Mr Hulot takes a precious, playful and purely premeditated look at modern times...
Overview
Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.8/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 4.05/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
Metacritic: 84
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Jacques Tati
Production
Gaumont Distribution, Specta Films, Alter Films, Film del Centauro, Cady Films, gray-film
Cast
Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Lucien Frégis, Betty Schneider, Jean-François Martial, Dominique Marie, Yvonne Arnaud, Adelaide Danieli, Alain Bécourt, Régis Fontenay, Claude Badolle, Max Martel, Nicolas Bataille, Pierre Étaix, Jean-Claude Rémoleux, Denise Péronne, Nicole Regnault, Édouard Francomme, André Dino
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A beautifully observed, gently subversive comedy that turns modern design, class manners, and domestic technology into visual punchlines. It’s especially rewarding if you like deadpan physical comedy, precise composition, and satire that never stops being affectionate.
Best for
fans of visual comedy and silent-era timing
viewers interested in satire of modernity, class, and consumer culture
people who enjoy elegant, meticulously designed films
audiences who like family-friendly but slyly intelligent comedies
Skip if
you want fast-paced jokes or broad slapstick
you prefer dialogue-driven comedy over visual storytelling
you’re not interested in slower, observational humor
you dislike films that are more wry and architectural than plot-heavy
Overview
Mon Oncle is one of cinema’s great comedies of observation, a film that finds endless humor in the friction between old habits and new conveniences. Jacques Tati builds jokes out of gates, hoses, windows, furniture, and posture, making the modern home feel like a machine designed to embarrass its owners. The result is both playful and quietly sharp, a satire that never loses its warmth for the people trapped inside it.
Worth noting
What makes it endure is the precision of the visual design. Every frame feels choreographed, with color, space, and movement working together to create a world where even a dog can become a comic agent of chaos. Tati’s Monsieur Hulot remains one of the most lovable disruptors in film: awkward, unassuming, and somehow always exposing the absurdity of social performance.
Bottom line
The film is also more generous than its premise might suggest. It does not simply mock modern life; it notices the charm in both the old neighborhood and the new suburb, even as it clearly prefers spontaneity to status. That balance gives Mon Oncle its lasting appeal: it is funny, elegant, and just wistful enough to feel human rather than merely clever.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Matt Singer (4.5★) · 1271 likes
The best Mon Oncle gags, ranked:
5) The hot dog hose4) The leak in the fish fountain sequence3) The modern house’s “eyes”2) The automatic garage door and the dog1) The glass and the bouncy pitcher
Karsten (4.5★) · 918 likes
Similar to the first time I saw Kurosawa in color, seeing Tati use it for the first time was unbelievable. It's not just transferring from b&w to color, it's adding color to his toolset to build the beautiful world he created. So weird in such a lovely way. Some of his best comedy I've seen yet. That ending <3
SilentDawn (4.5★) · 680 likes
90
It's fitting that only the kids and the dogs freely move between the two distinct environments of Mon Oncle. One is an abandoned traditionalism, the harmony of simple life. Opening and adjusting the window won't result in an electronic buzz or a sharp creak, but a caged bird singing as the sun shines over it. Its simplicity is productive. The other is a pesky modernism, the particularity of everything being curated and designed, not to the satisfaction of the… more
demi adejuyigbe · 656 likes
Loved it. Glad I gave this a shot after being thoroughly confused by PlayTime (and honestly this made me wanna give PlayTime another shot! In like twenty years. Too many movies!) A really gorgeous and stunningly-designed satire of the upper-middle class and their desperate attempts to cling to modernization and manners, no matter how inconvenient. Watching this after seeing The French Dispatch and realizing Wes Anderson was doing an homage to this (and has been doing an homage to Tati… more Loved it. Glad I gave this a shot after being thoroughly confused by PlayTime (and honestly this made me wanna give PlayTime another shot! In like twenty years. Too many movies!) A really gorgeous and stunningly-designed satire of the upper-middle class and their desperate attempts to cling to modernization and manners, no matter how inconvenient. Watching this after seeing The French Dispatch and realizing Wes Anderson was doing an homage to this (and has been doing an homage to Tati… more
Shea (5★) · 629 likes
The bourgeoisie is no match for Monsieur Hulot and his bountiful swag.
Reject modernity, embrace buffoonery.
1925 · Adventure, Comedy, Drama · 1h 35m · NR · Curator 9.3/10 (225.7K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, History Vault, Eternal Family, Max, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Another essential for anyone drawn to elegant physical comedy with a human core.