It’s disconcerting how relevant Les Misérables is, isn’t it? Which one am I talking about? You pick.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 17, 2024

'Les Misérables' reflects on the meaning of political struggle and says goodbye to violence in this new film about the Parisian suburbs. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 20, 2024

Ly, Manenti, and fellow co-writer Giordano Gederlini keep the temperature at a steady simmer right up until the explosive final act which packs one heck of a kick.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2022

Les Miserables, the first feature film from Ladj Ly, is complex and important.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2022

Ly's authorship only enhances the verisimilitude of this intense thriller, whose sustained immediacy leads to an open-ended discussion prompt.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 20, 2022

Though Les Misérables is clearly drawn from outrage, Ly's shallow characterizations dampen his film's sense of incendiary anger.

| Sep 26, 2021

A tough watch, that shines a light on issues that are all too sadly just as relevant today as they were in 1995. Perhaps even more so.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 11, 2021

A harrowing thriller...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 24, 2021

A stirring debut for director Ladj Ly, one that is both thought provoking and an indictment of failed social policy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 30, 2021

Fleet of foot and fiery of belly, this new Les Mis is an attention-commanding debut from a filmmaker with a finger on his home town's ever-quickening pulse.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 22, 2020

Les Misérables is a movie that demands your attention. It is a powerful movie that is not afraid of looking ugly, and therein lies what makes it unique.

| Sep 29, 2020

Inserted into all the grit and violence and naturalistic lower-depths acting, it's this kind of written, acted speech that often makes a neorealist film...

| Sep 16, 2020

Comparisons with Mathieu Kassovitz's landmark banlieues drama La Haine are inevitable, but Ly's depiction of the kind of societal disaffection and despair that inevitably erupts into violence feels far more authentic and potent.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 16, 2020

Victor Hugo would have greatly approved, from the joyful opening to the unforgettable final fadeout.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 11, 2020

The film bristles with wit as it explores endemic injustice from a range of remarkably subtle perspectives.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 11, 2020

It's jammed with vivid performances from a fresh cast and boasts a propulsive score.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 7, 2020

It's intense, politically engaged film-making that is, at its core, driven by great curiosity and moral clarity.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 7, 2020

Slips stealthily from astute observation to urgent action, reminding us of Hugo's maxim that "there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 6, 2020

Fights escalate at realistic rates and seemingly small events grow to unmanageable levels, turning one ordinary day on the job into the worst day of their lives. And you will be reaching for the beta-blockers to get through the last five minutes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2020

[D]ebut feature director Ladj Ly uses these bitterly ironic allusions to examine the way police brutality exacerbates an already dire situation for the young immigrant residents growing up in a system that, historically, has hothoused criminality.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2020