A quiet but powerful tale of grief, family love, and the mysterious world of childhood friendship.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2024

Relentlessly touching...

| Dec 23, 2022

Petite Maman is a pithy, gemlike film.

| Aug 5, 2022

A lovely and delicate lesson on processing big emotions in tiny packages.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 6, 2022

This is an ethereal film that works better on an emotional level than it does a literal level; it's a film that feels, so let yourself feel it, too. That's the real stuff.

| Original Score: B | May 6, 2022

Petite Maman is a fine balance of heartache and whimsy.

| May 5, 2022

“Petite Maman” is what every film should be: powerfully, even arrestingly original; grounded in emotional truth; hyper-specific; deeply universal; strange; mesmerizing; and not a minute longer than necessary.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 4, 2022

If ever a film was difficult to categorise it’s Celine Sciamma’s sublime Petite Maman.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 29, 2022

It’s a thin line between prestidigitation and sham. Once that line is crossed, it’s awfully hard to get back.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 28, 2022

There's no place in a film like Petite Maman for world-bending sorcery or flux capacitors, but the elegant simplicity of what Sciamma does with an unexplained wrinkle in the fabric of reality speaks as eloquently to those longings as any film I've seen.

| Apr 23, 2022

Magna opera have been written on these topics for hundreds of years; Sciamma manages to cram numerous insights into just 72 minutes.

| Apr 22, 2022

There’s no fluff, just an unusual exploration of the mother-daughter bond -- and this stunning premise: What would a child encounter if they met their parent as a youth? The answer is an emotional experience like no other.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 22, 2022

It’s a perfect creation in miniature, one that doesn’t have a wasted frame but that also never feels like it’s in a rush.

| Apr 22, 2022

The film stakes out a very special sphere of friendship, forgiveness, and understanding.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 22, 2022

We forget a lot of things when we grow up. This film is a wonderful reminder.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 22, 2022

It’s a film that’s equal parts about the fragility of childhood and the tension of familial ties, and its success relies on the subtle power of Sciamma’s arresting child actors.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 22, 2022

Poetry on screen can’t be constructed, or willed into existence. Under the right circumstances, though, it can be allowed. Ms. Sciamma, whose previous feature was the passionate and extravagant Portrait of a Lady on Fire, has created those circumstances.

| Apr 22, 2022

Petite Maman is the work of an unusually sensitive filmmaker, and it speaks to Sciamma’s skill as a director that she’s able to express the nuances of this complicated dynamic through such simple actions and words.

| Apr 21, 2022

Petite Maman asks existential questions with the purity of youth, while at the same time remaining utterly true to life. It’s rare that a film feels as special as this one. Hold it tight.

| Apr 21, 2022

Petite Maman may be short and stripped down, but its layers are many and I imagine it’s a film that will be more rewarding on subsequent viewings. It’s easily one of the best ever made about mothers and daughters.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 21, 2022