Metrograph will present “Spotlight on Virginie Efira,” beginning November 13th at Metrograph in Theater. The Award-Winning Actress will join Metrograph for a Special Members Only Screening of “All Of A Sudden,” newly nominated for 4 Gotham Film Awards and Japan’s Official Entry for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards.
Born in Belgium and today largely based in Paris, Virginie Efira’s path to Best Actress plaudits at Cannes—shared with co-star Tao Okamoto—for her role in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All Of A Sudden” was anything but overnight. Beginning her screen career with news anchor gigs and voiceover work, she had a breakthrough year in 2016 with roles in Justine Triet’s “In Bed with Victoria” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle,” and hasn’t looked back since, becoming one of the most in-demand and lauded actresses in the Francophone world, reunions with Triet (on “Sibyl“) and Verhoeven (on “Benedetta“) among high points in a career that doubtless has many more to come. Join us in welcoming to Metrograph a performer equally effective in tempestuous emotion and gelid restraint, and one of the premier talents of her generation.
“Spotlight on Virginie Efira” runs from November 13th to November 22nd, with select encore screenings to follow.
ALL OF A SUDDEN
dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2026, 196 min, DCP
Members Only
Efira shared Best Actress honors with co-star Tao Okamoto at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival for her achingly expressive, heart-on-sleeve performance in “Drive My Car” director Hamaguchi’s much-lauded (mostly) French-language debut, in which she plays Marie-Lou, the director of a home for the aged outside Paris. Marie-Lou is facing stiff resistance in her push to adopt an innovative, idealistic approach to care work called Humanitude when her life is changed inexorably by a chance encounter with Mari (Okamoto), an experimental theater director in the late stages of terminal cancer. A very special Members Only screening, with Efira joining for a post-screening Q&A with critic Melissa Anderson.
Q&A with actress Virginie Efira moderated by film critic Melissa Anderson on Friday, November 13th
BENEDETTA
dir. Paul Verhoeven, 2021, 131 min, DCP
Inspired by the life of Benedetta Carlini, a nun of 17th-century Tuscany whose claims of mystic visions drew the attention of church higher-ups, their investigations eventually revealing a verboten sexual relationship between Carlini and one of her fellow nuns and leading to her imprisonment, Verhoeven’s earthy, irreverent film immerses one in the squelchy squalor and earthly delights of Counter Reformation era Europe, with Virginie Efira a revelation in the title role and Charlotte Rampling, as the abbess of the convent, conveying roiling inner turmoil beneath a cooly composed exterior. An examination of the difficult relationship between religious submission and sexual liberation, featuring some of the most memorable Foley sounds in recent cinema.
IN BED WITH VICTORIA
dir. Justine Triet, 2016, 97 min, DCP
High-powered lawyer Victoria (Efira) is an unstoppable force in the courtroom, but off the clock she struggles to raise her two daughters on her own, respond to the latest online defamation from her vindictive ex-husband, and feign more than passing interest in her latest app-arranged fuck-and-run. While wrapped up in a singularly unusual case brought to her by an old pal (Melvil Poupaud), Victoria reconnects with a onetime client (Vincent Lacoste) who seems to offer the prospect of something more than a desultory fling… that is, if she’s ready or able to accept what’s on offer. A frisky, funny showcase for Efira, unforgettable as the pouty, rumpled, restless, reckless Victoria, smart and savvy in its upending of rom-com cliché
Introduction by actress Virginie Efira on Friday, November 13th
OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN
dir. Rebecca Zlotowski, 2022, 104 min, DCP
Efira may be as radiant as a Botticelli angel, but it’s her no-nonsense directness that gets to you” writes TIME’s Stephanie Zacharek of the actress’s performance in the comic drama “Other People’s Children” as Rachel, a childless forty-something middle-school teacher who, shortly after entering a new relationship with Ali (Roschdy Zem), the father of a four-year-old girl, finds herself increasingly besotted with the kid—and terrified of the risks that come along with such a consuming affection. A poignant, layered, and unerringly compassionate character study, featuring Efira at her most luminous and, at the same time, her most emotionally grounded.
SIBYL
dir. Justine Triet, 2019, 101 min, DCP
Four years before her Palme d’Or triumph with “Anatomy of a Fall,” Triet produced this comic thriller starring Virginie Efira in the title role as a psychotherapist who, fed up with her métier, decides to return to writing fiction—and, in the person of one of her patients, a young, tumultuous actress named Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), finds an absolutely irresistible source of literary inspiration. Impassioned performances by both leads make “Sibyl” a compelling study in obsession and self-delusion, with the added inducement of Anatomy star Sandra Hüller’s appearance in a side-splitting role as the director of a film-within-the-film.
What do you think of this news? Have you seen “All Of A Sudden” yet? If so, what did you think? Do you think Virginie will be nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress? Please let us know in the comments section below or on our X account.
