Raw is a film that insists you watch it through your fingers—gruesome, repulsive, and utterly compelling.
In her debut feature, Julia Ducournau—who nearly clinched the Palme d’Or at Cannes—drives us into the muddy territory of adolescence and female desire. Led by a powerful performance from Garance Marillier, we follow a young woman’s unsettling descent into obsession and cannibalism after consuming raw meat for the first time.
This film is not for the faint of heart, yet it remains a meticulous, articulate exploration of human depravity and desire.
From The Film Magazine, here are the most unforgettable moments from Ducournau’s landmark debut: the 10 Best Raw Moments.
10. The Beginning of Hazing
From the moment Justine (Garance Marillier) arrives at the prestigious veterinary school, fitting in seems impossible. The older students—“the elders”—devote the first week to brutal initiations. Ducournau establishes this oppressive environment with striking imagery: cloaked figures and ski masks dragging new students from their beds, novices crawling across a misty quad like animals.
Though not overtly violent, the sequence communicates the rules of this hierarchy: obey, endure humiliation, conform. Ducournau’s understated score and controlled direction transform a familiar college-hazing trope into something disquieting and ritualistic.
9. The Rabbit Kidney
Justine arrives at school as a strict vegetarian at her mother’s insistence. During the hazing, rookies must eat a rabbit kidney. Looking to her sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) for support, Justine is pushed to taste raw meat—revealing Alexia’s immediate rebellion against their mother’s rules.
This moment marks a shift in Justine’s character. Garance Marillier’s restrained performance gives the scene a subtle charge: it’s not yet monstrous, but the first spark of a dangerous transformation appears.
8. The First Party
After surviving the initiation, Justine crawls through the building’s corridors to reach a raucous party: screaming students, flowing alcohol, and bodies piled together in abandon. The scene is dazzling yet menacing. Justine stands apart—both frightened and fascinated—watching peers dissolve into the chaos.
Ducournau captures the seductive shimmer of privileged teen revelries while keeping the audience poised for disaster.
7. Watching Adrien Play Soccer
Justine is initially innocent and reserved: a virgin and a model student. But after the party and her first taste of blood, deeper, darker urges surface. In this sequence, the allegory of awakening female sexuality is stark.
She watches her roommate Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) play soccer—popular, loud, and flirtatious. Marillier’s vacant, intense gaze—reminiscent of Kubrickian close-ups—turns Justine into a predator. The shot is iconic: controlled, hungry, and terrifying in its restraint.
6. Justine Bites at a Corpse
After a violent night of drinking, Adrien shows Justine a video: encouraged by Alexia, she attempts to bite a corpse’s hand at a party. In the clip, she appears almost feral—eyes black, expression empty—recreating the initial hazing posture. She ends by screaming, “Why didn’t you stop me?”—a line that will haunt her.
This scene confronts Justine, and the audience, with the terrifying evidence of what she has become.
5. The Car Crash
After a violent collision, Justine and Alexia face the reality of Justine’s appetite. What begins as a quiet sisterly conversation escalates when Alexia deliberately throws herself in front of a car—intended to kill the driver and passenger. “I did this for you,” Alexia snarls, as Justine reacts in stunned horror.
This is a turning point: Justine’s desires are exposed, but she cannot yet accept them. Alexia becomes the impulsive force that accelerates their descent.
4. Adrien’s Death
After another excessive night, Justine wakes next to Adrien—her object of fixation—and discovers him drenched in blood, his leg viciously torn. Her longing has culminated in ruin. She shakes him, screaming, “Why didn’t you stop me?” but he is beyond help.
The sequence leaves the viewer reeling: a reversal of power and a meditation on control, desire, and responsibility.
3. The Sex Scene
Ducournau orchestrates a brutal, intimate sequence between frantic Justine and her aloof, sexually active roommate. The scene is a tense choreography of desire and danger—Justine repeatedly tries to bite Adrien, then bites herself, drawing blood as an almost alien expression takes over.
The moment is visceral and unsettling: will she kill him, or will she lose herself completely?
2. The Finger
A shocking accident involving scissors severs Alexia’s finger. As Alexia lies unconscious, Justine gives in to a horrifying impulse and begins to eat the severed digit. The camera spares nothing, lingering on every disturbing bite. It’s a grotesque, unforgettable moment that forces the viewer to confront the film’s core transgression.
1. The Father’s Final Monologue
The film’s final moments elevate it from remarkable to unforgettable. With the family fractured and Alexia confined, their father sits across from Justine and quietly recounts his own years at the same school. Then he pulls up his shirt to reveal a lattice of angry, complex scars. His calm delivery and unsettling reveal underscore the film’s themes of heredity, ritual, and complicity.
“You’ll find something that works for you,” he says, and the credits roll. The ending distills the film’s violence and restraint into a single, chilling final beat.
Julia Ducournau’s Raw is one of the most discussed horror films of the 21st century, a work that provokes a physical and emotional reaction. Which scenes disturbed you most? Which moments lingered afterward? Share your thoughts in the comments.