Portrait of a Lady on Fire
A painter, her subject, and the most famous page 28 in cinema.
A film about looking, made entirely without a male gaze in it.
- 2019
- 121 min
- 98% on Rotten Tomatoes
- 8.0 on IMDb
- #romance
- #drama
Our take
A painter is sent to a Breton island in the 1770s to paint a portrait of a woman who refuses to sit for one, so she has to study her in secret and work from memory. Céline Sciamma turns that into the whole thesis: being looked at closely by someone who wants you, and what it means to be the one doing the looking.
There are almost no men in it and no score except two pieces of music, both of which wreck you. The bonfire scene, the mythology conversation about Orpheus, and the final shot at the concert are three of the best sequences of the last decade. If you watch one film from this section, watch this.
Where to watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Stream
YouTube TV
HBO Max
Free
Kanopy
Rent
Apple TV Store
Google Play Movies
YouTube
Fandango At Home
Buy
- Apple TV Store
- Google Play Movies
- YouTube
- Fandango At Home
Streaming availability data provided by JustWatch. Availability changes often and is checked daily — confirm on the provider before paying for anything.
Scores
Ours
- Jibbi Score — 5 out of 5 rainbows. A film about looking, made entirely without a male gaze in it.
Everyone else’s
- Rotten Tomatoes — 98%, via OMDb.
- IMDb — 8.0 out of 10 from 126,866 votes, via OMDb.
- Metacritic — 95 out of 100, via OMDb.
- TMDB — 8.1 out of 10 from 2,979 votes, refreshed daily.
The plot, officially
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
Synopsis and poster via TMDB.