Céline and Julie Go Boating

1974 3h 13m FR

👍

6.8

SOLID

🍅

80%

FRESH

💯

100

METACRITIC

⭐

7.2

IMDB

★6.8TMDB · 172🍅80%Rotten Tomatoes●100Metacritic★7.2IMDB · 6,536

ComedyDramaFantasy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Julie, a daydreaming librarian, meets Céline, an enigmatic magician, and together they become the heroines of a time-warping adventure involving a haunted house, psychotropic candy, and a murder-mystery melodrama.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Juliet Berto
Céline
Dominique Labourier
Julie
Bulle Ogier
Camille
Marie-France Pisier
Sophie
Barbet Schroeder
Olivier
Nathalie Asnar
Madlyn
Marie-Thérèse Saussure
Poupie
Philippe Clévenot
Guilou

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Jacques Rivette
Writers: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier
Languages: French
Countries: France

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

At 193 minutes, this is a three-hour-plus commitment — longer than 95% of films ever made.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

ERA

Did you know

52 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Jacques Rivette, shot by Jacques Renard. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Jean-Marie Sénia. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Nicole Lubtchansky shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier and Bulle Ogier carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0071381 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Jacques Rivette directs. Jacques Renard behind the camera. Jean-Marie Sénia scores. Nicole Lubtchansky cuts. A long sit — settle in. Produced in France. Dialogue in French.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1At 193 minutes, this is a three-hour-plus commitment — longer than 95% of films ever made.
252 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
3Directed by Jacques Rivette, shot by Jacques Renard. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Jean-Marie Sénia. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Nicole Lubtchansky shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier and Bulle Ogier carry the top of the cast.
7IMDB entry: tt0071381 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 17 themes, including "paris, france", "magic", "magic show", "haunted house".
9Released under 13 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Jacques Renard
Original score: Jean-Marie Sénia
Editing: Nicole Lubtchansky
Costume design: Jean-Luc Berne
Makeup / hair: Ronaldo Abreu
Runtime: 193 min · 3h 13m
Status: Released
Original language: FR
IMDB: Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Rotten Tomatoes: 80% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 100/100
IMDB rating: 7.2/10 · 6,536 votes
MPAA: Unrated
US box office: $31,452

Awards

1 win

Also by

Jacques Rivette

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

badelf2025-08-15
★ 9/10
The Orphan Love Child of Harry Houdini and Timothy Leary Céline and Julie Go Boating is two children who’ve stolen the keys to the dream factory, turning the machinery on and pressing all the button at once just to see what happens. This film is pure magic. But it's not the kind that arrives with fanfare and spotlights. Rivette has crafted a quiet, subversive magic of women who’ve decided the rules don’t apply to them. Rivette’s film isn’t so much watched as it is inhabited. At three hours, it's not long - it's damned intoxicating. This is a place where a house becomes a haunted television set broadcasting the same melodrama on loop until someone dares to change the channel. Contrary to popular belief, Céline and Julie isn’t French New Wave. This is something wilder, more unruly. It's a cousin to the New Bohemian Front, that loose confederation of artists who, after the Vietnam War, treated life and art as the same chaotic experiment. Here, you can feel the kinship with Ginsberg’s The Fall of America, where poetry becomes a live wire of revelation, or Springsteen’s Nebraska, where stories are stripped to their bones and left to bleed. And like Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising or Patti Smith’s Horses, it’s a work that refuses to behave, that understands art as a kind of sacred mischief. Rivette’s Paris isn’t a set, but a playground, and Céline and Julie aren’t characters so much as they are sisters, rewriting their world with the giddy audacity of kids who’ve realized no one’s watching. What makes it fascinating, technical flaws and all, is the alchemy between Berto and Labourier. They move through the film like a pair of tricksters, their energy infectious, their connection immediate and unforced. There’s a scene where they swap identities, trying on each other’s lives like dresses in a thrift store, and it’s so effortless you believe they’ve been doing this forever. They’re not acting, they’re playing; and the film becomes a testament to the power of that playfulness. This is pure Rivette style - cinema as an eyeball on improvisation. Unlike most films, the feminist theme isn’t didactic, it’s organic. It's a natural extension of the leads' dynamic. Just like Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, two forerunners of the New Bohemian Front, they’re a duo who’ve built their own world, one where men are irrelevant, and magic is real. I love the film’s surrealism because it isn’t the cold, cerebral kind. It’s warm, tactile, the kind that makes you believe, just for a moment, that if you concentrate hard enough, you could step through a mirror into Wonderland. The house where the melodrama unfolds is a perfect metaphor for the stories we inherit and the personal power we have to rewrite them. Céline and Julie don’t just watch - they intervene, they laugh, they turn tragedy into farce. It’s a reminder that the best kind of art doesn’t just reflect life; it creates possibilities. In the end, Céline and Julie Go Boating isn’t about escape. It’s about possession, it's about taking the reins of your own story no matter how strange or messy it gets. It’s a film that doesn’t just break the rules; it makes you realize the rules don't exist.

Production companies