Les Misérables

Les Misérables (1982) — watch online on iFILM — is Robert Hossein's French adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel, running close to four hours and starring Lino Ventura as Jean Valjean alongside Michel Bouquet as Inspector Javert.

Valjean served two decades of hard labour for theft, then had years added for attempted escape. A bishop's forgiveness sets him on a different path; he takes a new name and rebuilds from nothing. Javert, meticulous and implacable, tracks him across decades. The film moves between that chase and Cosette's story, the student uprising, and the barricades of June 1832.

Hossein first staged this as a theatrical production before transferring it to the screen with the scale intact. Ventura's physicality gives Valjean a weight that compact adaptations miss — he looks like a man who actually survived nineteen years in irons. Stream Les Misérables (1982) on iFILM.