The Great Arch
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| The Great Arch | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| French | L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche |
| Directed by | Stéphane Demoustier |
| Written by | Stéphane Demoustier |
| Based on | La Grande Arche by Laurence Cossé |
| Produced by | Muriel Meynard |
| Starring | Claes Bang Sidse Babett Knudsen Xavier Dolan Swann Arlaud Michel Fau |
| Cinematography | David Chambille |
| Edited by | Damien Maestraggi |
| Music by | Olivier Marguerit |
Production companies | Ex Nihilo Zentropa Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Le Pacte |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 108 minutes[1] |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
The Great Arch (French: L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche) is a 2025 French biographical drama film written and directed by Stéphane Demoustier, based on Laurence Cossé's 2016 novel La Grande Arche.[2][3] It stars Claes Bang as Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, the Danish architect who won the 1983 competition for the design of the Grande Arche in Paris despite being virtually unknown.[4] The cast also includes Sidse Babett Knudsen, Xavier Dolan, Swann Arlaud and Michel Fau.[5]
The Great Arch had its world premiere at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 16 May. It was theatrically released in France on 5 November by Le Pacte.
- Claes Bang as Johan Otto von Spreckelsen
- Sidse Babett Knudsen as von Spreckelsen's wife Liv
- Xavier Dolan as Jean-Louis Subilon
- Swann Arlaud as Paul Andreu
- Michel Fau as François Mitterrand
Production
Bang was cast in the lead role despite not speaking French, as von Spreckelsen himself was not a French speaker, and carefully rehearsed the script to ensure that he would be able to perform it.[6]
Distribution
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard stream at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.[7]
It is slated for commercial release in France in November 2025.[8]
Critical response
Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "Demoustier's depiction of the long — it took seven years from start to finish — and sordid affair behind The Great Arch's construction is a tale of lost illusions, with von Spreckelsen as a misguided genius who won the architectural lottery and wound up paying a hefty price for it. There are some clever bits of humor throughout the movie, especially involving all the shenanigans of the French, but the Dane's story ends on a decidedly dark note."[4]
For Cineuropa, Fabien Lemercier wrote that "Skilfully navigating the paradoxical dimension of his subject, tracing the path of an individual with a very human radicalism (particularly attached to hand-drawing) in the midst of a number of fairly specific professional twists and turns (regularity of joints, fixing points, foundations, support, glued glass, nitrate staining of Carrara marble, experiments, search for solutions, etc.), Stéphane Demoustier succeeds in expressing the most sensitive nuances for an uninformed audience using a patina of comedy that does not spare the French presidential royalty and its procession of senior civil servants. It's a "marriage of the dull and the shiny" that gives the film its seductive balance, its zest and its charm."[9]