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Celine and Julie Go Boating

Play trailer Poster for Celine and Julie Go Boating 1978 3h 10m Fantasy Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
80% Tomatometer 55 Reviews 86% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
When Celine (Juliet Berto) goes traipsing across a Parisian park, unwittingly dropping first a scarf, then other objects, Julie (Dominique Labourier) cannot help but follow her, picking up each item. So begins a fanciful relationship between the two, which soon sees Celine sharing Julie's apartment and each of them playfully switching identities in their daily lives. As they increasingly indulge their fantasies, they find themselves trying to rescue a young girl from a supposedly haunted house.
Celine and Julie Go Boating

What to Know

Critics Consensus

If its flights of fancy can grow wearisome over its lengthy runtime, Céline and Julie Go Boating often justifies its indulgence with wildly imaginative charm.

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Critics Reviews

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Louise Sweet Financial Times Mar 9, 2023
Celine and Julie Go Boating casts several interweaving spells. Go to Full Review Eric Shorter Daily Telegraph (UK) Mar 2, 2023
An elaborately cumbersome and self-indulgent exercise in highbrow fooling. Go to Full Review Michael Blowen Boston Globe Mar 2, 2023
A cauldron of magic, symbol, humor, dreams, and skits, that is ultimately defeated by its inordinate length. Go to Full Review Ray Pride Newcity Aug 29, 2026
10/10
Dreamland, a playful, indelible haunted house of theater, cinema, Lewis Carroll and larky lady magicians in a single inexhaustible encyclopedic cornucopia. Go to Full Review Brian Susbielles InSession Film Mar 6, 2023
A super collaboration where no idea is discarded and lets the imagination run wild. Go to Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Ben W @Username618 Mar 28, 2026 Doesn't feel like four hours. See more Mix R @Foxxxy Mar 24, 2026 If only it was shorter, the film would be almost perfect. See more Dani G @RT81139271 Aug 25, 2025 I didn't knew a thing about this film, just that it was some kind of classic... Now that I've watched it, I really don't know what to say about the series of nonsense images and illogical plot that I witnessed See more Leaburn O @RT35452347 Aug 25, 2025 Creative, jaunty, silly and at times intriguing. I can see why it’s highly rated but it felt very long and at times a bit too irreverently irritating. Final film I had to watch to complete BBC list of best foreign language films. Watched on DVD. See more Jul 16, 2021 As far as 3 hour-long arthouse French movies go, you could do a lot worse than 'Celine and Julie Go Boating', an intersection of Alice in Wonderland and Remembrance of Things Past that effectively manages to mix the carefree with the strange. See more Oct 23, 2020 Film within a film within a film. It's extraordinarily indulgent of an auteur director yet to be acquainted with an editing suite. The cinematography is magical, the actors cute and accessible, the world alluring but after 2 hours 45 minutes we had to call time and they hadn't even gone boating yet. There's a great 2 hour film in here somewhere but that wouldn't have got the reverence. See more Read all reviews
Celine and Julie Go Boating

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Cast & Crew

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Jacques Rivette

Director

Juliet Berto

Celine

Dominique Labourier

Julie

Bulle Ogier

Camille

Marie-France Pisier

Sophie

Barbet Schroeder

Olivier

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Celine and Julie Go Boating

Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) View more photos

Movie Info

Synopsis When Celine (Juliet Berto) goes traipsing across a Parisian park, unwittingly dropping first a scarf, then other objects, Julie (Dominique Labourier) cannot help but follow her, picking up each item. So begins a fanciful relationship between the two, which soon sees Celine sharing Julie's apartment and each of them playfully switching identities in their daily lives. As they increasingly indulge their fantasies, they find themselves trying to rescue a young girl from a supposedly haunted house.
Director
Jacques Rivette
Producer
Barbet Schroeder
Distributor
New Yorker Films
Genre
Fantasy
Original Language
Canadian French
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 24, 1978, Limited
Runtime
3h 10m
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