---
title: "Au Hasard Balthazar"
year: 1966
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/au-hasard-balthazar"
fi1m_id: "au-hasard-balthazar"
imdb_id: "tt0060138"
tmdb_id: 20108
wikidata_id: "Q228937"
fi1m_score: 90
critics_score: 87
critics_reviews: 9
published: "2026-09-26T16:13:45.627502+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-26T16:13:51.475879+00:00"
region: "SK"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

Directed by Robert Bresson · 1h 36m · Drama

## Identity

Au Hasard Balthazar

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/au-hasard-balthazar
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** au-hasard-balthazar
- **IMDb ID:** tt0060138
- **TMDB ID:** 20108
- **Wikidata ID:** Q228937
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060138/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/20108, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q228937

**Fi1m score: 90** · Critics 87 from 9 reviews

*In a sentence:* Everyone in the village gets a turn with the stick, and the donkey keeps his opinions to himself

> Robert Bresson follows a donkey from foal to old age through the hands of a French village and never tells us what to feel. Hard going in places, drawn with a ruler in others, and among the most exact films we know.

## Synopsis

On a farm in the French countryside, children baptise a donkey foal with salt and water and name him Balthazar. Marie (Anne Wiazemsky) and Jacques (Walter Green), whose family owns the land, spend a summer with him before Jacques is taken away and Marie’s father (Philippe Asselin) is left to work the farm. Years pass. Balthazar is put to the cart, beaten, and passed to the village bakery, where the delivery boy Gérard (François Lafarge), who rides a moped and runs with a gang, uses the donkey for his rounds and for his temper. Marie, now grown, is drawn to Gérard in spite of everything she has watched him do. Around them are Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert), the local drunk, and a grain merchant (Pierre Klossowski), who will each have the donkey in their turn.

## Review

Robert Bresson wrote and directed *Au Hasard Balthazar*, and the title character is a donkey. He is born on a farm in the French countryside, baptised by children with salt and water, and loved for a summer by Marie (Anne Wiazemsky) and Jacques (Walter Green). Then Jacques’s family leaves, Marie’s father (Philippe Asselin) takes on the land, and Balthazar becomes a working animal. Over 96 minutes he passes from hand to hand: a farmer who beats him, a baker’s wife (Marie-Claire Fremont) and her delivery boy Gérard (François Lafarge), the village drunk Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert), a grain merchant (Pierre Klossowski). Marie grows up alongside him and does not do much better.

We would tell a stranger to see it, with a warning attached. Bresson works with non-professionals, has them speak flatly and keeps their faces still, so that nobody on screen tells us what to feel. In his earlier films this could look like a discipline imposed on actors. Here it is simply the condition of the lead, because a donkey cannot act, cannot be sentimental and cannot be lying. Everything human in the film is measured against an animal that only watches.

We were horrified, twice, and both times it was the framing that did it. Early on Gérard twists a sheet of newspaper round Balthazar’s tail and sets it alight, and Ghislain Cloquet does not show us a suffering face. He shows the tail, the hooves shifting on the road, the boy’s hands, and then Raymond Lamy cuts away before the animal has finished reacting. Later, worked past exhaustion, Balthazar lies down in a lane and the men stand over him with sticks. Bresson will not hold the shot, and that is exactly why we could not bear it.

Cloquet shoots in black and white and low to the ground, near the height of a donkey’s eye, so that people arrive as boots and legs and hands before they are faces. Pierre Charbonnier’s rooms are bare: a barn, a bakery, a bench outside a café, a table with a bottle on it. Jean Wiener is credited with the music and his share is mostly the jukebox where Gérard and his friends gather; the rest is a Schubert piano sonata, played in short stretches and stopped before it can swell. Otherwise the soundtrack is hooves, bells and a cart on a road.

Not all of it holds. Gérard and his gang, with their leather jackets and mopeds and transistor radio, are the delinquents a film of 1966 imagined, and Lafarge is asked to be wicked in a way the rest of the cast are not asked to be anything. Klossowski’s merchant, counting coins and explaining why he gives nothing away, is a figure from a fable rather than a man. Bresson wants us to see Balthazar as a saint, which the film mostly earns by looking and occasionally insists on by arrangement. A couple of the parallels between the donkey’s life and Marie’s are drawn with a ruler.

Wiazemsky’s Marie is the harder case. She goes to Gérard knowing what he is and stays, and Bresson gives us no inner life to explain it, only her walk, her hands on the donkey’s neck and a stare that goes past the camera. Some viewers find her a blank. We found her the most frightening thing in the film, because she is the one character with a choice and we could see her not making it.

Bresson’s earlier heroes had a task: a prisoner working at a door in [*A Man Escaped*](https://film.one/film/a-man-escaped), a thief training his hands in [*Pickpocket*](https://film.one/film/pickpocket). Balthazar wants nothing and plans nothing, and the film is braver for building itself round him. The second half takes him further than we will describe. Most critics rate it about where we do, and the one complaint that recurs, that the religious meaning is laid on thick, is fair for perhaps ten minutes of the 96.

It is not a film for children, and it is not a film to have on while you do something else. Look away and you lose the thread. Sit still for an hour and a half. The donkey manages considerably longer.

*Fi1m score 90, published 26 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics agree, and warmly. Eight of nine reviews are positive, and the praise clusters around Bresson’s austere direction: plain images and sounds that critics find building toward something they describe as profound, heartbreaking and sublime. The donkey is the other point of agreement. Reviewers single out its unhumanised perspective, and the film’s refusal to sentimentalise it, as the source of whatever the film has to say about people. Several read it as a religious parable, and most treat the sacred and the brutal as deliberately balanced rather than at odds.

The spread is narrow and the reservations mild. Empire finds the religious overtones heavy-handed while still calling the film intelligent and morally serious. Eye for Film and Total Film are approving rather than rapturous, praising the unsentimental treatment of cruelty and the stark meditation on existence without going further. One review could not be read in full. Nobody argues the film fails; the disagreement is only about how far to go.

## Straight answers

**Is Au Hasard Balthazar worth watching?**

*Au Hasard Balthazar* is worth watching for anyone prepared to sit still through 96 minutes of a donkey being passed from hand to hand in a French village, and we scored it 90. Robert Bresson never tells us what to feel, and two scenes of the animal's mistreatment horrified us. It is not for children, and not for a distracted evening.

**How long is Au Hasard Balthazar, and what is it rated?**

*Au Hasard Balthazar* runs 1h 36m. It is a drama film.

**Where can I watch Au Hasard Balthazar in Slovakia?**

*Au Hasard Balthazar* is not on any streaming or rental service in Slovakia at the moment. It is available in 36 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does Au Hasard Balthazar compare to Umberto D.?**

*Au Hasard Balthazar* and [*Umberto D.*](https://film.one/film/umberto-d) both set an animal beside a person the world has no use for, but Bresson keeps his distance where De Sica lets us in. The Italian film is the warmer and easier evening, carried by Carlo Battisti's proud, awkward old man. Bresson's is the more exacting, and the harder to shake off.

**What should I watch after Au Hasard Balthazar?**

After *Au Hasard Balthazar*, try [*Umberto D.*](https://film.one/film/umberto-d) (1952, Fi1m 91): An old man, a small dog and a Rome that has no use for either. Then [*Ordet*](https://film.one/film/ordet) (1955, Fi1m 86): Dreyer’s farmhouse miracle, the other great film that takes faith at face value.

### Reviews we read (9)

- **Radio Times**, Adrian Turner (5/5): Turner calls the film a masterpiece and a clear religious parable. He praises its remarkable range, describing it as austere, warm, grim, surreal, shocking and heartbreaking. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-b970sz/au-hasard-balthazar/)
- **Slant Magazine**, Eric Henderson (4/4): Henderson sees the film as a rare spiritual work that makes saintliness ordinary rather than elevating its characters above humanity. He praises Bresson’s dispassionate balance of the sacred and profane, especially in the donkey’s final moments among the sheep. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/au-hasard-balthazar/)
- **Time Out**, Alexandre Prouvèze (5/5): The page identifies this as a five-star review, indicating a strongly positive verdict. The review text is unavailable, so no specific praise or complaint can be reliably identified. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/fr/cinema/au-hasard-balthazar-1966)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Justin Chang (95/100, inferred): Chang regards the film as a masterpiece and a profound, heartbreaking achievement. He singles out Bresson’s poetic transformation of a donkey’s brutal life into a deeply human vision. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-critics-choice-20180222-story.html)
- **The AV Club**, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (90/100, inferred): The critic presents the film as an unconventional masterpiece, praising Bresson’s austere style for making simple images and sounds profoundly powerful. He especially singles out the donkey’s unhumanized perspective as a source of the film’s insight into human nature. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/50-years-later-au-hasard-balthazar-remains-an-unconven-1798189610)
- **Total Film**, Total Film (4/5): The review praises the film as a stark, profound meditation on existence. It singles out the way images and sounds build toward a sublime epiphany. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/au-hasard-balthazar-review/)
- **Empire**, David Parkinson (75/100, inferred): Parkinson finds the film deeply intelligent and morally resonant despite its heavy-handed religious overtones. He singles out Bresson’s restrained formal style and unsentimental performances. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/au-hasard-balthazar-review/)
- **RogerEbert.com** (65/100, inferred): The page could not be accessed, so the critic's verdict cannot be established. No praise or complaint can be verified from the available text. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-au-hasard-balthazar-1966)
- **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film powerful in its unsentimental portrayal of cruelty and vulnerability. They especially praise Bresson’s refusal to compromise truth for expedience, while noting the donkey’s genuine personality. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/au-hasard-balthazar-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray)

## Details

- **Director:** Robert Bresson
- **Director:** Robert Bresson
- **Writer:** Robert Bresson
- **Cinematography:** Ghislain Cloquet
- **Editor:** Raymond Lamy
- **Music:** Jean Wiener
- **Production design:** Pierre Charbonnier
- **Producer:** Mag Bodard
- **Cast:** Anne Wiazemsky as Marie; Walter Green as Jacques; François Lafarge as Gérard; Jean-Claude Guilbert as Arnold; Philippe Asselin as Marie's Father; Pierre Klossowski as Merchant; Nathalie Joyaut as Marie's Mother; Marie-Claire Fremont as Baker's Wife
- **Runtime:** 1h 36m
- **First release (France):** 15 May 1966
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Box office:** $39,388

## Where to watch in Slovakia

Not streaming, renting or buying in Slovakia at the last check.

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, BE, BG, BR, CL, CO, DE, EE, ES, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IL, IN, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, PA, PH, PL, RO, RS, SG, TH, TR, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Mouchette* (1967): Bresson’s next film, a village girl this time, just as plain and just as hard.
- *EO* (2022): A Polish donkey on the road, shot in colour and noise; the debt is open.
- *Umberto D.* (1952), Fi1m 91: An old man, a small dog and a Rome that has no use for either. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/umberto-d.md)
- *The Turin Horse* (2011): Six days, a horse that will not eat, and wind; Tarr at his sparest.
- *Ordet* (1955), Fi1m 86: Dreyer’s farmhouse miracle, the other great film that takes faith at face value. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ordet.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/au-hasard-balthazar