Film
The Death of Louis XIV
La Mort de Louis XIV
August 1715. The king returns from a hunt with a pain in his leg. He is put to bed at Versailles, and over the following weeks his doctors, courtiers and confessor gather around the bed to watch, argue, and administer whatever they can think of.
About
Albert Serra makes films at the pace of the thing being filmed, which in this case is a man dying slowly in a very hot room. It premiered at Cannes in 2016 as a special screening and gave Jean-Pierre Léaud, the boy from The 400 Blows and the face of the French New Wave, the last great role of his career. He won the Lumières Award for it.
Louis XIV comes back from hunting with a sore leg, sits down, and does not get up again. What follows is confined almost entirely to the bedchamber: the doctors of the faculty of Paris disagreeing in Latin, a quack summoned from Marseille with an elixir, courtiers applauding when the king manages to eat a biscuit, dogs brought to the bedside, a leg turning black. Serra lights it by candle in the manner of a Georges de La Tour, holds shots far past the point of comfort, and finds a deadpan comedy in the etiquette that continues regardless.
It is a film about power as a body, and about a court so committed to protocol that it cannot register what is happening in front of it. Critics divided along predictable lines between those who found it hypnotic and those who found it interminable. Léaud, propped in a vast wig and barely able to speak above a whisper, gives it a weight that goes beyond the part: an era of cinema watching itself go.
Where to Watch
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Streaming availability via JustWatch. Last checked 2026-08-30.
Top Cast
Jean-Pierre Léaud
Louis XIV
Patrick d'Assumçao
Fagon, le médecin
Marc Susini
Blouin, le valet de chambre
Bernard Belin
Mareschal, le chirurgien
Irène Silvagni
Madame de Maintenon
Awards, Festivals & Mentions
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Winner — Lumières Award Best Actor (Jean-Pierre Léaud, 2017)
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Winner — Prix Jean Vigo (2016)
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Cannes Film Festival 2016 — Special Screening
