The Unknown (2026 film)

Development

In May 2024, it was announced that Léa Seydoux would be starring in Arthur Harari's third feature film The Unknown.^[2] Harari described it as a mixture of "realistic urban chronicle, fantasy film, investigation, melodrama and daydream".^[3][4] Harari wrote the role specifically for Seydoux after seeing her performance in Bruno Dumont's tragicomic satire France (2021).^[1] The film reunites Harari with Niels Schneider, who starred in the lead role in Harari's directorial debut Dark Inclusion (2016), and also stars stage actress Valérie Dréville.^[1]

Around the same time, Harari's young brother, Lucas, a bande dessinée author, sought his opinion on a story he had been working on.^[1] Lucas had spent several years working on the project and struggled to develop it, eventually appealing to Arthur to read it. Arthur initially advised him to write it with someone, but then told him the story obsessed him and suggested the two of them work on it together as a collaboration.^[5] Their graphic novel, Le cas David Zimmerman, was published in November 2024 by Éditions Sarbacane. It has been described as a "fantastical and psychological thriller" and follows a solitary photographer who, after meeting a strange woman at a New Year's Eve party and sleeping with her, inexplicably wakes up in her body.^[1] Lucas conceptualized the graphic novel as a departure from the conventional crude humor or cheap eroticism of the body swap genre. Lucas wanted to instead craft a dark and realistic story by focusing on the utter disarry of the victims of body swapping, inspired by Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Jiro Taniguchi manga A Distant Neighborhood.^[5] From the outset, Arthur planned for there to be two forms to the story, a comic book and film, and began writing the film's screenplay immediately after he finished writing the graphic novel. In an interview with French magazine Télérama, Arthur said: "The Unknown is an outgrowth of the comic, rather than an adaptation. And since I need a great deal of time to conceive a film, my brother Lucas's pages left me little by little, in favor of my own images, my intuitions about rhythm and atmosphere."^[1]

Harari wrote the screenplay with his brother Lucas and Vincent Poymiro, who co-wrote Harari's previous film Onoda: 10000 Nights in the Jungle.^[6][7][8]

An independent film,^[1] The Unknown was produced by Nicolas Anthomé for Bathysphere and by Lionel Guedj for To Be Continued.^[8] Anthomé, who produced Harari's previous film Onoda: 10000 Nights in the Jungle, secured a budget over 10 million euros for The Unknown, which is twice as high as the budget of Onoda, a film which Anthomé himself dubbed a "box-office flop".^[1] The film was co-produced with France 2 Cinéma, Pathé Films and by the Italian companies Ascent Film and RAI Cinema. It was pre-purchased by Canal+ and Ciné+, and received support from the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC) as well from the Ile-de-France and Pays de la Loire regions.^[8]

Filming

Principal photography began in March 2025 in Paris.^[9] Filming took place at numerous locations in the Grand Paris métropole said to be "rarely seen on screen before", and included a large number of extras.^[1] In May 2025, shooting took place in the Yvelines department, including in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine,^[10] and continued in the Pays de la Loire region, in the communes of Ingrandes-le-Fresne-sur-Loire and Mauges-sur-Loire,^[11] The Pont Ingrandes-sur-Loire [fr], which connects the two communes, was used as a filming location.^[12][13] Filming wrapped by the end of May 2025.^[8]

Tom Harari served as cinematographer, marking his second collaboration with his brother, following Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021).^[8]

Post-production

The film's editing process, which began in July 2025, was expected to last nearly nine months, the same length of time as the editing process of Anatomy of a Fall.^[1] Laurent Sénéchal, who also edited Anatomy of a Fall, served as the editor.^[8] In January 2026, Harari was said to be putting the "finishing touches" on the editing.^[1]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 68% of 19 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10.^[20] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[21]

Accolades