***WINNER – FIPRESCI Prize – 2016 Cannes Film Festival
10th Anniversary!
Julia Ducournau’s Raw follows Justine (Garance Marillier), a shy vegetarian beginning her first year at French veterinary school. During a hazing ritual, she’s forced to eat raw meat for the first time—an initiation that awakens a powerful, frightening craving. As Justine’s appetite grows uncontrollable, the film becomes a coming-of-age story twisted through sisterhood, secrecy, and the shock of discovering who you really are.
Emerging from the wave of 2010s body-horror, Raw stood out for combining graphic shocks with a deeply emotional story about female desire. Rather than moralizing, Ducournau frames Justine’s cannibalism as a metaphor for transformation—an extreme expression of awakening instincts and suppressed identity.
Raw quickly became a controversial modern classic, establishing Ducournau as one of France’s boldest filmmakers and paving the way for her 2021 Palme d’Or win with Titane.
2016, 99 minutes, France/Belgium, In French with English Subtitles, Directed by Julia Ducournau, Rated R
“Ducournau has made a beautiful film about terrible horrors.”
– Amy Nicholson, MTV
“Although the film is rooted in arthouse film territory, and is particularly inspired by the films of David Cronenberg and David Lynch, Raw turns out to be its own wild animal.”
– Jordan Ruimy, THE PLAYLIST
“Raw is a deliciously fevered stew of nightmare fuel that hangs together with a breezily confident sense of superior craft.”
– Catherine Bray, VARIETY
“To say that Ducournau’s cinematic introduction is assured would be an understatement; it’s a shrewd, insightful, and surprisingly funny film that feels like the work of a more accomplished filmmaker who has refined their talents over the course of many films and years.”
– Britt Hayes, SCREENCRUSH
“It may not sound like it on the surface, but Raw is absolutely a celebration of female power — of realizing who you are, what you want and how to go after it, albeit with brutally bloody results.”
– Christy Lemire, ROGEREBERT.COM
