Le Boucher

Chabrol’s most celebrated and sinister film sees a tender friendship between a schoolteacher and local butcher darken as a series of murders unsettles life in their village.

  • Director

    Claude Chabrol

  • With

    Stéphane Audran, Jean Yanne

  • France-Italy 1970. 92min

  • Digital (restoration)

  • Certificate

    15

  • English subtitles

A schoolteacher and a butcher strike up a tender, tentative friendship in a small Périgord village, just as a series of murders unsettle the local community. A work of extraordinary restraint, in which the landscape itself seems to harbour violence. Le Boucher profits from Jean Yanne’s remarkable performance – one of the great, mostly unsung, achievements of French cinema.

Contains scenes of graphic violence or injury and harm towards children.

The screening of Le Boucher on Wednesday 9 September will be introduced by season curator Catherine Wheatley.

See the Philosophical Screens discussion on Le Boucher.

Also available on BFI Player