A Man Escaped (1956)

This prison-break study is Robert Bresson at his most starkly essential: a man, four walls, his ingenuity and the mysterious inflections of fate.

Based on the true story of a Gestapo prisoner who escaped from prison just hours before his scheduled execution, Robert Bresson’s film is a suspenseful realist drama and a moving metaphorical fable about chance and redemption. Perhaps most remarkably, Bresson (himself a former prisoner of war) conveys how the significance of everything is transformed by incarceration; sounds offer information, and objects become potential tools for escape.

“Bresson’s purest distillation of the art of realism through simple storytelling, memorably making use of non-professional actors.” Clyde Jeavons

“A sublime example of economic filmmaking.” Kim Haerim

“The film that got me hooked on cinema decades ago, and still the most perfect achievement of my favourite director.” Robert Beeson

“Reason and perception, condemnation and salvation, sin and sanctity, ethics and aesthetics compose the mathematical system of interrogation and revelation that Bresson eventually develops in all his works, but particularly here.” Eduardo Stupía

1956 France
Directed by
Robert Bresson
Written by
Robert Bresson
Featuring
François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock
Running time
102 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for A Man Escaped

Critics

Peter Bagrov
Russia/USA
Robert Beeson
UK
Sehad Čekić
Montenegro
Godfrey Cheshire
USA
Pierre Eugène
France
Mark Feeney
USA
Sara García Villanueva
Spain
Aswathy Gopalakrishnan
India
Kevin Gough-Yates
UK
Kim Haery
South Korea
Robert Hanks
UK
Jan Holmberg
Sweden
Stefan Ivančić
Serbia
Marcel Jean
Canada/France
Clyde Jeavons
UK
Christian Keathley
USA
Sascha Keilholz
Germany
Jessica Kiang
Germany
B (Brent) Kite
USA
Jay Kuehner
USA
Kristy Matheson
UK
Nasreen Munni Kabir
UK
Marcin Pieńkowski
Poland
Jonathan Rosenbaum
USA
Peter Christian Rude
Denmark
Cary Rajinder Sawhney
UK
Hannes Schüpbach
Switzerland
Eduardo Stupía
Argentina
Drake Stutesman
USA
Oleksandr Teliuk
Ukraine
David Thomson
UK/USA

Directors

María Aparicio
Argentina
Frank Beauvais
France
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Turkey
Nan Goldin
USA
David Hare
UK
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Chad
Sangsoo Hong
South Korea
Umesh Kulkarni
India
Ilian Metev
Bulgaria/Germany/UK
Camilo Restrepo
Colombia
Benny Safdie
USA
Charlie Shackleton
UK
Laura Wandel
Belgium
Ezequiel Yanco
Argentina