Les Misérables: The History of the World's Greatest Story

About the movie

From Victor Hugo's classic French novel of the nineteenth century to Tom Hooper's award winning blockbuster, Les Misérables has undergone one of the most successful transitions from book to stage to screen. In this new documentary, the scintillating journey of Hugo's universal story is traced from book to stage to screen with contributions from those who have starred in and helped to create the entertainment phenomenon which has captured a place in everyone's hearts. Helmed by entertainment and celebrity journalist Neil Sean, this insightful documentary traces the events of the Paris insurrection in 1832 and features excerpts from the restored 1978 Les Misérables film starring Anthony Perkins alongside interviews with Frances Ruffelle, Hugh Jackman, Nick Jonas, Tom Hooper, Alfie Boe, Amanda Seyfried, Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Anne Hathaway. When Cameron Mackintosh decided to make a musical of Jean Val jean's search for redemption, critics slated its first London performance in 1985, as literary critics had done with the publication of Victor Hugo's novel in 1862. But nearly thirty years later over 60 million people have seen the stage play and many more will watch the movie or read Hugo's novel, which is amongst the ten greatest novels of all time.—Theatre Watcher