# Goodbye to Language
**Goodbye to Language** (French: *Adieu au langage*) is a 2014 French-Swiss experimental 3D film written and directed by [Jean-Luc Godard](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-luc-godard), his 42nd feature film and his first to use 3D technology.[1](https://www.netflixmovies.com/goodbye-to-language-2014) It premiered in competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, where it shared the Jury Prize with [Xavier Dolan](https://www.edgepedia.org/xavier-dolan)'s *Mommy*, and it went on to place highly in international critics' year-end polls.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *Adieu au langage*; written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard; released 28 May 2014[1](https://www.netflixmovies.com/goodbye-to-language-2014) |
| Format | Godard's first 3D feature; runtime listed as 70 min (NetflixMovies) and 69 min (JustWatch); French language[1](https://www.netflixmovies.com/goodbye-to-language-2014) • [3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/goodbye-to-english) |
| Cannes | Premiered at Cannes 2014, sharing the Jury Prize with *Mommy*; Roxy, the director's dog, won the Palm Dog Grand Prix[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online) • [4](https://www.lemonde.fr/festival-de-cannes/article/2014/05/23/des-p-tits-prix-et-deux-tubes_5992037_766360.html) |
| Cast | Héloïse Godet (Josette), Zoé Bruneau (Ivitch), Kamel Abdeli (Gédéon), Richard Chevallier (Marcus), Christian Gregori (Davidson); Godard voices the narrator[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/goodbye-to-english) |
| Critical standing | Second place in the year-end polls of *Sight and Sound*, *Film Comment*, and *Cahiers du Cinéma*; named best film of the year by the National Society of Film Critics in the United States[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online) • [5](https://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/2015/01/05/adieu-au-langage-de-jean-luc-godard-elu-meilleur-film-de-l-annee-par-la-societe-des-critiques-americains_5998796_3476.html) |
| Production | Studios: Wild Bunch, Canal+, and the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC)[1](https://www.netflixmovies.com/goodbye-to-language-2014) |
| US release | Theatrical October 29, 2014; digital March 31, 2015; DVD and Blu-ray April 14, 2015[6](https://www.moviefone.com/movie/goodbye-to-language/20059150/where-to-watch/) |
## Spoilers
### Premise and structure
Godard summarized the film himself in a synopsis printed on release materials: a married woman and a single man meet, love, argue, and fight; a dog strays between town and country; the seasons pass; the couple meets again with the dog between them, so that "the other is in one, the one is in the other, and they are three"; a former husband shatters everything, and a second film begins, "the same as the first, and yet not." The synopsis ends with the film's movement "from the human race we pass to metaphor," closing in barking and a baby's cries, having shown people talking of the demise of the dollar, truth in mathematics, and the death of a robin.[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/goodbye-to-english)
Prime Video's description adds that the film follows a couple whose relationship breaks down along with the images themselves, and that its second half takes a dog's-eye view of the world, as a meditation on history and illusion in which figures merge and weave across the screen.[7](https://www.primevideo.com/-/de/detail/0N9390E21GBZE4JSS9XBN0EPLK) The BFI describes the narrative as typically dense and disruptive, crammed with Godard's meditations on philosophy, relationships, technology, politics, and language, but with an increased sense of playfulness, exemplified by a star role for the director's dog Roxy.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online) *Sight and Sound* notes that the film contains only a handful of performers, locations, and situations, made harder to follow by Godard's process of ceaseless obfuscation, and that his original material is striated with uncontextualized news footage and clips from other films.[8](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/hello-blu-ray-goodbye-language)
The cast is small. Héloïse Godet plays Josette, Zoé Bruneau plays Ivitch, Kamel Abdeli plays Gédéon, Richard Chevallier plays Marcus, and Christian Gregori plays Davidson, with Jessica Erickson appearing as [Mary Shelley](https://www.edgepedia.org/mary-shelley) and Godard himself as the off-screen narrator.[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/goodbye-to-english)
## The 3D experiment
3D is central to what the film does, not a novelty applied to a conventional story. Godard had previously shown his reticence toward the arrival of digital technology, and he surprised observers with his use of 3D in this film.[9](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2014/competition-le-langage-de-godard-prend-du-relief/) Before production he tested the format on holiday in the south of France with a small rig holding two GoPro cameras, shooting footage of his children running through olive trees at twilight, and he carried over techniques developed for *The Three Disasters* (*Les trois désastres*, 2013), his contribution to the three-part 2013 anthology film *3x3D*.[10](https://www.filmcomment.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2010s2014VOLUME-50-NUMBER-06-NOVEMBER-DECEMBER-2014.pdf) • [11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14715880.2016.1242045) A book-length study treats the feature and that preceding short together as case studies in which the history of an entire medium is evoked through the apparatus of contemporary 3D imaging.[12](https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/45945/chapter-abstract/404365332)
The film exploits stereoscopy in ways that break the format's usual rules. The critic Matt Zoller Seitz, a television and film critic known for his work at RogerEbert.com, writes that 3D here becomes one more element in Godard's career-long fascination with exploring cinema's formal properties, its grammar, technique, and technology, and describes the film's collage of superimposed titles and subtitles, with people and objects in the frame partly obscuring written words.[13](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/goodbye-to-language-2014) Scholars have read the film as saying "goodbye" (per the *adieu* of its title) to cinema itself, or at least to a particular conception of cinema and cinematic language, at an end-of-cinema moment at which many, including Godard, have long proclaimed the medium's demise.[11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14715880.2016.1242045) Other readings place the film at what has been called a "post-linguistic moment," when new visual technologies and social media intersect with how cinema is made, with images that float, flit, and end abruptly as if belonging to no one.[14](https://mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/aesthetica-preprint/article/download/2551/2023/)
## Reception
The film gathered widespread acclaim after its Cannes premiere, where it shared the Jury Prize.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online) Roxy, the placid dog that guides the film, won the Grand Prix of the jury in the Palm Dog awards, the festival's honors for canine performers.[4](https://www.lemonde.fr/festival-de-cannes/article/2014/05/23/des-p-tits-prix-et-deux-tubes_5992037_766360.html) In year-end polling, the film earned second place in the polls of *Sight and Sound*, *Film Comment*, and *Cahiers du Cinéma*.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online) In January 2015 the National Society of Film Critics in the United States named it best film of the year, which *Le Monde* reported as the greatest success of Godard's career with American critics since *In Praise of Love* (*Eloge de l'Amour*, 2001).[5](https://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/2015/01/05/adieu-au-langage-de-jean-luc-godard-elu-meilleur-film-de-l-annee-par-la-societe-des-critiques-americains_5998796_3476.html) Audience-facing aggregators show a wider spread: IMDb lists a rating of 5.8 from about 6,000 users, while Rotten Tomatoes shows 88 percent.[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/goodbye-to-english)
*Time*, in its 2022 obituary of Godard, who was born in 1930 and died that September, described the film as a meditative 3D collage reflecting on the purpose, and the possible erosion, of human language, filled with declarative sentences that sometimes lecture and sometimes tease, including the line "Soon everyone will need an interpreter to understand the words coming out of their own mouths."[15](https://time.com/6212979/jean-luc-godard-dies/) When Godard returned to Cannes in 2018 with *The Image Book*, *Time* recalled that for *Goodbye to Language* in 2014 he had declined to appear in person, instead sending a cryptic, nearly nine-minute video letter to the festival's leadership.[16](https://time.com/5275703/cannes-review-jean-luc-godard-the-image-book/)
## Production and release details
The film was produced with the involvement of Wild Bunch, Canal+, and the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC), and runs about 70 minutes in French.[1](https://www.netflixmovies.com/goodbye-to-language-2014) It was released theatrically in the United States on October 29, 2014, digitally on March 31, 2015, and on DVD and Blu-ray on April 14, 2015.[6](https://www.moviefone.com/movie/goodbye-to-language/20059150/where-to-watch/) In the United States it streams on Kino Film Collection, Kanopy, and Hoopla, rents for $3.99, and sells for $9.99 on Apple TV Store and Amazon Video; it is not currently on Netflix.[6](https://www.moviefone.com/movie/goodbye-to-language/20059150/where-to-watch/) Physical editions remain the practical route to the intended 3D presentation, since the film was released to cinemas in 3D and the BFI Player version, like most streaming versions, is 2D.[2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online)
## References
1. [Goodbye to Language (2014) on Netflix, NetflixMovies.com](https://www.netflixmovies.com/goodbye-to-language-2014)
2. [Watch Goodbye to Language online, BFI Player](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-goodbye-to-language-2014-online)
3. [Goodbye to Language streaming: where to watch online, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/goodbye-to-english)
4. [Des p'tits prix et deux tubes, Le Monde (May 23, 2014)](https://www.lemonde.fr/festival-de-cannes/article/2014/05/23/des-p-tits-prix-et-deux-tubes_5992037_766360.html)
5. ["Adieu au langage" élu meilleur film de l'année par la Société des critiques américains, Le Monde (January 5, 2015)](https://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/2015/01/05/adieu-au-langage-de-jean-luc-godard-elu-meilleur-film-de-l-annee-par-la-societe-des-critiques-americains_5998796_3476.html)
6. [Goodbye to Language (2015) – Where to Watch, Moviefone](https://www.moviefone.com/movie/goodbye-to-language/20059150/where-to-watch/)
7. [Prime Video: Goodbye To Language](https://www.primevideo.com/-/de/detail/0N9390E21GBZE4JSS9XBN0EPLK)
8. [Hello Blu-ray: Goodbye to Language, Sight and Sound](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/hello-blu-ray-goodbye-language)
9. [Le langage de Godard prend du relief, Festival de Cannes (2014)](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2014/competition-le-langage-de-godard-prend-du-relief/)
10. [A much harder 3-D image, Film Comment (November–December 2014)](https://www.filmcomment.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2010s2014VOLUME-50-NUMBER-06-NOVEMBER-DECEMBER-2014.pdf)
11. [Goodbye to cinema? Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage (2014) as 3D images at the edge of history, French Screen Studies](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14715880.2016.1242045)
12. [3D Images at the Edge of History: Goodbye to Language and the Three Disasters, Edinburgh Scholarship Online](https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/45945/chapter-abstract/404365332)
13. [Goodbye to Language 3D movie review, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/goodbye-to-language-2014)
14. [Adieu au langage and the archive of extended goodbyes, Aesthetica Preprint](https://mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/aesthetica-preprint/article/download/2551/2023/)
15. [Jean-Luc Godard Will Be Modern Forever, Time (2022)](https://time.com/6212979/jean-luc-godard-dies/)
16. [Cannes Review: Jean-Luc Godard's The Image Book, Time (2018)](https://time.com/5275703/cannes-review-jean-luc-godard-the-image-book/)
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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 › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2010 to 2014 › Psychological and social drama films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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