Movies

‘The Hunchback, Soul of Paris’ Will Bring Quasimodo to Life

Get ready for a very different take on Victor Hugo's classic novel.

Lacy Baugher Milas

07 Oct 2026 — 2 min read

The nave of Notre Dame in "Quasimodo" (Photo: Netflix)

A new gritty, more realistic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame is headed our way, and if you only know Quasimodo from the (wildly underrated, generally excellent) Disney cartoon adaptation, get ready for a very different story. Directed by Jean-François Richet, the French-language production The Hunchback, Soul of Paris aims to tell the story of the real-life stone carver who allegedly inspired Hugo’s famous Quasimodo character.

In 2010, a British archivist discovered references to a hunchbacked stone carver in a handwritten biography of a sculptor who worked on the 1820s renovation of Notre Dame. There’s no proof, of course, that Hugo ever met this person, said to be named Trajan, or even knew he existed. But it’s a neat idea, one that grounds Hugo’s story in a specific period in history in an intriguingly real way.

The Hunchback, Soul of Paris stars Vincent Cassel (Liaison) as Quasimodo and relocates Hugo’s story to 1830s Paris on the eve of the July Revolution. The story follows the famous hunchback as he is ruthlessly hunted through a plague-ridden city by those seeking to experiment on him in hopes of finding a cure for cholera.

“It talks about the class struggle, the people, the elites, medicine, beauty, and the beauty of the ugly,” Richet told Vanity Fair France. “There is a shocking phrase in the film: ‘It’s because they experimented on children that they found vaccines.’ Which is a historical truth.”

Here’s the film’s synopsis.

Set in Paris on the eve of the July Revolution (1830), this film reimagines the life of the man said to have inspired Victor Hugo’s iconic character, Quasimodo. As the cholera epidemic spreads through the city, he’s caught between political turmoil and an impossible love.

Alongside Cassel, the film also stars Benjamin Voisin (Carême), Daphné Patakia (Versailles), Karim Leklou (The World Is Yours), Noémie Lvovsky (Juliette in Spring), Sébastien Pouderoux (The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan), and small-screen newcomers Eli Nachmani and Alexis Rosenstiehl.