At 34, Xavier Dolan has announced that he is taking a break from his directing career. The opportunity to return to the filmography of this multi-award-winning prodigy through the ranking of his works from the worst to the best rated by AlloCiné spectators.
The Night Laurier Gaudreault Woke Up, Only the End of the World, Mommy, My Life with John F. Donovan and I Killed My Mother are available on myCANAL.
9. TOM AT THE FARM – 3.5/5
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April 2014. Only a few weeks before walking the red carpet to collect the Jury Prize at the 67th edition of the Cannes Film Festival for Mommy, Xavier Dolan invites spectators to discover Tom à la Ferme at the cinema. The 4th work in the filmography of the filmmaker then aged 24, this one adapts the eponymous play by Michel Marc Bouchard.
Xavier Dolan embodies the leading role, that of Tom, a young man freshly arrived from Montreal to join Quebec for the funeral of Guillaume, his boyfriend who died in a road accident. From the meeting of the mother marked by the recent death of her husband and her son, and who knows nothing of the relationship that the latter had with a man, to that with the virile, violent and homophobic brother, Tom is carried away in a psychological and physical nightmare where the lie must triumph.
Addressing the themes of mourning, homophobia, influence, and the Stockholm syndrome, Tom on the Farm is one of Xavier Dolan’s darkest films, but still illuminated by sequences to be seen and to review, like this opening scene à la Shining punctuated by Les Moulins de mon coeur taken over by Kathleen Fortin: timeless.
8. MATTHIAS & MAXIME – 3.5/5
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Last feature film by Xavier Dolan, Matthias & Maxime seems to return to the basics of the director’s universe. After filming in English for Ma vie with John F. Donovan, he returned to Montreal where he played opposite Gabriel D’Almeida Freitas, alias Matthias, a cold businessman. For his part, he is Maxime, a shy and kind bartender.
These two best friends find themselves in a house near a lake, accompanied by their gang of friends, before a kiss between the two comes to change everything. Presented in the official selection of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, this film, both dense and refined, moves as much as it upsets, and focuses on an impossible love with the stuff of the classics of the genre. Titanic fans (like Xavier Dolan) will also find a nice nod to the film.
7. MY LIFE WITH JOHN F. DONOVAN – 3.6/5
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Having caused a stir over several re-edits that resulted in Jessica Chastain being cut from the film, as well as narrowly missing out on competition for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Ma Life with John F. Donovan stars Kit Harington as John Francis Donovan, an American television star. 10 years after his death, a young actor grants an interview to a journalist to talk about the correspondence they had, he the child fan with his idol at the time.
Navigating between 2 temporalities, My life with John F. Donovan deals as much with the mother/son relationship as with nostalgia, childhood, fame or even what it is to be a fan. A film unfairly shunned, which offers its share of flights as sublime as its soundtrack.
6. JUST THE END OF THE WORLD – 3.6/5
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Grand Prize of the Festival and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes in 2016, César for Best Direction, Best Editing and Best Actor for Gaspard Ulliel, Only the end of the world offers the late actor one of his most beautiful roles in movie theater. While restrained and fragile, and at the same time so strong and resilient, he plays Louis, a writer who has returned to see his family after 12 years to announce his death.
Around the family table, everyone plays a score without a hitch, from the sensitive and exalted mother Nathalie Baye to the angry brother Vincent Cassel, passing by the shy sister-in-law Marion Cotillard and the rebellious youngest Léa Seydoux. Pure Xavier Dolan.
5. IMAGINARY LOVES – 3.7/5
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Monia Chokri walking down the street to the sound of Dalida’s Bang Band, a rain of marshmallows, Lolita-style red heart-shaped glasses worn by Niels Schneider, color filters, quotes from authors, a swing, the appearance of a certain Louis Garrel at a party… Les Amours imaginaires is all that, and much more.
Telling the love triangle between Francis, Marie and Nicolas, this 2nd film by Xavier Dolan compiles everything we love about him, all while succeeding in seducing both the profession and the general public. A film released in 2010 and which has lost none of its charm, rewarded with 3 prizes (in Namur, in Sydney and in Namur).
4. I KILLED MY MOTHER – 3.8/5
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Before Les Amours imaginaires, there was I killed my mother, Xavier Dolan’s very first feature film, made when he was not yet 20, and written when he was 16. Featuring him facing Anne Dorval, who will then be his privileged cinema mother, the film tells of Hubert, 16,’s detestation of his mother.
Financed by SODEC, the film is already endowed with a very Dolan aesthetic, and conceals cinematographic and above all artistic references, from François Truffaut to Jackson Pollock via Matisse. A first successful work and heralding an equally brilliant sequel.
3. THE NIGHT LAURIER GAUDREAULT WAKED UP – 4.2/5
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Xavier Dolan’s latest production, The Night where Laurier Gaudreault woke up is also his first and only series, and has already risen to the top of the ranking of his best-rated works by AlloCiné viewers with 4.2/ 5.
Also adapted from a play by Michel Marc Bouchard (like Tom on the farm), the 5 episodes immerse us in the history of the Larouche family, in search of the secrets that have haunted them for 30 years. A real public and critical success, this television and oh so cinematographic object is the perfect sum of its director’s work, highlighting an extraordinary talent for telling the intimate in universal themes.
Halfway between the thriller and the author, managing to grab us thanks to cliffhangers and pick us up in sequences worthy of the big screen, The Night where Laurier Gaudreault woke up is quite simply a classic from Dolan.
2. LAURENCE ANYWAYS – 4.2/5
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If there is one film that brings together all of Xavier Dolan’s talents and almost single-handedly sums up why many consider him a cinematic prodigy, it’s him. Released in 2012 and bringing other actors to the fore for the very first time, Laurence Anyways transports us to an extraordinary love, that of Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) and Fred (Suzanne Clément).
He is a teacher and realizes at the dawn of his 30th birthday that he is a woman stuck in a man’s body, and that he now wants to live as a woman. If he decides to face the prejudices and let the feelings be stronger than anything, the couple will have a hard time surviving 10 years of battle in the face of society and doubts. A feature film of rare strength, ahead of its time, and that we never tire of seeing and seeing again.
1. MOMMY – 4.4/5
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It is undoubtedly the film that tipped Xavier Dolan’s career to throw him into the spotlight: Mommy obviously takes first place among the most popular titles of the filmmaker’s career. Creating the event during its screening at Cannes in 2014, and selected to represent Canada at the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, this drama carried by Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément and Antoine Olivier Pilon crossed the million spectators mark in France.
Recognizable among a thousand thanks to its 4/3 format, it didn’t take long to create a craze and make those who don’t know Xavier Dolan want to see his other films and follow his work closely. The story is that of a widow having custody of her violent and impulsive son. The unexpected help of the enigmatic neighbor Kyla will give birth to hope for this trio, in a happy parenthesis, but unfortunately short-lived…
A film that makes you laugh, cry, makes you want to take your skateboard while listening to Oasis and to sing out loud “On ne change pas” by Céline Dion, in short, which makes you live and vibrate, like all the works of Xavier Dolan .