Souleymane's Story · reception & legacy

How Souleymane's Story has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2024 and never had to be rediscovered — it took the Jury Prize, the acting prize and the FIPRESCI there, then converted eight César nominations into four wins (screenplay, editing, supporting actress, male revelation) at the 2025 ceremony. In under a year it went from small French social drama to the consensus 'best film about the gig economy yet made'.

What's debated

The recurring debate is whether calling it 'Dardenne-esque' honours it or shortchanges it — fans insist Lojkine's film plays with the propulsion of a thriller, not the pace of a message movie.

Its footprint

It's become the reference point people reach for whenever cinema and the delivery-app economy collide — the film Letterboxd reviewers cite for making them look differently at the courier at their door. And its off-screen coda travels with it: star Abou Sangaré's own fight for French papers became a national news story that's now inseparable from the film.

Where it stands

A fast canon climber in the social-realist lineage — already shelved by cinephiles alongside the Dardennes and Ken Loach as a modern 'you must see this' of precarious-work cinema.