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What to expect
The Passion of Joan of Arc removes nearly everything that usually makes a historical epic feel distant. Instead of pageantry, Carl Theodor Dreyer gives us faces: Joan trying to hold her certainty, judges searching for a weakness, and onlookers registering fear or fascination. The extreme close-ups deny the comfort of observing from a safe distance. Space becomes difficult to map, time seems suspended, and Renée Falconetti’s performance carries changes too small for theatrical gesture but enormous on screen. The result is both austere and intensely physical, demonstrating how cinema can turn attention itself into drama.
How to ease in
Do not try to reconstruct the whole courtroom or identify every judge. The broken geography is intentional. Follow the direction of looks, the rhythm between questions and answers, and the changes in Falconetti’s face. Criterion lists its main 24 fps presentation at 81 minutes and also includes a 20 fps presentation with original Danish intertitles. That is a playback-speed option, not a separate dramatic cut; Criterion does not list its individual runtime.
Heads-up
A face, a trial, and nowhere for the truth to hide.
Most films use a close-up to reveal an answer. Dreyer uses it to remove every escape.
Open the note ↓
Most films use a close-up to reveal an answer. Dreyer uses it to remove every escape. Falconetti’s face keeps changing without becoming easy to explain, and the judges’ faces become a wall built from certainty. I feel the silence as pressure rather than absence.
— Momo
Credits & versions
- Cast
- Renée Falconetti — Jeanne d'Arc · Eugène Silvain · Maurice Schutz
- Screenplay
- Carl Theodor Dreyer
- Cinematography
- Rudolph Maté
Version map
Ways to watch and read
| Action | Search destination |
|---|---|
| Watch | Check availability on JustWatch |
| Rent | Search rentals on Apple TV |
| Read | Search books on Bookshop.org |
U.S. search destinations · Links checked 2026-07-27 · Stock, editions, prices, and availability can change · Disclosure
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