# Barbarella (film)
**Barbarella** is a 1968 science fiction comedy directed by [Roger Vadim](https://www.edgepedia.org/roger-vadim), a French-Italian co-production starring [Jane Fonda](https://www.edgepedia.org/jane-fonda) as an interstellar adventurer, adapted from Jean-Claude Forest's erotic comic strip of the same name. Produced by [Dino De Laurentiis](https://www.edgepedia.org/dino-de-laurentiis) and distributed by Paramount Pictures, it was released in France on 24 October 1968 and in the United States on 10 October 1968, and it has since become a cult classic known for its camp humor, mod costumes, and playful sexuality.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / star | Roger Vadim; Jane Fonda, Vadim's wife since 1965[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/181204/the-gist-barbarella-the-gist) |
| Source | Comic strip by Jean-Claude Forest, first serialized in V-Magazine in 1962, published as a book by Eric Losfeld in 1964[2](https://www.hollywoodcomics.com/forestbbd.html) |
| Production | Dino De Laurentiis producer; Paramount Pictures distributor; France/Italy co-production[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbarella) |
| Release | France 24 October 1968 (CNC visa, 99 min); United States 10 October 1968[4](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/33657) • [5](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/beyond-barbarella-celebrating-50-years-of-sexy-sci-fi/) |
| Premise | In the year 40,000, space traveler Barbarella crash-lands on the planet Lythion and is sent to find the scientist Durand Durand[6](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/barbarella/umc.cmc.3gt0gzlqrv2rfhgod2znth7fa) |
| Principal cast | Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law (Pygar), Anita Pallenberg (the Great Tyrant), Milo O'Shea (Durand Durand), David Hemmings, Marcel Marceau[6](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/barbarella/umc.cmc.3gt0gzlqrv2rfhgod2znth7fa) |
| Reception | 64% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (76 reviews); 51 Metascore; 878,015 admissions in France[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbarella) • [7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/barbarella/critic-reviews/) • [8](https://www.sfstory.fr/films/barbarella/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Barbarella is an interstellar space traveler who crash-lands on the planet Lythion in the year 40,000. Sent by the president of Earth to find and stop the evil scientist Durand Durand, she encounters trouble everywhere: Black Guards, an evil Queen, the blind angel Pygar, and a series of captures and escapes, during which she repeatedly loses parts of her skin-tight space suit[6](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/barbarella/umc.cmc.3gt0gzlqrv2rfhgod2znth7fa). In the film's future Earth, war has been so thoroughly banished that people barely know what it is, yet Durand Durand has constructed a superweapon, the Positronic Ray, and absconded with it to the [Tau Ceti](https://www.edgepedia.org/tau-ceti) region[13](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/05/new-barbarella-comic-original-film). The most famous sequence pits Barbarella against Durand Durand's piano-like Excessive Machine, which is meant to kill her through pleasure and instead burns out[13](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/05/new-barbarella-comic-original-film).
## Origins in the comics
Jean-Claude Forest, then France's leading science fiction cover artist, created Barbarella for the men's magazine V-Magazine in 1962 at the request of its editor, Georges H. Gallet[2](https://www.hollywoodcomics.com/forestbbd.html). The first serialized story was "La Planète aux fleurs" (The planet of flowers)[9](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/332504). When Eric Losfeld's publishing house Le Terrain Vague issued the strip in book form in 1964, it became a bestseller and was translated in about a dozen countries, including an edition by [Grove Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/grove-press) in the United States in 1966[2](https://www.hollywoodcomics.com/forestbbd.html) • [9](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/332504). The album is often considered one of the founding works of adult bande dessinée[8](https://www.sfstory.fr/films/barbarella/).
Dino De Laurentiis bought the rights to the character, and portions of the first graphic novel were adapted into the feature film, for which Forest acted as design consultant[2](https://www.hollywoodcomics.com/forestbbd.html).
## Production
Vadim had been married to Jane Fonda since 1965, and the film marked a pivotal point in her career; by 1968 she had starred in *[Cat Ballou](https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-ballou)* and *Barefoot in the Park*, and within a few years she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for *They Shoot Horses, Don't They* (1969) and for *[Klute](https://www.edgepedia.org/klute)* (1971)[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/181204/the-gist-barbarella-the-gist) • [10](https://time.com/3634395/life-with-jane-fonda-behind-the-scenes-on-the-camp-classic-barbarella/).
The screenplay went through many hands. The final credits list five writers in addition to Terry Southern, Vadim, and Forest, an indication of the story difficulties encountered during production[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/181204/the-gist-barbarella-the-gist). MoMA credits the screenplay to Vadim, Terry Southern, Claude Brulé, Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle Wood, Brian Degas, Tudor Gates, and Forest[11](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11063).
**Design and effects.** The film's look drew on contemporary art, architecture, and fashion, and its costumes by Jacques Fonteray have been read as an "intergalactic runway" reflecting the space-age style of the late 1960s[12](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ffc.5.2.185_1). Barbarella's revealing plexiglass spacesuit was created by Carlo Rambaldi, who also conceived the angel wings for [John Phillip Law](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-phillip-law)'s character and the small creatures with a sadistic interest in Fonda's body[11](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11063). The cinematography was by Claude Renoir[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/barbarella/critic-reviews/).
## Reception
At its French release the film drew 878,015 spectators and divided critics. *Les Cahiers du cinéma* called it a decorative object emblematic of a cinema of surface, more interested in erotic iconography than in science fiction as a genre, and *L'Express* wrote that "Vadim prefers erotology to electronics"[8](https://www.sfstory.fr/films/barbarella/). Renata Adler of *The New York Times* called it "a special kind of mess," arguing that its gadgetry was turned to "hard-breathing, sadistic thrashings, mainly at the expense of Barbarella, and of women"[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/barbarella/critic-reviews/). [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), writing in *The New Yorker*, found the decor disappointing but praised Fonda as "the fresh, bouncy American girl triumphing by her innocence over a lewd, sadistic world of the future"[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/barbarella/critic-reviews/).
Retrospective aggregate scores sit in mixed territory: 64% on the Tomatometer with a critics consensus calling it "unevenly paced and thoroughly cheesy" but "full of humor, entertaining visuals, and Jane Fonda's sex appeal," and a Metascore of 51[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbarella) • [7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/barbarella/critic-reviews/).
## Cult status and legacy
Over the decades the film acquired cult status, celebrated for its camp aesthetic, offbeat humor, and its early screen adaptation of a science fiction comic, well before the modern era of comic-book blockbusters[8](https://www.sfstory.fr/films/barbarella/). Scholars have read it both ways: some dispute its status as a feminist text, while others argue that Barbarella's hyperbolic sexuality also lets the female astronaut assert power and control within the narrative[14](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=96411c8990da686dc83999fbf41dd5b50282c1f7&repid=rep1&type=pdf) • [15](https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/bitstreams/96482798-8a45-476d-af28-c0a0ef1f9c2f/download).
**Unmade remakes.** Despite decades of rumors, the 1968 film has never been followed by a sequel or remake. In the 2000s [Robert Rodriguez](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-rodriguez) was attached to a remake starring [Rose McGowan](https://www.edgepedia.org/rose-mcgowan), and a proposed television adaptation was to have had a pilot directed by [Nicolas Winding Refn](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-winding-refn); neither materialized[5](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/beyond-barbarella-celebrating-50-years-of-sexy-sci-fi/). An animated Barbarella was contemplated by the Canadian producer Nelvana during the 1990s but never took off, and in 1999 Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox agreed to co-produce a new feature that also did not proceed[2](https://www.hollywoodcomics.com/forestbbd.html).
The film's influence extends through later sexed-up science fiction: Rotten Tomatoes' retrospective traces its DNA in films such as *Flash Gordon* (1980), the animated *Heavy Metal* (1981), and *Tank Girl* (1995)[5](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/beyond-barbarella-celebrating-50-years-of-sexy-sci-fi/).
## References
1. [The Gist (Barbarella), Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/181204/the-gist-barbarella-the-gist)
2. [Barbarella: The Comics, Hollywood Comics (Jean-Claude Forest page)](https://www.hollywoodcomics.com/forestbbd.html)
3. [Barbarella, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbarella)
4. [Visas et Classification, CNC (visa no. 33657)](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/33657)
5. [Beyond Barbarella: Celebrating 50 Years of Sexy Sci-Fi, Rotten Tomatoes Editorial](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/beyond-barbarella-celebrating-50-years-of-sexy-sci-fi/)
6. [Barbarella, Apple TV](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/barbarella/umc.cmc.3gt0gzlqrv2rfhgod2znth7fa)
7. [Barbarella critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/barbarella/critic-reviews/)
8. [Barbarella (1968), SFSTORY](https://www.sfstory.fr/films/barbarella/)
9. [The Look of the 1960s: Barbarella and Pulp Pop Comics, JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/332504)
10. [LIFE With Jane Fonda: Behind the Scenes on the Camp Classic, 'Barbarella', TIME](https://time.com/3634395/life-with-jane-fonda-behind-the-scenes-on-the-camp-classic-barbarella/)
11. [Barbarella. 1968. Directed by Roger Vadim, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11063)
12. [Barbarella's wardrobe: Exploring Jacques Fonteray's intergalactic runway, Film, Fashion & Consumption](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ffc.5.2.185_1)
13. [Fire up the orgasmatron: why we can't let Barbarella go, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/05/new-barbarella-comic-original-film)
14. [CiteSeerX document disputing Barbarella's feminist status](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=96411c8990da686dc83999fbf41dd5b50282c1f7&repid=rep1&type=pdf)
15. [Barbarella and the female astronaut, MTSU journal scholarship](https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/bitstreams/96482798-8a45-476d-af28-c0a0ef1f9c2f/download)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works) › Science fiction and fantasy films before 1970*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license