La haine

Mathieu Kassovitz took the film world by storm with La haine, a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low-income banlieue districts on Paris’s outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui)—Jewish, African, and Arab, respectively—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty, La haine is a landmark of 1990s French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1995
  • 97 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.85:1
  • French
  • Spine #381

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital master, supervised by director of photography Pierre Aïm and approved by director Mathieu Kassovitz, with 2.0 and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Audio commentary by Kassovitz
  • Introduction by actor Jodie Foster
  • Ten Years of “La haine,” a documentary featuring cast and crew members
  • Featurette on the film’s banlieue setting
  • Production footage
  • Deleted and extended scenes, with afterwords by Kassovitz
  • Behind-the-scenes photos
  • Trailers
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau and a 2006 appreciation by filmmaker Costa-Gavras

    Cover by Neil Kellerhouse

Purchase Options

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital master, supervised by director of photography Pierre Aïm and approved by director Mathieu Kassovitz, with 2.0 and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Audio commentary by Kassovitz
  • Introduction by actor Jodie Foster
  • Ten Years of “La haine,” a documentary featuring cast and crew members
  • Featurette on the film’s banlieue setting
  • Production footage
  • Deleted and extended scenes, with afterwords by Kassovitz
  • Behind-the-scenes photos
  • Trailers
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau and a 2006 appreciation by filmmaker Costa-Gavras

    Cover by Neil Kellerhouse
La haine
Cast
Vincent Cassel
Vinz
Hubert Koundé
Hubert
Saïd Taghmaoui
Saïd
Karim Belkhadra
Samir
Edouard Mountoute
Darty
François Levanthal
Astérix
Abdel Ahmed Ghili
Abdel
Solo
Santo
Joseph Momo
Ordinary guy
Héloïse Rauth
Sarah
Rywka Wajsbrot
Vinz’s grandmother
Olga Abrego
Vinz’s aunt
Mathilde Vitry
Journalist
Félicité Wouassi
Hubert's mother
Fatou Thioune
Hubert's sister
Cut Killer
DJ
Julie Mauduech
Gallery girl no. 1
Karin Viard
Gallery girl no. 2
Peter Kassovitz
Gallery patron
Christophe Rossignon
Taxi driver
Vincent Lindon
Drunk man
Tadek Lokcinski
Old man in restroom
Choukri Gabteni
Nordine
Nabil Ben Mhamed
Sam
Mathieu Kassovitz
Young skinhead
Marc Duret
Inspector “Notre Dame”
Philippe Nahon
Police chief
Zinedine Soualem
Plainclothes police officer
Bernie Bonvoisin
Plainclothes police officer
Cyril Ancelin
Plainclothes police officer
Credits
Director
Mathieu Kassovitz
Writer
Mathieu Kassovitz
Executive producer
Christophe Rossignon
Line producer
Gilles Sacuto
Associate producer
Adeline Lecallier
Associate producer
Alain Rocca
Director of photography
Pierre Aïm
Camera operator
Georges Diane
Assistant director
Eric Pujol
Assistant director
Ludovic Bernard
Still photographer
Guy Ferrandis
Still photographer
Jean-Claude Lother
Steadicam operator
Jacques Monge
Sound
Vincent Tulli
Sound mixer
Dominique Dalmasso
Edited by
Mathieu Kassovitz
Edited by
Scott Stevenson
Art director
Giuseppe Ponturo
Location manager
Abdelnabi Krouchi
Grip
Vincent Blasco
Makeup
Sophie Benaiche
Costume designer
Virginie Montel

Current

La haine and After: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue
La haine and After: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue
To start on a personal note: I wrote a book about La haine that came out in November 2005, just as the Paris suburbs (banlieues) erupted in an unprecedented wave of violence. Every night, as in the Bob Marley song we hear over the credits, there…

By Ginette Vincendeau

“A Metaphor for Our World”
“A Metaphor for Our World”
These thoughts on La haine by director Costa-Gavras first appeared in the program book for the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, where the film was screened. La haine is a phenomenon, in that it is an abnormal, a surprising, and a rare event …

By Costa-Gavras

Heidi Bivens’s Top 10
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Andrew Loog Oldham’s Top 10

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