Movie · 2013 · Romance, Drama · 3h · NC-17 · French
Curator score: 4.9/10 (522.7K ratings)
To love.
Overview
Adèle's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself, finds herself.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.9/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.20/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Metacritic: 90
TMDB: 7.1/10
Director
Abdellatif Kechiche
Production
Wild Bunch, SCOPE Pictures, Quat'sous Films, France 2 Cinéma, RTBF, Alcatraz Films
Cast
Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Salim Kéchiouche, Aurélien Recoing, Catherine Salée, Benjamin Siksou, Mona Walravens, Alma Jodorowsky, Jérémie Laheurte, Anne Loiret, Benoît Pilot, Sandor Funtek, Fanny Maurin, Maelys Cabezon, Samir Bella, Tom Hurier, Manon Piette, Quentin Médrinal, Peter Assogbavi, Wisdom Ayanou
Where to watch
Netflix, Hulu, AMC+, Philo, Sundance Now
Curator Review
Verdict
A raw, emotionally immersive coming-of-age romance with extraordinary lead performances and a strong sense of lived-in detail, but it is also deeply controversial for its sexual politics, gaze, and behind-the-scenes ethics. Worth watching if you want a long, intense relationship drama and can engage critically with its flaws.
Best for
Viewers seeking a devastating, adult-scale love story
Fans of intimate, performance-driven European drama
People interested in films about identity, desire, and class difference
Viewers comfortable with explicit sexual content and moral complexity
Skip if
You are sensitive to exploitative or male-gaze depictions of queer intimacy
You want a concise romance with a tidy emotional arc
You prefer films with a clearly sympathetic or politically careful perspective
You do not want a very long, emotionally draining relationship drama
Overview
Blue Is the Warmest Color is built around a rare kind of emotional accumulation: tiny gestures, awkward silences, appetite, embarrassment, and the way first love can feel both expansive and humiliating. The film’s strongest asset is the physical, unguarded presence of its two leads, who make the relationship feel immediate and lived-in even when the script leans hard into melodrama.
Worth noting
At the same time, the film is impossible to discuss without its controversies. Its explicit scenes have long been criticized for objectification and for framing queer desire through a straight male gaze, and those concerns meaningfully shape the viewing experience. For some viewers, that tension overwhelms the film’s achievements; for others, the emotional force of the central relationship still lands.
Bottom line
As a romance, it is sweeping, bruising, and often painfully honest about how love can become identity, obsession, and loss all at once. As a cultural object, it is messier and more compromised than its reputation as a great love story suggests. That contradiction is exactly why it continues to provoke debate.
Top Letterboxd reviews
bianca (0.5★) · 8310 likes
i didn't want to watch this when i was younger because i thought it was going to turn me into a lesbian and now i'm watching it because I AM a lesbian! i love this character development
with that being said, i fucking hated it. my main problem was the unnecessary sex scenes. i mean, they do nothing for the plot. that's when you know it was directed by a straight man for straight men. abdellatif was recently accused of… more
julia (0.5★) · 4078 likes
this is exactly the kind of movie "feminist men" would watch as an excuse to see two girls having sex without being porn, and call it arti hate how they portray lesbians and i feel like i've wasted three hours of my life that i can never recover
also, can you PLEASE eat with your mouth shut???
Sally Jane Black · 2880 likes
The heavy criticisms of this film against its straight male gaze are clearly justified. While there are surely women who enjoy those scenes as well, the context certainly reveals that these scenes were made with the prurient desires of cishet men in mind. The improbability of some of the scenes shows who this is for. And that detracts heavily from the film, but the truth is, it's more than just the sex scenes.
This is the lesbian Call Me By… more
clara (2.5★) · 1640 likes
i have such a complicated relationship with this film.
on one hand, it somehow incorporates everything that makes lgbt+ films exploitative and problematic:
- an older gay peruses a relationship a baby gay knowing that they’re underage (FIFTEEN in this case)
- the age-old cliché of a bisexual woman cheating on her female partner with a man
- extended graphic lesbian sex scenes which are extraordinary unrealistic and cater largely to the male gaze (notice that all the people commenting… more i have such a complicated relationship with this film.
on one hand, it somehow incorporates everything that makes lgbt+ films exploitative and problematic:
- an older gay peruses a relationship a baby gay knowing that they’re underage (FIFTEEN in this case)
- the age-old cliché of a bisexual woman cheating on her female partner with a man
- extended graphic lesbian sex scenes which are extraordinary unrealistic and cater largely to the male gaze (notice that all the people commenting… more
˗ˏˋ suspirliam ˊˎ˗ (4.5★) · 1548 likes
I, I FOLLOW 😔 I FOLLOW YOU 😥 DEEP SEA BABY 😩 I FOLLOW YOU 😭