Film

Raw

Name: Raw
Genre: Horror, Drama
Released: 2017
Cast: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas, Joana Preiss

Body horror

Raw is Julia Ducournau's queasy, gorgeous coming-of-age film about appetite — literal and otherwise — dressed up as body horror. A strict vegetarian starts vet school, eats meat for the first time, and can't stop. It's tender, disgusting, unexpectedly funny, and genuinely upsetting by turns. Not for the squeamish, but it's really about hunger, sisters, and becoming yourself.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a coming-of-age story that turns body horror into a sharp, uneasy study of appetite and belonging, and you don't mind the gore being part of the argument.

Skip it if the gore is frequent and unflinching, and it is a poor fit if you want a slow-burn scare rather than a feverish, messy portrait of student hazing and hunger.

What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and forty minutes and stays uneasy throughout, asking you to sit with discomfort and keep watching through scenes you'd rather look away from.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Titane2021

Ducournau's follow-up turns the volume up to eleven — a woman who has sex with a car and then things escalate from there. Same fascination with bodies as unstable, alien things, told with total conviction.

But Stranger and more extreme than Raw, and the plot resists easy explanation — some find it alienating rather than moving.

The Substance2024

Demi Moore stars in a gleefully grotesque body-horror satire about beauty, aging and self-hatred pushed to gruesome extremes. It shares Raw's interest in flesh betraying its owner, just louder and much gorier.

But The gore escalates to cartoonish, almost slapstick levels by the end — if you wanted Raw's restraint, this won't give it to you.

Ginger Snaps2000

A teenage werewolf movie that's really about periods, sisterhood and the horror of your own changing body. Cheaper and scrappier than Raw but working exactly the same nerve.

But Low-budget, early creature effects and a very late-90s look — if slick production matters to you, it'll feel dated.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Raw

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Eyes Without a Face1960

Ducournau has cited it directly: both films find horror inside medical institutions, and both centre a father's complicity in a daughter's transformation into something other.

A surgeon father grafts stolen faces onto his disfigured daughter in this eerily beautiful 1960 French horror film — clinical, poetic, and quietly monstrous in exactly the way Raw would later become.

But Slow, subtitled and black-and-white — the horror here is atmospheric dread rather than anything visceral, which some will find too restrained.

Jennifer's Body2009

Megan Fox eats boys, literally, in a horror-comedy about female friendship curdling into something monstrous. Sharper and funnier than its marketing ever let on at the time.

But The humour is broad and very 2009 — Diablo Cody's dialogue is an acquired taste and not everyone will bite.

American Mary2013

A surgeon drawn into body modification's underground, told with cool clinical detachment and a real sense of a woman discovering her own appetite for control over flesh.

But Rougher around the edges than Raw, with lower production values and a plot that gets pulpier as it goes.

Teeth2008

A vagina dentata horror-comedy about a teenage abstinence advocate discovering her body has other plans. Gleefully absurd but with real bite about female sexuality and shame.

But Tonally all over the place — it swings from satire to slasher without much warning, which won't land for everyone.

May2003

A lonely, socially awkward young woman starts building the perfect friend out of parts. Slow-burn, deeply sad, and unexpectedly moving before it turns nasty.

But A slow, character-driven build with a small cult following — patience required before the horror actually arrives.

Trouble Every Day2001

Claire Denis's cannibalism arthouse film treats appetite as a kind of illness, shot with the same sensual, unhurried camera Ducournau clearly learned from. Beautiful and disturbing in equal measure.

But Glacially paced and deliberately opaque — this is arthouse cinema first, horror movie a very distant second.

Thelma & Louise1991

A Norwegian film about a repressed young woman whose desires manifest as literal, uncontrollable power. Quieter than Raw but circling the same idea: appetite as something dangerous to admit to.

But A slow, wintry mood piece rather than a gross-out — if you wanted more visceral horror, this underplays it considerably.

Man Bites Dog1992

Where Raw asks how far you'll go to belong, this asks how far you'll watch — both are about appetite normalising itself one small transgression at a time until there's no line left.

A pitch-black Belgian mockumentary following a documentary crew filming a serial killer, who they slowly start helping. Vicious satire about complicity and appetite for violence that never once blinks.

But Shot cheap and deliberately ugly in black and white, with humour as cruel as the violence — not a comfortable watch.

We Need to Talk About Kevin2011

Same question turned inside out: Raw watches a young woman become monstrous from inside her own body, this watches a mother witness it happen from outside — neither lets nature or nurture off the hook.

Tilda Swinton plays a mother watching her son become something she can't name or stop. No gore, no genre trappings — just the slow horror of realising the monster was there all along.

But There's no supernatural release valve here, just sustained dread and grief — if you wanted Raw's dark comedy, this offers none.