Misericordia

Alain Guiraudie built this black comedy from his own 2021 novel Rabalaire and set it in a village in the Ardeche. Jérémie, played by Félix Kysyl, returns home for the funeral of the village baker, his former boss, and decides to spend a few days with the widow, Martine. Then the stay stretches out, someone disappears, a neighbour turns threatening, and the local priest's intentions grow steadily harder to read. Guiraudie's real feat is keeping the audience on the side of a morally indefensible man. Nobody gives Jérémie up, everyone has a private reason not to, and the priest's mercy becomes indistinguishable from complicity. The title carries exactly that ambiguity. It screened in the Cannes Premiere section at Cannes in 2024, where it competed for the Queer Palm, and went on to win the Louis Delluc Prize, France's most respected critics' award, the same year. Who it is for: viewers who enjoy French cinema that holds desire, crime and rural claustrophobia in the same frame and keeps shifting tone. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clear moral position or a thriller that runs on suspense logic.