It’s well observed and entertaining, but there is none of the perversity and very little of the darkness that you find in Fassbinder’s best films.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 17, 2025

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is reimagined and gender-flipped in Peter Von Kant, François Ozon ’s engaging but strangely flimsy chamber piece.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 13, 2024

This is maestro on maestro -- and there is no question that Ozon makes it his own.

| Sep 19, 2023

Ozon manages to explore universal themes in a novel way. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 20, 2023

It’s a tad too farcical for its own good, but Ménochet is excellent as a tragic, tormented artist -- and that 85-minute running time is ideal.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 5, 2023

Ozon’s translation is a playful addition to the canon. It may lack the bitterness that Fassbinder skilfully worked into his film and its title, but it compensates with unmissable glass-throwing, door-slamming romantic agony.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 3, 2023

For anyone who has seen that movie [The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant]... there’s plenty to enjoy here, as Ozon tweaks, twists and sporadically subverts the original and infuses it with ironic camp.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2023

Beyond an exercise in cinematic recreation, it’s difficult to know the point of this film. It does everything Fassbinder did, but on a smaller scale. If you loved the original, you’ll probably like this. But the uninitiated will be left cold.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2023

Menochet's terrific performance was in line with the clever film's tragicomedy artifices.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 31, 2022

Set entirely in Von Kant’s apartment, the film has a stagy feel. Ménochet has a strong likeness to Fassbinder, which adds to the sense that Peter von Kant is an elaborate, reverential tribute.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 29, 2022

Moments that shine through, but feels too much like an intellectual experiment.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 28, 2022

Ménochet is an absolute riot to watch unravel in the lead and on its own terms Peter von Kant is no doubt a good film -- perhaps even a very good one -- but in the end I’m not convinced that it was one with a great deal to say.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 27, 2022

Enjoyable as this is, it sometimes feels like an academic exercise... Nevertheless, mediocre Ozon is still vastly better than many a director’s finest effort, and Ménochet’s sublime performance is worth seeing in all its opera buffa grandeur.

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

A magnificent overblown oddity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 22, 2022

Ozon retains his source material's theatricality too, but he ratchets up the campiness, turning a story about emotional exploitation into a melodramatic tale of an egotistical monster lamenting the changing times.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 20, 2022

An entertaining French billet doux to a German titan. It’s a small-scale touching tribute, filled with equal amounts human tenderness and self-disgust, which is perhaps just what Fassbinder would have wanted.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 20, 2022

The casting of the meaty, magnetic Ménochet... is smart: his resemblance to Fassbinder adds a self-referential layer to the drama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 18, 2022

Results in enjoyable sin in a film that not only robs Fassbinder, but in great measure reminds you of a classic Almodovar, with vibrant colors and peerless scourge. [Full review in Spanish]

| Nov 16, 2022

Genders and more are flipped around, turning this into a loose biopic about Fassbinder himself. With eye-catching style, the film is also entertaining for its visual panache, pitch-black wit and a provocatively lacerating look at the movie industry.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 9, 2022

Peter von Kant showcases Ozon’s stylish flair and his talent for exploring the messiness of relationships.

| Oct 28, 2022