Holy Motors is a 2012 surrealist fantasy drama film written and directed by Leos Carax and starring Denis Lavant and Édith Scob.

Lavant plays Mr. Oscar, a man who appears to have a job as an actor, as he is seen dressing up in different costumes and performing various roles in several locations around Paris over the course of a day, though no cameras or audiences are ever seen around him.

"[4] From that grew an idea for a film about the increasing digitalisation of society, a science-fiction scenario where organisms and visible machines share a common superfluity.

The opening scene was inspired by the E. T. A. Hoffmann novella Don Juan, about a man who discovers a secret door in his bedroom that leads to an opera house.

[4] Holy Motors was produced through Pierre Grise Productions for a budget of €3.9 million, which included money from the CNC, Île-de-France region, Arte France, Canal+, and Ciné+.

He also thought Holy Motors was indebted to Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, in which Scob starred, and decided to give an explicit nod to the film by casting her.

[15] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 196 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10; the website's critical consensus reads: "Mesmerizingly strange and willfully perverse, Holy Motors offers an unforgettable visual feast alongside a spellbinding – albeit unapologetically challenging – narrative.

[17] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film five out of five and wrote: "Leos Carax's Holy Motors is weird and wonderful, rich and strange – barking mad, in fact.

... [T]his is what we have all come to Cannes for: for something different, experimental, a tilting at windmills, a great big pole-vault over the barrier of normality by someone who feels that the possibilities of cinema have not been exhausted by conventional realist drama.

"[20] On his "Views From The Edge" blog, Spencer Hawken wrote: "Holy Motors is a mind-boggling movie, with oodles of character; it’s funny, emotional, and surprising.

"[21] William Goss of Film.com wrote: "In terms of pure cinematic sensation, Holy Motors stands as one of the most delightfully enigmatic movies that I've seen in quite some time.