Thierry has been unemployed for 18 months, having lost his job as a factory worker. At the age of 51, he lands a new job as a security guard in a supermarket. However, he must spy on his co-workers at the behest of his boss.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 64 reviews, and an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With The Measure of a Man, director/co-writer Stéphane Brizé uses one man's heartrending story as a beautifully acted microcosm for life in the 21st-century global economy."[7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 19 critics.[8]