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Papillon

Papillon

Adventure · Crime · Drama · 2017

Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.

Movie details

Papillon

“The greatest escape adventure ever told”

2017 Adventure · Crime · Drama 2h 14m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.2 / 10

94.8K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

52 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

51 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.3 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Papillon?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Bad Boys

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Mick O'Brien is a young Chicago street thug torn between a life of petty crime and the love of his girlfriend. But when the heist of a local drug dealer goes tragically wrong Mick is sentenced to a brutal juvenile prison where violence is a rite of passage and respect is measured in vengeance.

The Green Mile

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The Card Counter

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William Tell just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk, a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel. Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk.

The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs

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Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption

Drama · 1994

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

GoodFellas

GoodFellas

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The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.

Papillon

Papillon

Crime · 1973

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke

Drama · 1967

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

Midnight Express

Midnight Express

Drama · 1978

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of a country. The courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Michael Noer

Written by

Aaron Guzikowski

Charlie Hunnam

Charlie Hunnam

Henri 'Papillon' Charrière

Rami Malek

Rami Malek

Louis Dega

Christopher Fairbank

Christopher Fairbank

Jean Castili

Eve Hewson

Eve Hewson

Nennete

Michael Socha

Michael Socha

Julot

Brian Vernel

Brian Vernel

Guittou

Nicholas Asbury

Nicholas Asbury

Commandant

Court is in session

Put Papillon on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Form is the argument.”

Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Technique in search of a pulse.”

Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.