The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (bc30)

Name: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (bc30)
Released: 2026-09-17
Duration: 112 min
Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, Patrick Chesnais

What it is about

The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

What to expect

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (bc30) is a revival of Julian Schnabel’s 2007 movie about Jean-Dominique Bauby, the Elle France editor who, after a stroke at 43, was left with locked-in syndrome—fully conscious but able to move only his left eye. He used that eye to blink out a memoir, and Schnabel builds the movie around the gap between Bauby’s immobilised body and the restless, sensual interior life that writing unlocks. Mathieu Amalric plays Bauby, and the camera spends long stretches locked to his point of view, so you hear the world before you see it. The bc30 tag marks this as part of Broadway Cinematheque’s 30th-anniversary programme. It screens in French with English and Chinese subtitles, runs 112 minutes, and carries an IIB certificate. The subject matter—paralysis, hospital routine, memory—is steady and intimate rather than plot-driven, and the audience score sits at 7.6 from over 1,300 votes.

Cast