--- title: "Les Misérables" year: 2012 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/les-miserables-2012" fi1m_score: 62 critics_score: 64 critics_reviews: 22 published: "2026-09-20T07:41:59.418349+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T07:42:08.863231+00:00" region: "US" 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." --- # Les Misérables (2012) Directed by Tom Hooper · 2h 38m · MPA PG-13 · History, Drama **Fi1m score: 62** · Critics 64 from 22 reviews *In a sentence:* A cast of enormous faces sings at us from eight inches away, and one of them is Russell Crowe > Tom Hooper films the stage musical with the cast singing live and the camera a few inches from their faces. When the face is Anne Hathaway’s the effect is overwhelming. Over 158 minutes it is also wearing, and the camera never learns to step back. ## Synopsis France, 1815. Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), prisoner 24601, is paroled after nineteen years’ hard labour at Toulon by the guard Javert (Russell Crowe), who promises to be watching. Turned away everywhere for the yellow ticket that marks him a convict, Valjean steals silver from a bishop who then gives it to him freely, and he tears up his papers to begin again under another name. Eight years on he is mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer and owner of its factory, where Fantine (Anne Hathaway) is sacked when the other women learn she has a child, Cosette, boarded with an innkeeper and his wife (Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter). To keep paying for the girl she sells her hair, her teeth and herself. Then Javert arrives in town as the new inspector. ## Review Tom Hooper’s follow-up to *The King’s Speech* (2010) is the stage musical filmed whole: Claude-Michel Schönberg’s score, Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer’s words, William Nicholson’s screenplay joining the numbers, Victor Hugo’s novel underneath. Hooper’s one large decision was to have the cast sing live on set. It gives the film its best five minutes and most of its problems. It is sincere, enormous and, at 158 minutes, tiring, and we would still not have missed the good bits. The good bits begin with Anne Hathaway. Fantine has sold her hair and her teeth and is singing ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ in a doorway by the docks, and Hooper puts Danny Cohen’s camera on her face and leaves it there for the whole song, in one take. She does not sing it well, on purpose. The voice cracks, the breaths come in the wrong places, she stops on a line to swallow. We cried, which we had not expected, because for once the method and the material want the same thing: nowhere for her to go, and nowhere for the camera to go either. Hugh Jackman holds the rest of it up. His Valjean is a big man who keeps choosing to be decent and pays each time, and Jackman plays the cost in the body: the stoop of the convict, the straightened back of the mayor, the flinch when Javert walks into town. He sings ‘Bring Him Home’ high and quiet, and it is the second time the close camera earns its keep. Eve Stewart has built a France of real weight: the Toulon dock, with a warship hauled in by hundreds of prisoners on ropes; a Paris of leaning tenements; the plaster elephant that Gavroche (Daniel Huttlestone) lives inside; a barricade of chairs, doors and coffins. Paco Delgado dresses the poor in cloth that looks wet even when it is dry. When Cohen pulls back far enough to show us these things, the film is handsome. The trouble is how rarely he does. Hooper shoots nearly every number the way he shot Hathaway: wide lens, inches from the face, the frame tilted, the singer pushed into a corner so that half the screen is wall. Faces swell at the edges. It worked for Hathaway. It works for almost nobody else. Chris Dickens and Melanie Oliver cut the ensemble numbers into fragments of single faces, so that in ‘One Day More’ a dozen people sing to one another and we never see two of them in the same shot. Schönberg’s sung dialogue between the tunes thuds along in the same grip. Nobody in this film speaks. Russell Crowe is the casting everyone will argue about. He sings Javert plainly, a straight, careful tone with no thunder in it, and the part is written for thunder. It is a good actor doing something he can just about do, while the camera sits close enough to watch him concentrate. Eddie Redmayne, as Marius, is better than the part. Amanda Seyfried’s Cosette is sweet and thin, and so is Cosette. Samantha Barks, as Éponine, sings ‘On My Own’ in the rain and does it properly. Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, as the Thénardiers, play the comedy broad and with accents, and we were grateful for anyone allowed to be funny. Here is the other thing we felt. Somewhere past the two-hour mark, with the barricade up and the students singing, we realised our eyes were tired, and that we had been looking at pores and fillings for most of an evening. *The King’s Speech* used the same wide lenses and off-centre frames, and it had two men in a room, so the manner read as intimacy. Here Hooper has Paris in revolt and films it as if it were a stammer. The people who love the stage show will get everything they came for, louder and closer. Anyone else should know that it is sung from first frame to last, runs 158 minutes, and that the best of it is a woman in a doorway. Watch it at home, where the faces are roughly the size of faces. *Fi1m score 62, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics come down in favour of Tom Hooper’s film, and the praise gathers around one decision: recording the singing live on set. Reviewers who like the film say this gives the numbers a rawness the stage version cannot, and nearly every review, positive or not, singles out Anne Hathaway’s single-take ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ as the sequence that justifies the approach. Hugh Jackman is the other performance most often commended. The spread is wide, running from unreserved raves to outright dismissals. The reservations cluster on Hooper’s direction rather than the cast: the constant close-ups, the swooping camera, the sheer relentlessness of a sung-through two and a half hours, which several critics find monotonous or bombastic. Russell Crowe’s casting draws complaints, with Film Comment calling him miscast. The Wrap goes furthest, treating Hathaway’s performance as part of the problem rather than the exception, a view almost no one else shares. ### Reviews we read (22) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (★★★★★): Tom Hooper's decision to record the singing live on set creates a work of unusual power, intensity and colour. The film is a magnificent achievement that overwhelms with its integration of spectacle, music and performances, especially from Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jan/13/les-miserables-review-tom-hooper) - **Empire**, Helen O'Hara (90/100, inferred): The critic finds Hooper’s adaptation raw and emotionally powerful, taking the musical’s subject matter seriously with a visceral edge. Live-sung performances deliver unique punch despite occasional vocal wobbles, with Hathaway’s I Dreamed A Dream singled out as definitive. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/les-miserables-3-review/) - **The Telegraph**, Robbie Collin (90/100, inferred): Tom Hooper’s screen adaptation is a heart-soaring, crowd-delighting hit that feels cinematic and intimate despite its scale. The live-on-set singing gives the music vital presence, with Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine singled out as the showstopper. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/9727469/Les-Miserables-first-review.html) - **Total Film**, Neil Smith (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a gloriously immersive wallow in squalor and degradation that will delight fans and win over newcomers. Live vocals and strong performances, especially Hathaway’s and Jackman’s, are praised, though the second half is less kinetic. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/les-miserables-2-review/) - **Time Out**, Cath Clarke (4/5): The critic suggests even musical skeptics may be won over by this energetic adaptation of the stage hit. Anne Hathaway's raw, single-take performance of 'I Dreamed a Dream' is singled out as the emotional highlight. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/les-miserables-4) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (70/100, inferred): Hooper doubles down on the musical's emotional strength and fearlessly opens it up into a real world with epic scale; despite shameless plotting, it delivers an emotional wallop when it counts. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2012-dec-24-la-et-mn-les-miserables-20121225-story.html) - **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): The sung-through adaptation trades theatrical scale for intimate close-ups and live singing, creating emotional force especially in key numbers like Hathaway's 'I Dreamed a Dream'. Jackman delivers a standout nuanced performance while the approach may divide audiences between fans and non-fans of the musical. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/les-miserables/5049739.article) - **Vulture**, David Edelstein (65/100, inferred): The critic admires the film's gumption and live-singing approach despite its tasteless bombardment and close-up excesses, noting it will be a hit. Singles out Anne Hathaway's performance for praise while critiquing the music and some vocal efforts. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2012/12/david-edelstein-on-les-miserables.html) - **Radio Times**, Alan Jones (3/5): Hooper delivers a well-mounted but heavy-going 'poperetta' that remains rousing thanks to strong anthems and standout turns, especially Hathaway's. The unrelenting close-ups, swooping camerawork and sung-through format make it feel monotonous at times. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-x1olwj/les-misrables/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film well-sung but bombastic, with repetitive visuals and monotonous musical numbers that slur together. Praises some live singing performances but criticizes the overall lack of subtlety and variety. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/les-miserables-film-review-398662/) - **Film Comment**, Michael Koresky (30/100, inferred): The critic questions whether Hooper can successfully adapt the musical to the screen amid its clipped storytelling and forced grittiness. They single out the live close-up performances by Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman as the film's most stirring moments while criticizing miscast elements like Russell Crowe. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/les-miserables-tom-hooper/) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (30/100, inferred): Hooper's shift to grandeur confuses his sense of scale, resulting in a bombastic film whose music and lyrics battle to be more uninspired; a few cast members like Redmayne acquit themselves gracefully amid the inflationary excess. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/07/love-hurts-2) - **Variety**, Justin Chang (30/100, inferred): The film satisfies fans as a faithful rendering but is managed with more gusto than grace, often toppling under its own grandiosity despite vivid visuals and intense live vocals. [Read](https://variety.com/2012/film/reviews/les-miserables-3-1117948874/) - **Slant Magazine**, Calum Marsh (20/100, inferred): The critic calls the film wearying and ugly due to its live-singing gimmick pressuring weak performers, fisheye close-ups, and garish maximalism. Praises the production design but faults the inept shooting and cutting that reduce everything to mugging faces. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/les-miserables/) - **HeyUGuys**, Ross Jones-Morris (5/5): The critic finds the film glorious and a textbook example of adapting a musical to screen. They praise the visual splendor, production design, and intimate close-ups that allow powerful performances, especially Anne Hathaway's 'I Dreamed a Dream.' [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/les-miserables-review/) - **Digital Spy**, Simon Reynolds (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the epic scale, old-school filmmaking and live singing as a potential turning point for movie musicals. They single out Anne Hathaway's heartbreaking 'I Dreamed a Dream' as the standout sequence likely to earn awards attention. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a444838/les-misrables-review-does-oscar-glory-await-tom-hoopers-musical/) - **/Film**, Germain Lussier (9/10): The critic calls it one of the year's best films, praising its bold, moving adaptation and emotional power, especially Hathaway's stirring close-up performance of 'I Dreamed a Dream' and the strong cast. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/523941/les-miserables-review-this-big-bold-moving-hollywood-musical-is-one-of-the-years-best/) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (B): The film is an emotionally powerful musical adaptation buoyed by strong performances, particularly Anne Hathaway's raw 'I Dreamed a Dream,' but director Tom Hooper's overuse of close-ups and erratic editing often undercut the grandeur and staging. [Read](https://collider.com/les-miserables-review/) - **Den of Geek**, Matthew Schuchman (70/100, inferred): The review praises the ambitious live-vocal approach and sweeping visuals as making the film a treat especially for stage fans. It highlights Anne Hathaway's standout emotional performance while noting minor complaints about some supporting casting. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/les-miserables-review/) - **Paste**, Jeremy Mathews (7.9): Hooper's choice to record vocals live creates a fragile, visceral intimacy that heightens the emotional impact of the songs and performances, especially Hathaway's standout turn, though some directorial choices like Dutch angles and crowd scenes feel forced. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/les-miserables) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (C): The review notes the film's ambition and scope but finds it bloated and uneven, with histrionic moments. It singles out Anne Hathaway's performance and the magnificent ending for praise, while criticizing the long runtime and variable singing. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-bloated-les-miserables-still-falls-short-despite-strong-performances-anne-hathaway-cinematic-grandeur-20121206/) - **The Wrap**, Alonso Duralde (10/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a catastrophe of epic proportions and one of 2012’s most excruciating experiences due to Tom Hooper's bad directorial decisions. He singles out the extreme close-ups and over-the-top performances, particularly Anne Hathaway's as Fantine. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/les-miserables-review-i-dreamed-nightmare-69581/) ## Details - **Director:** Tom Hooper - **Director:** Tom Hooper - **Screenplay:** William Nicholson - **Writer:** Herbert Kretzmer, Alain Boublil - **Novel:** Victor Hugo - **Cinematography:** Danny Cohen - **Editor:** Melanie Oliver, Chris Dickens - **Music:** Claude-Michel Schönberg - **Production design:** Eve Stewart - **Costume design:** Paco Delgado - **Producer:** Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Cameron Mackintosh - **Cast:** Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean; Russell Crowe as Javert; Amanda Seyfried as Cosette; Anne Hathaway as Fantine; Eddie Redmayne as Marius Pontmercy; Sacha Baron Cohen as Monsieur Thénardier; Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thénardier; Aaron Tveit as Enjolras - **Runtime:** 2h 38m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 25 December 2012 - **Genres:** History, Drama - **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 2012); [BAFTA Best Film winners](https://film.one/collections/bafta-best-film.md) (Nominee, 2012); [Golden Globe Best Musical or Comedy winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-globe-comedy.md) (Winner, 2012) - **Budget:** $61 million - **Box office:** $443 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28sHoKcpugw ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, uhd - Apple TV: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2013: Best Actor (nominated); Best Costume Design (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Production Design (nominated); Best Makeup and Hairstyling (won); Best Sound (won); Best Supporting Actress (won) ## If you liked this - *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* (1964): Sung from start to finish, French, and it knows when to stand back - *Oliver!* (1968), Fi1m 76: Another Victorian-scale musical of orphans and thieves, staged with room to breathe — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/oliver.md) - *Les Misérables* (1934): Raymond Bernard’s four-and-a-half-hour version of Hugo, without a single song - *Dancer in the Dark* (2000), Fi1m 71: Musical misery shot handheld and close; harder to watch, and it means to be — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/dancer-in-the-dark.md) - *Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street* (2007): A stage musical filmed by a director who trusts the songs to do the work --- © 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/les-miserables-2012