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Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key

Drama · War · 2010

On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being sent to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closet just before the police entered their apartment. Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.

Movie details

Sarah's Key

“Uncover the mystery.”

2010 Drama · War 1h 51m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.5 / 10

18.1K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

72 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

59 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.3 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being sent to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closet just before the police entered their apartment. Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Sarah's Key?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Written by

Gilles Paquet-Brenner · Serge Joncour

Kristin Scott Thomas

Kristin Scott Thomas

Julia Jarmond

Mélusine Mayance

Mélusine Mayance

Sarah Starzynski, child

Niels Arestrup

Niels Arestrup

Jules Dufaure

Frédéric Pierrot

Frédéric Pierrot

Bertrand Tezac

Michel Duchaussoy

Michel Duchaussoy

Edouard Tezac

Dominique Frot

Dominique Frot

Genneviève Dufaure

Natasha Mashkevich

Natasha Mashkevich

Rywka Starzynski

Court is in session

Put Sarah's Key on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Ambition earns the room.”

The film reaches for consequence and scale, accepting the risk of seriousness instead of shrinking from it.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Importance has entered the chat.”

The production keeps announcing its significance, as though awards-season posture were proof of insight.