Filmography Worship: Ranking Every Claire Denis Film
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Claire Denis’ decades-long career is nothing short of remarkable. So many other filmmakers try to interpret and describe those inexplicable sensations we experience; Denis seeks to recreate them, instead. Only a couple of her efforts have not worked for me (more on those, shortly); the remainder of her filmography is breathtaking. Why is Denis so invested in the parts of us that we cannot figure out? Is it because they render us human, and she is so driven by films about multifaceted people? I feel like her youth plays a major part of her artistry. She grew up in various parts of Africa (Cameroon, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and French Somaliland) since her father was a civil servant. She grew up on war films that would be sent to her father. She and her family moved every few years. When she was a teenager, she would move back to Paris and feel a disconnection from everyone else around her. She yearned for Africa, again. In hindsight, she was aware of her father’s teachings and of her salad days in Africa, becoming aware of the colonialism that was rampant there — something she would revisit in films like Chocolat and White Material.
After studying film, Denis was an assistant director on many notable French and European motion pictures, ranging from Jacques Rivette’s thirteen-hour opus Out 1 to Wim Wenders’ angelic masterwork, Wings of Desire. She not only developed years of experience under some of the experts of her time, she garnered the confidence and independence necessary to make her own works. Like Denis, some of these previous collaborators aim to deconstruct the human experience from the inside out, to the point that film becomes a near-meta reflection, as opposed to a projection of images and sounds. To give back to the industry that shaped her, Denis is now also a professor at the European Graduate School in Switzerland; while I could only imagine the privilege of sitting in one of her classes, her films have taught me far more about cinema than most courses ever could (as you will read below, ironically, one class introduced me to Denis’ works, so there is that, I suppose). Denis’ complete filmography is rife with documentaries and short films, but I will be focusing strictly on Denis’ feature films because they are fare more definitive in her career; maybe one day I will revisit this and take on every project Denis spearheaded. For now, we have a highly consistent filmography to get through, with only two films that I respect but did not connect with, and a slate of films that wowed me to varying levels. Here are the feature films of Claire Denis ranked from worst to best.
16. Trouble Every Day
Denis’ first film of the new millennium, Trouble Every Day, is a gory horror film with erotic overtones; it also happens to be her worst release. While other Denis films excel at creating an enigmatic environment that allows audiences to become immersed and try to interpret the images on screen in personal ways, Trouble Every Day feels too abrasive and confrontational to have that same effect. I get Denis’ objective here — merging different cinematic takes on visceral urges to depict marital problems — but I feel like the surrenders to the conventions of Trouble Every Day more than she creates her signature levels of nuance with what she has. A majority of her other films invite you to explore; Trouble Every Day pushes you away constantly.
15. Stars at Noon
Denis’ commentary on American culture — in the form of a journalist played by Margaret Qualley — is decent but confused. Stars at Noon feels like Denis’ answer to Hollywood sentimentality via an arthouse lens that poses many questions without many of its own answers; that wouldn’t be a real issue if the film felt more enticing for audiences to come up with solutions with the tapestry of thoughts that Denis displays for us. Instead, Stars at Noon is a blend of assignment, excursion, and existentialism that doesn’t quite excel at any of the above; although Qualley certainly leaves you wanting more due to her compelling performance (this is a problem when the film cannot offer much else).
14. Bastards
A fairly good film that certainly has its fans is Denis’ Bastards: her answer to Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well; this is an interesting take on a classic film that doesn’t quite come close to the quality and calibre of the original, yet contains enough of Denis’ thought-provoking style that it can stand on its own. I also appreciate when arthouse directors tackle the thriller genre because it is always fascinating to see what curious minds consider important within fragile, strained psyches; Denis’ Bastards is no different with its brooding, haunting look at the dispersed pieces of broken lives and the parts of a story that do not add up. I may not have Bastards as high as some others may, but that is more because Denis has so many films I have a high regard for than it is a lack of appreciation for this film; I understand why it is a favourite to some.
13. Friday Night
There isn’t too much overlap between the films of Denis and Chantal Akerman, but the one time where that might be the case is Friday Night: Denis’ look at a solitary evening in the life of a wandering woman the night before she is to move in with her boyfriend. Her stroll allows her mind and identity to wander; much of this film reminds me of the kinds of revelations that an Akerman film would contain, especially when it comes to the self exploration of a woman in the midst of the wee hours. While I feel like some of Denis’ other films can cause a greater stir with her audiences, Friday Night is at least quite good at evoking what one’s mind feels like when they are tired, it is dark out, and you can feel the pulse of the sun’s rise breathing down your neck (as your thoughts race against the clock and your exhaustion).
12. Let the Sunshine In
Romantic dramas are meant to get your heart pulsating and your mind exploring new territories of love and heartbreak, and Denis’ antithetical take on the Hollywood romance — Let the Sunshine In — does just that. The film places us in the mind of Isabelle — played tremendously by Juliette Binoche who is radiating as a lost soul here. The film acts as a tug-of-war between liberation and damnation: her quest to find a new lover contains the ebbs and flows of putting one’s self out there. As Binoche searches for the right one, the correct answer is that Denis is her best match: the actor and director work tremendously well together in a film that is a bittersweet look at navigating the complexities of love and lust.
11. I Can't Sleep
If Denis’ films are strong at conjuring up the hidden desires and secrets of silent characters, a film like I Can’t Sleep is an early attempt by her to put this knack on full display. Inspired by the awful murders of serial killer Thierry Paulin, I Can’t Sleep tries to place us in the mindset of a monster; instead of encouraging crime film cliches and dynamics, Denis descends herself into hell in order to place herself on the same plane as someone capable of unthinkable actions. While she would perfect her ability to make inner demons and regrets shimmer on the big screen via cracks in her characters’ armours, I think I Can’t Sleep is a fairly strong experiment on a genre that has desensitized audiences: if we have become too comfortable with seeing grizzly crimes on screen, what happens when Denis intentionally makes us get acquainted with such a psycho? This is a crime film that goes against the grain.
10. Nénette and Boni
Family dynamics can be highly complicated, and Denis explores how true that statement is with Nénette and Boni. The central brother and sister characters are drifted apart by the tragedies of life, including the death of their mother. Once the sister reveals that she is pregnant and in need of assistance, things get even more murky. Denis’ vision is a harrowing one: one of major conflicts and pure dysfunction, especially when it comes to the multiple possible paths one can take when they find out that they are expecting. Denis’ film goes the extra mile with a damning conclusion that will leave you struggling to define what this family is on paper; sometimes, family is literally just who you are connected to via blood. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nénette and Boni aims to challenge this as well, with the notion that family is who you choose (shown in such a twisted way that only skilled directors like Denis can pull off).
9. No Fear, No Die
Denis’ second film, No Fear, No Die, equates the pugnacious struggle of being alive to the illegal realm of underground cockfighting. The film deceptively focuses on chickens duking it out when it is actually about the ways that we beat up each other (literally, allegorically) and ourselves; the concerns surrounding the well being of animals is one thing, but I think that No Fear, No Die is especially difficult to watch at times because we see ourselves in the carnage. Denis is so good at adding context to the inexplicable — as well as creating indescribable perspectives of the ordinary. No Fear, No Die does both with the kind of wisdom one garners towards the end of their career. Denis was just getting started, here.
8. U.S. Go Home
Coming-of-age tales can tell a lot about the storyteller. What regrets does the artist have? What would they want to tell younger versions of themselves? What did they want to be better prepared for if they had their druthers? U.S. Go Home is a sterling television film by Denis that features two teenage girls who are also best friends. Their goal is to lose their virginities before the end of the night. Denis draws from her youth in this film, particularly with its sensational soundtrack of sixties throwbacks (Denis has always been excellent at needle drops). Instead of shoehorning a story, Denis wants to focus on the miasma of the night: the blur between mood, music, and the haze of the evening — all while combating one’s inner conscience in the face of potential danger or regret. Of the Denis films that often get their flowers, U.S. Go Home should be a part of that same conversation: this film is quite something.
7. Both Sides of the Blade
Of the two films Denis released in 2022, one was a bit of a misfire (Stars at Noon) while the other was classic Denis through and through. Both Sides of the Blade is Denis’ take on the love triangle but done so in a way that is completely dependent on its lead character, Sara: her two options include her current lover of many years, and her partner’s best friend (who was once Sara’s boyfriend). The return of Sara’s ex drives an obvious wedge between her and her husband, but there is a reason why Denis goes with the metaphor of a knife in the title of her film: she is exploring the ways lovers hurt one another, not drive each other away. While more upfront with its inner conflicts and dreads than some of her other films, Both Sides of the Blade is still an intense character study by Denis that allows you to burrow into the spirits of all three characters; can there be a correct outcome when so much is wrong for all parties?
6. High Life
Exploring space is about venturing into the unknown. With the amount of science fiction films that we have been blessed with over the course of a century, it can feel like there isn’t much left to explore when you watch rudimentary genre films. Then, there is something like Denis’ High Life which is antithetical to Hollywood’s take on astral travel and drama. Denis’ brand of stylish, pensive, stoic filmmaking makes this space film feel like we are floating in zero gravity ourselves; instead of just allowing us to drift freely, Denis allows us to experience the concern surrounding being unable to ground one’s self again. Denis uses a spaceship as a symbolic vessel that contains life in a non-chronological fashion — as if time is a construct and all factors coexist. Denis understands that the past cannot be changed, that futures look grim, and the present is a standstill; she also knows how to make it all feel breathtaking in an astonishing, dreamy space experiment.
5. The Intruder
In The Intruder, Denis is analyzing the concept of one’s heart in two ways. There is the literal way in the form of character Louis being in need of a heart transplant — his state is so bad that he is considering using a black market in Korea in order to survive. Then, there is the figurative: Louis wanting to unite with a son he is estranged from. One of Denis’ more epic efforts, this over-two-hour film shows the extent of the human experience: how far we push ourselves — be it away from or towards those we love, past our thresholds, or along long distances. Whether we are in fight or flight mode, we are capable of far more than we could ever perceive. Denis wants to discover how with a film about a deteriorating man and his corroding life around him. Is life made up of the achievements we hope to conquer, or the little moments in between? Both? Neither? Denis’ effective portrait of a wasted life and a man seeking numerous forms of redemption is painfully lovely.
4. Chocolat
The first Denis film I ever saw was in my undergraduate program at York University. As you might be able to predict, the majority of my cohorts thought we would be watching the Lasse Hallström romantic drama from 2000 when Chocolat appeared on the course syllabus. What we got instead was a far greater look at French cinema and how it can put a spell on audiences. This film is equal parts nostalgic and scathing — the latter mentality surrounding the reality of colonialism in Africa. As a woman returns back to her old home in Cameroon, she gets an adult perspective of what her childhood truly entailed, down to being reunited with the Black servant who tended to her family. We also see her memories of her youth there, and Denis carefully makes sure that these flashback images are not sensationalized; instead, they are as realistic as can be, allowing us to understand how both an adult and a child can see and decipher the same experiences. This film was an important lesson to me at a young-enough age: cinema is at its very best when it defies expectation (my class learned this in more ways than one).
3. White Material
Twenty years after Chocolat, Denis would revisit the concept of colonialism in Africa with a film that is far less hopeful and nostalgic: White Material. Featuring one of the many excellent performances by Isabelle Huppet, White Material features the owner of a coffee plantation who refuses to leave her property when a civil war breaks out around her. You can read this as stubbornness from a colonialist who is refusing to surrender her power even during a time of complete unrest. You can also be a bit more of an optimist and instead see someone who is refusing to separate from a place they are fond of and have much love for. White Material is just as layered as any of Denis’ best films, but it also wears the crown of being her most thrilling release, and this isn’t even a debate. While Denis usually operates with calmness and contemplation, White Material is her version of a blistering panic attack; there is much to worry about when nothing is certain. Is such sacrifice and risk shown by our protagonist courageous or foolish?
2. 35 Shots of Rum
While Denis’ take on an Akira Kurosawa film — Bastards — wasn’t quite as rewarding, another similar take of a classic Japanese film is as inventive and revelatory as an adaptation can be. 35 Shots of Rum is Denis’ loose interpretation of Yasujirō Ozu’s Late Spring, and Denis’ rendition of Ozu’s naturalistic, static filmmaking is both an homage and a reinvention. While Ozu is meant to make you feel grounded to the point that you feel like you are in your own home and amidst loved ones, Denis’s version gets caught up in the swirling air between a father and daughter who are about to enter a new phase of their relationship: the inevitable distancing apart. 35 Shots of Rum is fantastically weighty like the day after the worst night of your life: it is quietly agonizing and full of yearning. The road ahead is an abstract one, and 35 Shots of Rum doesn’t try to solve what is to come after its central family dynamic is bested by change. It only cares about the moment, and Denis is able to encapsulate that gut feeling of uncertainty, nausea, tested love, and loneliness that major pivotal shifts feel like. If Ozu was thinking about the separation of a father and daughter as a challenged set of roles and responsibilities, Denis was more focused on the same dilemma as the sinking feeling that eats us from the inside (and that damn wave of acceptance that is to follow).
1. Beau Travail
Denis’ greatest film is one of the strongest examples of subversion in all of cinema. Beau Travail takes the then-rising popularity in queer cinema and conveys the similar themes of prohibited love and longing via a restrained, self-destructive fable. Adapting Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Denis crafts a nearly hallucinogenic look at delirium in the middle of Djibouti. Chief Officer Galoup loves commanding troops and feels as though he is excellent at his job. He becomes conflicted when he sees Commandant Forestier; the film tells us on its surface that it is through jealousy that Galoup acts; Denis’ capturing of the human body as a miraculous creation informs us that Galoup is repressing his feelings and turning adoration into malice. What is meant to be the strengthening of men into warriors who can go beyond all limits becomes a series of tortures. When the heart aches, all must suffer. With the whitest sand and the bluest skies above, Beau Travail examines hidden desires that are bursting to be heard; and yet, they are bottled down furthermore.
Without ever telling us motivations and secrets outright, Denis’ Beau Travail encourages us to feel what others are feeling and interpret these multitudes ourselves. The only real answer she provides is in the form of an interpretive dance sequence (so to speak): the concluding scene of the film. Without clarity on what came before it (death, resolution, whatever new or final chapter), our deduction is interrupted by Galoup being brought back to a club in Djibouti after the events of the film. He lets loose in his awkward yet honest way (it helps that Galoup is played by one of the greatest showmen in all of cinema, Denis Lavant) to Corona’s “The Rhythm of the Night” (this is the greatest use of this song in film history, and there is zero competition, here). If film is the marriage of sound and image, then this final sequence in Beau Travail is a sublime example of how the medium can be kneaded in a way that feels like the birth of a miraculous dissonance between elation and surrender. This might be the most Denis has ever told us in one of her films, and it is in the form of a broken individual reminiscing on what has been thrown away — all while exhibiting freedom that he would never feel again. Galoup finds release in music; in expression; possibly in death. If this is not the best ending to a film I have ever seen, it is at least in that conversation; Galoup’s memory is a part of my being forever. An ending can do far more than wrap up a film. It can leave you with something to nibble on once the lights come up. Denis successfully graces us with an idiosyncratic moment that defies description and expectation. If the film that precedes this climax is driven by internalized anguish, this final image is an expulsion of tension: an otherworldly catharsis that redefines how a motion picture can lead us back into our daily lives.
Denis has a number of films that I would recommend, as the above article has hopefully indicated. However, to see a director click with such a specific accomplishment — like Denis does with her quest to place us in the mindsets of genre films and not their cliches and conventions — is a beautiful thing. When macho films were prevailing in the nineties, Denis found fragility in brutality and unorthodoxy in protocol. Without ever feeling like she is throwing ideas at the wall, Denis pieces together a flow of visions from a mirage that tell the story of obsession, repression, and implosion. There aren’t many films that run through your veins like Beau Travail does, where what you see is different from what you are taking away; this duality of narratives that Denis showcases — what sits on the surface of the screen, and what lies beneath — is extraordinary. There aren’t many films that defy the odds of what the medium is capable of in the way that Beau Travail does, and it is nothing short of glorious to watch and behold. As much as I love the bulk of Claire Denis’ work, and I feel like she has many films that cinephiles must be acquainted with, Beau Travail is on a different tier of exquisite: the kind that most filmmakers could never reach. For a film like Beau Travail, all of the stars aligned to tell this ultimate tragedy: one of the great masterpieces of cinema that can never be replicated because its very nature and existence seem impossible.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.