A young woman passionate about reading immerses herself in the adventures of a fictional character who makes reading her profession. As she explores different neighborhoods and wintertime Provence, her imagination blends with reality, revealing the mysteries behind each word.
The crimes and tragedies that tear apart one family seem overblown in the telling, yet this psychological drama about the miseries of one French policeman is compelling throughout. Jean (Pierre Arditi) is a cop and also a failed novelist who was abandoned by his father, brother, and sister after his mother died. The trio move to Paris where they set up an art scam that nets them considerable cash -- something Jean begins to figure out when he joins them for a family reunion. Little by little, he learns that his father is an expert forger, his stepmother's art gallery seems to be involved in the scam, his brother is a derelict and into drugs, his stepmother is a hooker in addition to all of this, and his sister runs an exercise gym for keeping prostitutes in shape. Things get worse -- just when everything seems bad enough, the stepmother is murdered and it is up to Jean to find the killer.
In 1859, Savoy Alps, Joseph is a peddler who leaves his mountain village to travel through Northern Italy to sell cotton, thread, lace and trinkets. His road will be strewn with pitfalls and encounters, sometimes funny, sometimes pathetic.
A true story shot in a German Impressionistic style. In France during the Nazi occupation, Dr. Petiot (Michel Serrault) offered to help Jews escape the Nazis. They would come to his house, and he would kindly give them lethal "vaccinations" for their anticipated travel to Argentina. Then he would steal everything the brought with them (in addition to their up-front payment to him) and burn their bodies in his home-made crematorium.
After the bankruptcy of their father's stonemasonry firm, brothers Nicola and Andrea emigrate to America to restore their fortunes. After many adventures and near-disasters, they end up in Hollywood, designing sets for D.W. Griffith, and marry beautiful actresses. However, tragedy strikes with the arrival of World War I, which finds the brothers fighting on opposite sides...
August in Paris' suburbs, seven friends are gathered to spend a week in the city where they grew up. The city is empty and the days pass by under a deep blue sky. Each of them has a reason to be there: some still live there, some come back to see their family, some are searching their childhood, some want to escape boredom or eventually searching for love. They are all bearing the fact that these moments they are sharing are maybe the last ones.
On her birthday, a young actress learns her father is a Hindu man her mother met in India. She decamps to Varanasi to find him.
Edmond is a misfit at the office. When his co-workers pull a prank giving him donkey ears, Edmond realizes his true nature: he, in fact, is a real donkey.
After serving time for sexual assault, a disgraced cop finds work as a private detective and becomes enmeshed in a bizarre web that includes a gangster and his former girlfriend…the same woman who sent the cop to prison years before.
When she was seven, Elise Gardet witnessed her mother’s brutal murder. Ever since, she has tried to forget this unsolved crime. Now she’s 18 and beautiful, but her bourgeois family and her stepmother’s anxiety are suffocating her.
At 25, Berthe dreams of making a living from her painting, never to marry, and to always stay with her sister Edma. Her parents do not see things from the same angle. Then Berthe meets Edouard Manet, who takes an interest in this young artist apprentice whose face inspires him.
In Paris, Clara, psycho motor therapist, and Ismaël, music teacher, have been lovers for four years. Happy, the couple are expecting their first child and decide to move in together. But the news is not well received by their respective families because Clara is Jewish and Ishmael a Muslim. Although not practicing, this difference will gradually sow trouble in their love life.
In July of 1976, the Societé Générale of France was robbed of well over $10 million dollars by a group burrowing through the sewers of Paris. This movie is based on a book by the thieves' mastermind, Albert Spaggiari. The famous theft won the nickname, "the great drain robbery," and this romanticized cinematic retelling of the true story stars Francis Huster as Spaggiari.
In 1914, sixteen year old Roger returned home from boarding school during vacation to find his puberty hit hard in a house filled with beautiful women. These women have previous engagements with other men who are away, and during this time, Roger impregnates them all, including his aunt and sister, then devises plans to cuckold the men.
In the summer of 1939, 13-year-old Marie goes with her parents to visit her grandparents in a small town near Avignon. Marie discovers her femininity and falls for a young Jewish doctor, but he prefers Eva, Marie's mother.
Michel, the jovial owner of the only café in a small Normandy town, sees his life turned upside down when his teenage daughter is murdered. The community has his back but soon rumor spreads and Michel is singled out. From the ideal father, he becomes the ideal culprit.
Two beings, a man and a woman, coming from elsewhere, find themselves in a church in ruins after all life on Earth has disappeared.
The first verse of an elegy by Louise Labbé, a Lyon poetess, the subject of an unfinished project.
Hugo Santiago and writers Juan José Saer and Jorge Semprún move back and forth between Paris and the city of Aquilea in a shadowy fable about exile. The frontier between one city and the other begins to blur after Bandoneonist Rodolfo Mederos is visited by his sister, a member of a guerrilla organization.
A diverse group of guests gather in a small hotel in Paris to contemplate the state of their lives in this pretentious drama. Joseph Goldman (Fernando Rey) is a washed-up Hollywood actor making a living in the dinner-theater circuit. Accompanied by his wife Sarah (Carole Regnier), Goldman meets Frederique (Berangere Bonvoisin), who is hiding from her former lover. French financier Arthur (Fabrice Luchini) hopes to get into the film industry and bends the ear of a British director (Michael Medwin). The talkative film has little action, and none of the characters evoke much interest or resolve their dilemma.
In this whimsical fable, Resnais deftly interweaves three story lines: the creation of an early-20th-century utopia; romantic high jinks at a school conference; and a fantasy sparked by F/X pioneer Georges Méliès.
In Brazzaville, in 1944, Alex Emmerich was sentenced to wander the seas by Hélène Latray, the wife of Félix Beauvois, the man Alex loved. In 1962, exiled on Hatray cruises and feeling the coming death, Alex decides to compose for his love a testament: the photographic report of his agony.
With the President of the Republic very ill, an advisor offers an unusual suggestion: hire a double to replace him during his convalescence. The lucky chosen one is a member of the Comédie-Française but he is also shy, unexciting and often consigned to the supporting role...But a seismic change is about to happen in the Republic.