The Woman Next Door (1981) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by phil ★★★½

  Pls never be neighbors with your ex

• Review by theriverjordan ★★ 17

  In his late career, penultimate film, there arrives a moment to admit that François Truffaut was a more eloquent interpreter of children’s intellect than he ever was that of adults.

  The bounds of this statement aren’t limited to only Truffaut’s films involving actual young protagonists, but also those that address adolescence in arrested development, or even grown men and women who live with either the joy or the ignorance similar to a child.

  For this, it is no great shock that “The Woman Next Door,” a narrative about middle aged melancholia and adultery, is a structurally sound work, but one without the vivacity and complexity of Truffaut’s best.

  It is, simply, too adult.

  It seems counterintuitive to claim that a…

• Review by benhack ★★★★

  The indelible remnants of romantics. A tempest of lustful sentiments begin to animate such dull commitments in lush aesthetic. An affair to condition nostalgic mortal lovers, an infatuation that manifests for perpetual time, a fragment of rapture to a canvassing doldrums of infidelity. They converse in words that texture a clandestine past, a fabric of personified love that is deftly withering to a void of apathy. In each other's vacancy, there is obsession. In each other's company, there is nothing.

• Review by Slig001 ★★★

  François Truffaut's penultimate film explores a similar theme seen in some of his earlier work; that being the dark side of love. The Woman Next Door is a romantic drama about how love itself can shatter a happy life, as Gérard Depardieu's settled family man finds himself in turmoil when, by chance, an old flame (Fanny Ardant) moves into the house next door with her husband. The film gets off to a really intriguing start, as the pair meet and the tension begins to build as they literally can't keep away from each other, and soon the affair begins again. It's slow moving and generally goes in the expected direction - though it's clear that the drama has a very…

• Review by Dan ★★★★★ 8

  Y'all sleeping on this one! A gripping & captivating tale of marital infidelity & obsessive love that portrays two lovers with different spouse amidst of a passionate dilemma with also providing a shocking twist, this is a very underrated movie from one of the most famous french auteur, Francois Truffaut, that should deserves more attention! You'll root for these characters even though their love was forbidden because they really shows genuine feelings towards each other

  Tells about Bernard who lives with his wife in a quiet village. Suddenly, a married couple moves to the house next door. And apparently, the woman, Mathilde, appears to be Bernard's ex wife who had an intense affair before. So, their forbidden passion ensues, their fidelity towards…

• Review by Sally Jane Black

  The story at the forefront of this film is a fairly standard love affair, despite a few ripples. It has deep roots in the past of these two people brought back together by circumstance, and it culminates with violence. It is a passionate conflict, and neither side is particularly intelligent about how they go about it. But that love affair is possibly the lesser story here, in terms of its romantic grandeur and impact, quietly eclipsed by the story of the other female neighbor, the old woman who introduces the film.

  Given the way the film is structured--see the above introduction and note that she also closes the film--it could be said this is indeed her story. It seems as…

• Review by I.V.

  Old favorite. Visually, Truffaut's most precisely constructed film. Camera / characters navigating a gridwork of stairs, shelves, windows, doors, shutters.

• Review by victor ★★★½

  uma casa vibrante, plena de dinamismo e histórias, posiciona-se diante de outra, marcada pelo abandono e pela decadência, como um espelho invertido de rumos, antanho um refúgio para o florescimento familiar, vê sua estabilidade ruir diante da chegada inesperada de novos habitantes à casa do outro lado. Essa presença imprevista reacende a chama de uma paixão que o tempo tentou apagar, mas que permaneceu latente, esperando apenas o estímulo para ressurgir. A essência desse amor renascido, no entanto, revela-se enredada em camadas intricadas de controle, limites emocionais e uma cadeia de desejos reprimidos. A paixão, longe de ser luminosa e libertadora, se desdobra em um jogo de forças que, na sua obsessão e autodestruição, desvela a face mais sombria do…

• Review by Disgustipated ★★

  A man named Bernard (Gerard Depardoo), appears happily married to his pretty little wife and his joyful little boy. And then an old lover, Mathilde (Fanny Ardant), unexpectedly materializes out of nowhere when her husband unknowingly rents the house next door.

  A complicated switchback of passion and recriminations ensues. It starts off intriguing, wandering why there relationship ended, wandering when they will cave into their naked desire, and wandering what will happen when their partners find out.

  But it quickly descends into a trope infested disappointment, as it becomes reduced to facile conflicts of cardboard archetypes. Bernard becomes the jealous male and Mathilde the hysterical bunny boiler with all the subtlety and nuance of a sledgehammer.

  Perhaps this wouldn't matter…

• Review by maneleeo ★★★★

  I don't know what to write about this film. I really like, it ventures into immoral territory and shows us the romantic side of being bad, but also how twisted it can be. It's not about love I guess, it's about not being alright.

• Review by Rodrigo Homsi ★★★★

  François Truffaut dirigiu e escreveu o roteiro do que poderia ser uma peça de teatro, há um transbordamento de paixão irrefreável, quase palpável, o filme consegue passar a sensação de proximidade com os protagonistas, não pelo carisma, mas pelas situações vividas.
  Um roteiro maravilhoso de uma paixão obsessiva, vil, maléfica, destrutiva que corrói a alma e rebaixa um dos sentimentos mais bonitos do ser humano.
  Não há palavras pra descrever as atuações magistrais de Fanny Ardant e Gérard Depardieu, dois ícones do cinema francês que estão abençoados pelos deuses da dramaturgia nessa tragédia humana.

• Review by Michael501 📺 ★★★½

  1981 In Review - September
  #18

  Two ex-lovers wind up living next door to each other with their respective spouses. Forbidden passions ensue.

  Bernard is happily married to his wife Arlette and has a son, Thomas. One day a new couple move in next door: Philippe and Mathilde, the latter of whom is a seductive woman with a secret -- she used to be Bernard's lover eight years previous and they ended up breaking up.
  I am no expert in French cinema but I had heard of Francois Trauffaut before, I can clearly see why he is held in high regard because this is an outstanding love story, with an astonishing, riveting performance from Fanny Ardant with Gérard Depardieu also…