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
The film is about the relationship between an atheist woman and a local priest. It seems she's come to the church not out of a desire to convert but to join in order to protect herself from the Nazi occupiers, as communist atheists would not be safe. Yet, oddly, during the classes she has with the priest, the woman slowly begins enjoying her meetings and actually gets quite a bit out of them. What happens next, see for yourself.
"Léon Morin, Priest" is a very well made but very unusual film that took me by surprise. The biggest surprise was the casting of Jean-Paul Belmondo as the title character. In so many other films, Belmondo is cast as rogue--cocky, self-absorbed and charming. This isn't a criticism, but it is odd that the same guy from "Breathless" now plays a very humble and decent priest! As I said, this is NOT what I expected. The notion of an uplifting religious drama and Jean-Paul Belmondo going together is a bit of a shock to me! The other big surprise is how slow the film is and how unexciting it was considering most of it took place during the Nazi occupation of France--yet, the film was still very interesting and compelling! This is no action film but one that is very deliberate and satisfying if you give it a chance. In fact, it's exceptionally well written and acted and I enjoyed it considerably. And, you certainly don't need to be a Catholic to enjoy this one.
"Léon Morin, Priest" is a very well made but very unusual film that took me by surprise. The biggest surprise was the casting of Jean-Paul Belmondo as the title character. In so many other films, Belmondo is cast as rogue--cocky, self-absorbed and charming. This isn't a criticism, but it is odd that the same guy from "Breathless" now plays a very humble and decent priest! As I said, this is NOT what I expected. The notion of an uplifting religious drama and Jean-Paul Belmondo going together is a bit of a shock to me! The other big surprise is how slow the film is and how unexciting it was considering most of it took place during the Nazi occupation of France--yet, the film was still very interesting and compelling! This is no action film but one that is very deliberate and satisfying if you give it a chance. In fact, it's exceptionally well written and acted and I enjoyed it considerably. And, you certainly don't need to be a Catholic to enjoy this one.
- planktonrules
- Nov 30, 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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