like Religulous, Bruce Almighty, or Saved!
Instead, Léon Morin, Priest is a tale with a lot of smart dialogue between a young priest and an avowed atheist, several scenes depicting the occupation of France during World War II, some appropriate humor to keep things from getting too heavy, and a few romantic elements that won't even make grandma blush. Well OK, she might blush once or twice, but that is about it, and really, it's good for her.
* As it turns out, Melville was fresh out of mindless sheep when he made this film. Speculation remains unconfirmed as to whether or not this is due to his alleged reliance upon the virtually unknown Monty Python Sheep Shoppe, which, despite claims to the contrary, appears not to stock any variety of sheep.
Perhaps you are weary of watching incendiary exposés in which smug non-believers do their best to make fools of people who are devout but not particularly articulate, quick witted, or well educated. It could be that you are interested in religious discussions that offer more than joking, mocking, and self-righteous phonies trying to out-Jesus one another in the name of social status.
Maybe you find no appeal in films that feature religion as little more than a means of identifying who to blow up, or perchance you have had enough of seeing reasonable questions about religious dogma summarily cast aside as blasphemy by a bunch of mindless sheep* that would not know their savior from a hole in the ground.
These are all cases that bode well for Léon Morin, Priest being a good movie to watch, because it is nothing like Religulous, Bruce Almighty, or Saved!
Instead, Léon Morin, Priest is a tale with a lot of smart dialogue between a young priest and an avowed atheist, several scenes depicting the occupation of France during World War II, some appropriate humor to keep things from getting too heavy, and a few romantic elements that won't even make grandma blush. Well OK, she might blush once or twice, but that is about it, and really, it's good for her.
* As it turns out, Melville was fresh out of mindless sheep when he made this film. Speculation remains unconfirmed as to whether or not this is due to his alleged reliance upon the virtually unknown Monty Python Sheep Shoppe, which, despite claims to the contrary, appears not to stock any variety of sheep.
- PsychoDingo
- Apr 16, 2012
- Permalink
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- The Forgiven Sinner
- Filming locations
- Montfort-l'Amaury, Yvelines, France(street scenes)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $72,078
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $9,515
- Apr 19, 2009
- Gross worldwide
- $72,908
- Runtime1 hour 57 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.66 : 1
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