Anatomy of a Fall

Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall won the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2023, beating Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest and Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves in one of the strongest competitions in recent memory. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the César for Best Film. Triet, only the third woman to win the Palme, had previously been known for ensemble comedies; this was her stylistic and tonal rupture.

A German novelist living in the French Alps, Sandra (an extraordinary Sandra Hüller), becomes the prime suspect when her husband is found dead in the snow below their isolated chalet. Their visually impaired eleven-year-old son Daniel is the only other person home; what he heard, or thinks he heard, becomes central to the prosecution. The film's central act is a long, granular trial scene in which a marriage is reconstructed and dismantled in equal measure (every domestic compromise, jealousy and creative grievance presented as evidence.

Hüller's performance) remote, defensive, finally exhausted, is one of the great courtroom performances of the century, and Milo Machado-Graner's debut as Daniel is no less remarkable. The film is co-written with Triet's partner Arthur Harari, and the question of who the artist in a marriage is, and what it costs, lies underneath every line.

Why it's an Editor's Pick: The most intelligent courtroom drama European cinema has produced this decade, a film that uses the trial format to ask whether marriages can ever be fairly judged from outside. Hüller's performance alone justifies a place in the canon.