All of a Sudden (2026 film)

Development

In May 2025, it was announced that Ryusuke Hamaguchi would shoot his next film, All of a Sudden, in Paris with Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto starring as its two female leads.^[3]

The film was loosely inspired by a collection of letters written between philosopher Makiko Miyano and medical anthropologist Maho Isono which were published in the book You and I – The Illness Suddenly Get Worse.^[4] The letters cover Miyano and Isono's thoughts on life, illness and death as Miyano fought metastatic breast cancer; Miyano lost consciousness shortly after writing the preface to the book and died after 15 days.^[4] Hamaguchi received several offers after the release of his film Drive My Car and only took notice of the project due to being "deeply moved" by the correspondence between the two women. He developed the project over two years, traveling to France in order to do so, including hosting a workshop with French actors to observe their work.^[3] In preparation for her role, Efira learned Japanese.^[1] As Hamaguchi had decided to transpose the setting to France, he contemplated how he could create a bridge between France and Japan, and settled on a treatment approach called Humanitude: "It's French method that was imported in Japan and is now practiced in several venues there, and puts the human dimension at the heart of the treatment care, for the integrity of each human being."^[3]

Filming

Principal photography began on 30 June 2025, with filming taking place in Paris and Kyoto and wrapping on 6 September 2025.^[5] Paris was the primary location of filming, with Hamaguchi wanting to show "a Paris that's a little different from the clichés we might have about the city", inspired by his time in "places that aren't touristy".^[3] Frenchman Alan Guichaoua served as director of photography.^[6]

Post-production

A co-production between France, Japan, Germany and Belgium,^[3] the film was produced by the Paris-based company Cinefrance Studios with the Japanese studios Office Shirous and Bitters End, Germany's Heimatfilm and Belgium's Tarantula.^[1] Hamaguchi first met producer David Gauquié of Cinefrance when the two sat at a café in Shibuya in 2022 and discussed French cinema. Hamaguchi considers French cinema an inspiration for him and central to his "vision as a filmmaker"; he also said that he has been "trying desperately to learn French".^[3]

Canadian-French composer Samuel Andreyev composed the film's original score.^[7]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 31 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.5/10.^[15] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 87 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[16]

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, observing that it "works best entirely outside the exotically overwritten, overthought bond between Mari and Marie-Lou".^[17]

Stephanie Zacharek of Time praised how "the film is so beautifully lit that it's practically an act of wonder" otherwise also warning about the "slow-going" nature of the film and the "repetition of certain ideas and themes, much of it perhaps unnecessary".^[18]

Jessica Kiang of Variety deemed All of a Sudden to be "the rarest type of film, not merely good enough to remind you what cinema can be, but great enough to remind you what life can be".^[19]

Fabien Lemercier of Cineuropa wrote that Hamaguchi "crafts a multi-layered film of great purity, where benevolence stubbornly fights back against inevitability".^[20]

Accolades