Sightlines · reception

How The Summit of the Gods was received

2021 · Patrick Imbert · The Summit of the Gods on Sightlines

The arc

It premiered quietly at Cannes 2021 and could have vanished into the Netflix scroll, but word-of-mouth turned it into one of the platform's best-reviewed animated pickups — capped by the César for Best Animated Film in 2022. It's since become a go-to answer to 'underrated Netflix gem'.

What’s debated

The recurring fan debate is whether it out-climbs live action — reviewers love arguing that this 2D animated film conveys altitude, ice and vertigo better than any actual Everest movie, and whether 'adult animation' this austere gets unfairly overlooked next to anime and Pixar.

Its footprint

Its frames of tiny climbers against vast blue-white faces are endlessly screenshotted, and it's become shorthand in 'animation is cinema' threads — the film people cite to prove French animation can do quiet, grown-up realism. It also revived interest in Jirô Taniguchi's revered manga and the real George Mallory mystery that frames the story.

Where it stands

A Letterboxd favorite in the making — one of the highest-rated animated features of its year on the platform and a reliable 'trust me, watch this' recommendation among animation fans.

Did you know? It won the César Award for Best Animated Film at the 2022 ceremony, after premiering in the Official Selection at Cannes in July 2021 — a French-made adaptation of a Japanese manga that Netflix then carried worldwide.

Named by the director

• Yasujirō Ozu — Imbert said his main influences were live-action, citing Ozu's color films as a visual reference.
• The Revenant (2015) — He pointed to Emmanuel Lubezki's naturalistic camerawork on The Revenant as a touchstone for the film's look.
• Raymond Depardon — Imbert cited the photographs of Raymond Depardon among his key visual inspirations.