Bunny Lake Is Missing

1965 Directed by Otto Preminger

No one admitted while the clock is ticking!

A woman reports that her young daughter is missing, but there seems to be no evidence that she ever existed.

Laurence Olivier Carol Lynley Keir Dullea Martita Hunt Anna Massey Clive Revill Finlay Currie Noël Coward Lucie Mannheim Adrienne Corri Megs Jenkins Delphi Lawrence Jill Melford Suzanne Neve Richard Wattis Suky Appleby Victor Maddern Dan Jackson Percy Herbert

Country

Language

English

drama mystery thriller

107 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★

This is a tight drama that feels way ahead of its time.
With a missing kid and incestuous undertones, it’s no wonder this was extremely shocking for the 60s. Executed perfectly by Otto Preminger, it got quite intense near the end, putting me on the edge of my seat. I wish we had a Laurence Olivier police captain series...
Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★½ 8

Fuck!!! What a masterfully-directed mystery. Shot so beautifully and built so well, lots of perfect little misdirects and kicks to keep you in Carol Lynley’s wonderfully paranoid, stressed out shoes. Keir Dullea and Laurence Olivier are just as terrific as Lynley, and Noel Coward is having such a blast playing a real creep. That ending though... absolutely terrifying and fantastic. Can’t say much without spoiling it but my heart rate was elevated for the entire final 20 minutes.
Review by brat pitt ★★★★½ 1

historically, so-called “hysterical” women have been subjected to institutionalization, lobotomies, and forced sterilization — this subtextual threat looms over our heroine annie lake’s head like miasma. horror is derived from the all-too familiar dread of not being believed.
sorta feels like a precursor to Rosemary’s Baby (the novel was published just 2 years after this film‘s release), and definitely feels emblematic of the second-wave feminism that arose in the 60s. can’t believe i hadn’t heard of it until demi suggested we watch it! #BelieveWomen (and #BelieveDemi) canon!
Review by Bruno Amato Reame ★★★★★

What is the difference between looking and seeing? A child is missing, but no one can find out what happened to her and her mother can’t even prove the little girl exists at all. Preminger’s camera follows the characters in a somewhat similar fashion to Van Sant's films like Elephant, as they explore the spaces where the little girl supposedly disappeared. Ironically, Preminger's seemingly objective mise en scène only expresses the fallibility of objectivity and trusting (superficial) facts and appearances. However, the closer the characters get to the facts, the crazier and more subjective the film becomes. At the last half hour, after we learn the truth, Bunny Lake Is Missing turns into full nightmare mode. In a mad world lucidity is not the key to certainty, insanity is.
Review by Lara Pop ★★★½ 5

Bunny Lake Is Missing unquestionably retains a grand position in Otto Preminger's impressive oeuvre. I consider Preminger to be a truly professional director because of his bold vision and ability of applying it in practice with a rigor and decisiveness quite demanding to keep up in a career spanning four decades; still, he somehow manages it. He lays the foundations of a meticulously balanced picture in Bunny Lake as well, bringing impeccable unity and fine-grained direction to the table.
Oddly enough, it was this sense of balance that lulled me into brief periods of monotony, which marred the viewing experience a tiny bit. The story often lagged and the pacing felt uneven, especially during the unnecessarily elaborated and drowsy opening…
Review by Sally Jane Black

The question is why the inspector ever starts to doubt her. The constructed misinformation provided by the culprit doesn't really strongly point to the level of delusion Ann is allegedly experiencing. The inspector seems inclined to disbelieve. But that seems very intentional. This trap would never work if not for the presumptions of the men in this story; this trap would never work outside of patriarchy. But within it, this is an unnervingly believable premise, despite its third act ramp up to a little over-the-top.
This is a later noir, one of those masterpieces of shadow that dwells in doorframes and hallways and gardens. It evokes a mood that is only marred by the occasional shift between Ann and the…
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

I'm a little resistant to movies where the reveal is "Ah! He was insane!" but this is some really stunning filmmaking. Certainly influenced by Psycho, this is Hitchcock turned up to 11. The style of the movie changes as it progresses, from the nightmare of the fate of a child gone missing, to Fincher-esque procedural (Fincher certainly must have studied this movie), there are whole sequence which devote themselves not to the narrative at hand but rather the sharing and processing of information. Then finally, intense psychological thriller, where the movie is at its most formally adventurous and IMO at it's best. For one thing, there is the most terrifying hide-and-seek game one will ever see. And that opens up…
Review by Chris ★★★½ 2

Enjoyable if a bit daft story.
Laurence Olivier is pretty awesome even though his screen time is limited. Noel Coward makes for a great dirty old man. But the movie belongs to Carol Lynley who does an excellent job walking the line between sanity and madness as a woman who may or may not have lost her daughter.
The final act is a bit insane, but it is also incredibly intense and Lynley deserves all the credit for holding it together. She switches so effortlessly between emotions and personas that we can't guess how this will end.
Review by eely ★★★½

“love inflicts the most terrible injuries.”
so engaging and well-paced. that pub scene between laurence olivier and carol lynley is incredible, but my main takeaway from this movie is that keir dullea is one creepy ass snack.
Review by Daniel Johnson ★★★★½

I really had no idea what to expect when I started this, and then I had no idea what to expect throughout the entirety of the film... it was kind of fantastic. There were several moments near the end of this film that genuinely scared me, so that’s a definite plus. I mean, will it be scary for everyone? No, but something about it really got me... maybe the camerawork, maybe the off putting music, maybe the lack of music, or maybe it was... I don’t know. I loved the opening credits sequence; I thought the tearing away of the screen was really cool and unique. Otto Preminger’s films just move with such an incredible efficiency that I often found…
Review by sirrah993 ★★★★ 7

While watching Bunny Lake Is Missing, I thought to myself, “Omg, this film is too damn good. This might be one of Preminger’s masterpieces.” But then we get to the last 15 mins: the climax, and everything that was building up to that moment, the great plot twist, is so out of left field, it sullies the film’s last act. Thankfully, what keeps the film afloat are Preminger’s wild direction, Carol Lynley’s nerve-wracking acting, and Denys N. Coop’s sweeping cinematography.
The premise is quite simple: Ann Lake moves to another part of London along with her brother, Steven, and her daughter, Bunny. She drops Bunny at a pre-school, so she can oversee the movers bring their personal belongings to their…
Review by Boof65 ★★★★

Watched as part of the Birth Year Challenge.
This excellent black & white mystery/thriller, directed by Otto Preminger, will keep you guessing until the end. The premise of a missing child which may or may not actually exist is not uncommon, but rarely has it been presented with such mastery. Just when you think you have a handle on what's going on, the rug is ripped out from under you and you find yourself questioning your grasp of the case. Laurence Olivier is great as the experienced detective handling the investigation.
Highly recommended!

Recent reviews

Review by spencewatches ★★★★★

This one is quite the ride. A great story that keeps you guessing even if you’ve read the synopsis. The artistic push for absurdity in the surroundings of characters is really creative and adds for a true psychological thriller. Sometimes when watching films from half a century ago, you have to put your mindset in the hands of the time to appreciate its worth. Not with this one, the thrill holds up and keeps you captivated as if it were made in the contemporary. Definitely a hidden gem.
Review by RUEGphil ★★★

about as much of a portrayal of mental illness as you would expect from the 60s. But the mystery part was good
Review by Vedant ★★★★

THIS ?? IS ?? SUCH ?? AN ?? UNDERRATED ?? AND ?? WHACKY ?? THRILLER ?? AND ?? WHY ?? THE ?? HELL ?? DO ?? WE ?? NOT ?? TALK ?? ABOUT ?? IT ?? ENOUGH ??
Bunny Lake is Missing is a bold and technically brilliant thriller that was way ahead of it's time. This is clearly influenced by Hitchcock's Psycho in terms of its filmmaking style and character work but the final twenty minutes of this film are way more crazier than that of any other film. This is literally the first time I'm seeing Laurence Olivier in anything, and he's spot on, even though he has much less screen time here. The real deal here is…
Review by David ★★★½

Its ability to balance a fast pace and an impressive amount of detail live up to my expectations set by Anatomy of a Murder (1959), but the subtext does not. The plot is riveting on the surface but I didn’t find much underneath, and it swerves in a somewhat unsatisfying direction in its final act. All in all, it just feels like a movie. A fun time, to be sure, but not something I’d revisit anytime soon.
Review by thelonliestwolf ★★★½ 1

The ending drags on a bit.
Review by Chris

the PANIC ROOM of the 60s: a dopily scripted thriller (why is so much of the movie in Olivier's perspective?!), but shot, staged, and directed at an unbelievably high level. i gotta imagine Spielberg has studied this one for inspiration on reframing within a shot.
Review by kevin041 ★★★½

Solid police procedural. Good performance from Olivier. But the last 30 minutes really make this film stand out. The creepiness of a central relationship is finally revealed and it’s great to watch everything unravel.
Review by joshers ★★★★½

Bloody hell, Preminger loved to make it tight! Bunny Lake is another wondrously and dutifully compressed thriller from the filmmaker, both classily edited and strikingly shot.
Review by Ally ★★★

oh boy this was something
Review by Samantha Perry ★★★★

My first from Preminger, and the first of three of his films I plan on watching today.
I'm going to try and write this review without spoiling anything. I like Preminger's style of using a wide lens for most, if not all, of the shots in the film. It means the style is a little more simplistic but there's a lot to gain from the surroundings of each scene and each shot is very artistic.
I did guess part of the ending of the film but not the entire thing which made it all the more enjoyable when it was revealed.
It reminded me a little of the premise to Schwentke's Flightplan where the girl goes missing and it's almost…
Review by Daniel Johnson ★★★★½

I really had no idea what to expect when I started this, and then I had no idea what to expect throughout the entirety of the film... it was kind of fantastic. There were several moments near the end of this film that genuinely scared me, so that’s a definite plus. I mean, will it be scary for everyone? No, but something about it really got me... maybe the camerawork, maybe the off putting music, maybe the lack of music, or maybe it was... I don’t know. I loved the opening credits sequence; I thought the tearing away of the screen was really cool and unique. Otto Preminger’s films just move with such an incredible efficiency that I often found…
Review by ojotapeters ★★★★★

La dirección de Otto siempre es impecable, pero nunca deja de sorprender. Así se tiene que contar una historia. Y qué pedazo de historia.