“Lucky winners” is a deliciously dark comedy about when winning the lottery isn’t lucky

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Dark comedy Lucky winners recounts stories of 4 different lottery winners, and the disastrous events that follow. It’s showing at the Alliance Française French Film Festival 2025.

Paul (Fabrice Eboué) and his family take all their family holidays at grandma’s, he takes the country roads instead of the autoroutes to avoid tolls, and has secretly been buying lottery tickets, which he hasn’t been checking. His wife Louise (Audrey Lamy, Kitchen Brigade, AFFFF 2022) hilariously goes from being angry at him for wasting his money on tickets to loving him when she realises he’s won back to being angry at him for not doing something as simple as checking his tickets when it seems today is the deadline to claim the money and they need to do it in person and so begins a mad race against the clock.

Julie (Pauline Clément, C’est la vie! from AFFFF 2018, The Extraordinary, AFFFF 2020) wins the lottery and, after leaving the lottery office, is literally bumped into by the man of her dreams, Thomas (Victor Meutelet, who is also in Monsieur Aznavour and At the end of the day at this year’s festival). Her flatmate Samira (Inès Melab) smells a rat and tells her he might have staked out the lottery agency and run into her on purpose.

When old man Henri dies clutching the winning ticket, a group of nursing home staff want to claim it. Mathilde (Louise Coldefy, from the series Family Business) immediately wants to claim it, Sandra (Anouk Grinberg, The Innocent, AFFFF 2023) the other nurse, who tried to revive him doesn’t agree but ultimately is convinced to. Bad luck starts to strike the group and the name Henri ominously appears everywhere. Anouk Grinberg is superb as the newly rich woman dolled up like a millionaire with the attitude to match.

On the metro, three radicalised men Farid (Illyès Salah, who you may recognise from The Bureau), Erwan who has renamed himself Omar (Mathieu Lourdel, The Tasting, AFFFF 2023) and Ahmed (November, AFFFF 2023, A Tale of Love and Desire, and the series Sex Education) are wearing suicide vests hidden under their coats and discover that one of them has won the lottery. Do they abandon their plan and use the money to accomplish much more? Is it Satan talking to them through the money making them reconsider?

The four stories don’t cross paths at any point in Lucky Winners. Rather the stories are told as separate vignettes in this comedic anthology about the ironic and often darkly humorous consequences of sudden fortune on these different individuals. Apart from the story of Paul and his family, each of the stories is told in its entirety in one chapter before the next person’s story begins. Paul’s story bookends the others.

Co-writers and co-directors Maxime Govare and Romain Choay (who worked on the Les Crevettes Pailletées films together) have really nailed it with this film. Lucky Winners is a winning bet for a fun and entertaining ride, and for lovers of dark comedy.

4 CROISSANTS

Matilda Marseillaise watched a screener of the film

Lucky Winners was released in France under the title Heureux gagnants in March 2024.

KEY INFO FOR THE ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE FILM FESTIVAL 2025

WHAT: Alliance Française French Film Festival 2025

WHERE & WHEN:

19/03 – 23/04 – ADELAIDE
06/03 – 08/04 – BRISBANE
06/03 – 02/04 – BALLARAT, VIC
08/03 – 02/04 – BALLINA, NSW
11/03 – 13/03 – BENDIGO, VIC
07/03 – 02/04 – BYRON BAY, NSW
06/03 – 09/04 – CANBERRA
25/03 – 15/04 – GOLD COAST
03/04 – 13/04 – HOBART
05/03 – 09/04 – MELBOURNE
03/04 – 06/04 – MOUNT GAMBIER, SA
13/03 – 16/04 – PERTH
26/03 – 31/03 – RENMARK, SA
04/03 – 09/04 – SYDNEY
02/04 – 09/04 – VICTOR HARBOR, SA
04/03 – 06/04 – PARRAMATTA, NSW
10/04 – 13/04 – BUNBURY, WA
12/04 – 21/04 – WARRAWONG, NSW