Beating Hearts

2024 2h 40m FR

👍

7.2

SOLID

★7.2TMDB · 1,067

RomanceCrimeDrama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Local rebellious teenager Clotaire falls for his schoolmate Jackie, but gang violence leads him to a darker destructive path. After years apart, the star-crossed lovers discover that every path they've taken leads them back together.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Where to watch · US

France Channel Amazon ChannelSubscription

Cast

Adèle Exarchopoulos
Jackie
François Civil
Clotaire
Mallory Wanecque
Jackie (15 ans)
Malik Frikah
Clotaire (17 ans)
Alain Chabat
Le père de Jackie
Benoît Poelvoorde
La Brosse
Vincent Lacoste
Jeffrey
Jean-Pascal Zadi
Lionel adulte

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Gilles Lellouche
Writers: Gilles Lellouche, Audrey Diwan, Ahmed Hamidi
Languages: French
Countries: France, Belgium

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 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Clocks in at 160 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 97% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 2 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: France, Belgium.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CAST

Did you know

229+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Gilles Lellouche, shot by Laurent Tangy. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Jon Brion. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Gilles Lellouche directs. Laurent Tangy behind the camera. Jon Brion scores. Simon Jacquet cuts. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in France, Belgium. Dialogue in French.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Clocks in at 160 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.
2Earned back only 97% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
3Released 2 years ago.
4International production across 2 countries: France, Belgium.
5229+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
6Directed by Gilles Lellouche, shot by Laurent Tangy. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
7Original score by Jon Brion. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
8Editor Simon Jacquet shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
9Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil and Mallory Wanecque carry the top of the cast.
10IMDB entry: tt27490099 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Released under 24 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Laurent Tangy
Original score: Jon Brion
Editing: Simon Jacquet
Production design: Jean-Philippe Moreaux
Costume design: Isabelle Pannetier
Makeup / hair: Romain Marietti
VFX supervisor: Cédric Fayolle
Sound: Marc Doisne
Stunt coordinator: Lucas Dollfus
Runtime: 160 min · 2h 40m
Status: Released
Budget: $37,315,205
Box office: $36,010,728
Return: 97% of budget
Original language: FR
IMDB: Beating Hearts (2024)

Also by

Gilles Lellouche

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-08-22
★ 7/10
“Clotaire” (Malik Frikah) is the school wide boy who meets his match in the younger “Jacqueline” (Mallory Wanecque) and despite their coming from opposite sides of the tracks, they start to bond. He becomes besotted with her, but rather than buy her her favourite “The Cure” album, he pinches it for her, and that’s just the latest example of his petty criminality that ultimately ends up with him spending ten years incarcerated. When he (now François Civil) comes out of prison, he goes back to his old stomping grounds to get paid and perhaps to hook back up with her, but he finds that nothing he left behind is as it seems and with violence never far from him he knows that change is the only way he can perhaps be reconciled with a “Jackie” (now Adèle Exarchopoulos) who has had not had her own troubles to seek since he went away. She is now living with her boss “Jeffrey” (Vincent Lacoste) but fairly clearly for convenience rather than affection. Can there be a future for the childhood sweethearts? This is a tightly cast and gritty action drama that does follow quite a predictable story arc, but it also does benefit from four really quite impressive performances as it combines the throes of young love with the conflict brought by the sense of the hopeless felt by “Clotaire” as he starts to take the only path he feels is open to him. There isn’t so much dialogue with this, which I think helps, and the 1980s soundtrack also helps give us a sense of their occasion as they mature at different speeds and in wholly different ways. It’s a film that’s about characters rather than their scenario, and though I can’t say I especially enjoyed the fizzling out at the denouement, it’s a solid feature that is worth a watch.

Production companies