Where the film does succeed is in conveying the particular, illicit delight of watching people be nasty to one another.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 11, 2025

Entertaining cuckoo in the nest thriller ultimately plays it a little safe

| Original Score: 3 | Jun 2, 2024

While it nods to the misanthropic Patricia Highsmith, The Origin of Evil also boasts some twisty Agatha Christie-style plotting and a touch of Hitchcock glamour.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 12, 2024

Marnier attains a great feeling of side-stepping and evasion, allowing the juicy reality of the set-up to declare itself gradually.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 4, 2024

The Origin of Evil is a flavoursome cocktail of Succession mixed with Saltburn garnished in a unique French sensibility.

| Apr 4, 2024

[An] enjoyably pulpy, devious, Highsmith-esque thriller in which nothing and nobody are quite what they seem.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 31, 2024

There's skulduggery afoot in this fun and twist-filled French psychodrama.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 29, 2024

Some currently fashionable split-screen effects are intended to keep you guessing till the end, and a subplot involving Stephane’s imprisoned girlfriend adds spice to this hugely enjoyable film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 28, 2024

This thriller has an excellent cast and looks wonderful, although the plot-line is somewhat preposterous and soap-opera-esque. Nevertheless, it’s stylish and gripping.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 28, 2024

Without a doubt this is easy entertainment, never dull, and it has some shrewd things to say about class and money – though the satire might have been sharper and the running time shorter by a good 20 minutes.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 27, 2024

Everybody in this movie seems to be lying through their teeth. In less sure hands, this could have resulted in annoyance.

| Dec 9, 2023

A gloriously snaking crime thriller which hooks the viewer almost immediately and doesn’t let go until the final frame.

| Original Score: 18.50/20 | Dec 8, 2023

For my money, Laure Calamy is France’s most versatile film star, a winning presence in anything from high comedy to realist drama... Here, in Sébastien Marnier’s identity theft thriller The Origins of Evil, she’s brilliant again.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 8, 2023

Even when you see a lot of the twists coming, this decadent, dark-hearted mix of opulence and deceit may win over those who’ve been once again craving the kind of stylish, sensual thrillers that Hollywood used to drop all the time in the ’80s and ’90s.

| Dec 8, 2023

If The Origin of Evil were only lurid camp it would pall fairly quickly, but Marnier is careful to weave a fine vein of pathos through this narrative.

| Dec 8, 2023

The gothic mansion, the feared but wounded patriarch, the ghastly family, the scheming grifter who takes her chances… we’ve seen these things a thousand times, but they never lose their appeal.

| Nov 13, 2023

Marnier mines humor from the oddball behavior of these rich women… and the “Succession”-like maneuvering. … And when the thriller elements kick in, he handles the Agatha Christie-style reveals, the crosses and double-crosses, masterfully.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 30, 2023

Based on “The Origin of Evil,” I’d call Sébastien Marnier a filmmaker to watch.

| Oct 28, 2023

The loopy reveals are progressively anarchic, held together by a cool ensemble cast.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 21, 2023

The story is built around the collision between the love of family and the love of money, and comes with some knockout surprises and a hot ending. What fun.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 20, 2023