A fleeting encounter in a train station draws a withdrawn young man into a shadowy world of desire and danger. As obsession deepens, innocence destroyed, and an irreversible transformation begins.
Jules, a young Parisian postman, secretly records a concert performance given by the opera singer Cynthia Hawkins, whom he idolises. The following day, Jules runs into a woman who is being pursued by armed thugs. Before she is killed, the woman slips an audio cassette into his mail bag...
Antoine has always been fascinated by a hairdresser's delicate touch, the beguiling perfume, and the enticing figure of a woman with an opulent bosom. After all, he had always known he would marry one, completing his idealized love fantasy.
Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent assist small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French politics. But when his great scam involving millions is exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.
Aline Issermann's "Shades of Doubt" ("L'Ombre du Doute"), a French film about a wrenching family crisis, is set forth with remarkable restraint. The subject is incest, but the story's potential for tawdriness is never exploited. Instead, Ms. Issermann presents a discreet, methodical account of how 12-year-old Alexandrine comes to bring and then recant charges against her father, Jean.
While watching the others on her TV screen, Louise becomes a rebellious girl.
Once a successful Hollywood screenwriter, Stan is now a depressive alcoholic who spends most of his time mooching about his house whilst pouring out his troubles to his drinking partner. The only thing that keeps him going is his love for his teenage daughter, Charlotte, but she despises him, believing him to be responsible for the accident in which her mother died.
Eight-year-old Judith was plucked from everyday life to act in a film that was made in Paris. After returning home from the experience, she finds that her parents' marriage is on the rocks. She makes her way back to Paris with her friend Nora, and the two of them do what they can to survive.
A film version of author Gilles Perrault's best-selling book about the 1976 trial and execution of Christian Ranucci, the youth who was convicted with extremely inconclusive evidence of murdering an eight-year-old girl in Southern France. The publicity the book and film helped abolish capital punishment in France in 1981.
La Comédie-Française is the oldest continuous repertory company in the world, founded in Paris in the late 17th century. This is the first time a documentary film-maker has been allowed to look at all the aspects of the work of this great theatrical company. Sequences in the film include sections of plays, casting, set and costume design, administrative meetings and rehearsals and performances of four classic French plays, Don Juan by Molière, La Thebaide by Racine, La Double Inconstance by Marivaux and Occupe-toi d'Amelie by Feydeau. (Zipporah Films)
Taken during the filming of "West Indies," this film shows the making of the monumental set in the middle of the former Citroën factory, as well as backstage activity and rehearsals on the set.
Bernie, a 30 years old orphan, decides to leave his orphanage and find his parents. After an investigation, he meets Marion, a young heroin addict and falls in love with her. He believes that his family was victim of a plot and this is why they deserted him.
A disturbed young woman is kept prisoner in a castle by her aunt for her money. The game-keeper, her guardian, tries to rape her but she escapes. In her flight she meets a man also running away, from two killers.
In a small presbytery in Yorkshire, England, living under the watchful eyes of their aunt and father, a strict Anglican pastor, the Bronte sisters write their first works and quickly become literary sensations.
The sexual and social dysfunctional behaviour of the corporate elite are further aggravated when a naive married woman becomes the obsession of two wealthy suitors.
On a stopover in Barcelona, Fériaud Roland discovers a corpse in the hotel room next door. He wakes up in a strange clinic without remembering who brought him there. The doctor insists he hallucinated, but it's not long before he obtains evidence that it wasn't a dream.
In 1945, as World War Two comes to a close, five small time crooks unite to form a gang. After several bold robberies they become notorious as "the front-wheel drive gang". The police attempt to stop their crime spree with little success, but how long will their luck last?
Divorced parents are concerned about the behavior of their teenage son who is rebelling against society.
Val Brosse, a private detective, receives Françoise, who confesses to him that she murdered her husband. The story is false, but Val, intrigued, decides to investigate.
Who would have expected Brigitte to marry a prisoner with a long sentence in the first place? In this romantic action movie, that is only the first in a long line of surprising actions by the young woman. Somehow, she manages to get hooked to the young prisoner before realizing that he'll be locked up for another three or four decades. She decides that this is much too long to wait to spend time with her sweetheart and decides to learn how to fly a helicopter. Why? So she can fly in and take him out of his prison yard, which is exactly what she does, thrilling romantics all over France and seriously upsetting the authorities. This award-winning film is based on a true incident from 1986.
The story of a serial killer but bears little resemblance to a slasher movie. We know almost at once who the killer is and the emphasis is not on the murders but on his psychology as he falls in love with one of his prospective victims - a weakness which, of course, will be his downfall.
Based on a true story. Madame Claude, a well connected Parisienne with dark past, runs a network of high-class call girls. She sends her girls to any place in the world to satisfy sexual desires of wealthy and powerful men. Claude's manipulations also involve big business and politics. Meanwhile, photographer David Evans is trying to clear his own criminal record by providing the authorities with pictures of Claude's girls with important clients in compromising positions. But powerful men can do anything to keep their secrets...
An actress of political torture movies made by her husband has to finish his latest film and arrange a screening for distributors while the husband, who is also secretly an anarchist revolutionary, is away for some resistance operation.
Aboard a giant slave ship in an abandoned Citroën factory, the history of the West Indies is traced through several centuries of French oppression. The ship becomes a stage for the people to tell stories via song and dance—from their enslavement to their displacement in Metropolitan France.
Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.
After breaking into a house he believes is empty, thief Olivier is caught by the owner, Ariane, who turns out to be a dominatrix. Improbably falling for her, Olivier returns periodically, and an impulsive romance blossoms despite Ariane's profession. Soon Olivier becomes more familiar with her work, even joining in on occasion. However, when he discovers that Ariane has a son, he attempts to "fix" her, hoping to give her a better life.
When a man's best friend is shot in cold blood by two corrupt policemen, he must track down the only eyewitnesses, who have deported to Mali.
An innocent man stumbles across a political intrigue, when he discovers that his neighbours apartment is bugged. They are then found dead and their killers description resembles the man.
Three vignettes and a musical interlude showcase acclaimed auteur Jean Renoir's eclectic range at the end of his career: the relationship between an old man and an old woman, both homeless; an opera-like story of a woman obsessed with polishing her floors; Jeanne Moreau performs 'When Love Dies'; and an elderly man and his young wife coming to terms when she has an affair with a man her own age.
The neglected daughter of an industrialist who made his fortune in explosives supplies during the war and of a mother who was mostly concerned with herself, Monique Lerbier is a pretty blonde with generous but strong ideas and a hard character. She has chosen to be an atheist since her adolescence and does not tolerate injustice and social hypocrisy. She was to be married to an engineer, Lucien Vigneret. It was an arranged marriage, the dowry having to allow Vigneret to enter the capital of his father's company, which needed it to finance its business. But two weeks before the wedding, Monique surprises the fiancé with a mistress.
A private eye finds that her professional and personal lives are beginning to intertwine in this French drama. Maxime Chabrier (Anémone) is a woman in her mid-40s who works as a private detective. Despite her chain smoking and sloppy appearance, Maxime is regarded as a skilled investigator by her colleagues and considered the best PI at her agency by her boss. While Maxime has romantic dalliances with both men and women, she hasn't been involved in a long-term relationship since she left her husband 15 years ago. However, Maxime is hired to look into a case that suggests that her former husband has become involved with insurance fraud, which brings her into contact with her 17-year-old son Baptiste (Gregoire Colin) for the first time since the divorce. Just as Maxime is trying to mend fences with her son and find out what her ex has gotten himself into, she finds herself falling in love with Jacques (Michel Didym), an economist.
Laure is a 40-year-old psychologist who doesn't know her son, Jean. But the latter comes back to Paris and finds a brand new woman when he sees his mother.
Real estate developer Bob Hansen discovers that his wife Catherine is cheating on him with his partner. He reacts calmly and even encourages their meetings, thinking that this is the only way to not lose them both.
Thia and Murelli, who live from car stunt shows, make ends meet by carrying out small burglaries. When Murelli's daughter, whom he has tried to keep away from his business falls in love with a young thug, her father feels he must help the couple by including the young man in a heist. Their scheme misfires and forces the group to set up a jailbreak, with unfortunate results.
Young police inspector Corinne Levasseur interrogated a dealer without the judge's consent. Following an indiscretion of her lover, the substitute Berthot, Corinne is transferred to a small town in the North who lives under the thumb of a rich industrialist and his family. He is given subaltern tasks. Intrigued by the strange death of a teenager, she stubbornly leads an investigation that allows her to trace the chain of a child prostitution network in which are mixed a notable and his son-in-law. A young investigating judge decides to investigate the case, but he is the victim of pressure ...
Jean, a young Breton working at the shipyards in Toulon, chafes under routine and confinement. Living with his cousin Simone, he one day vanishes—leaving behind her money and a gun. He embarks on a wanderlust‑fuelled journey, hitchhiking into the unknown, guided only by chance encounters and longing for freedom.
Boris and Sandra meet and immediately love each other with a lively passion. Enough to help them fight the best enemy of their love: addiction. That of Boris on drugs, that of Sandra in Boris. Linked, attached to each other, reclusive but alive, they will try to live their love in a closed circuit. In doing so, everyone will discover in themselves an unexpected strength and humanity.
Once upon a time, somewhere... a homeless guy finds a policeman's uniform...
On a Mediterranean cruise, a young man hired as a tour guide is intrigued by the beauty of a female interpreter hiding behind her sunglasses. He makes advances to her by venturing into a series of strange stories.
A homeless young man, living in his delivery truck, is simultaneously adopted by a pranksome group of youngsters and made into a police informer. Believing that he is doing something good both for the other kids and for himself, he has no qualms.
In Nazi-occupied France, a German officer is assassinated. The Germans demand justice, and the Vichy government is quick to capitulate. Unable to apprehend the actual culprits, Minister of Justice Joseph Barthélémy decides the execution of token Frenchmen will suffice, but the problem is finding judges and jurors eager to participate in a sham trial of innocent men. The solution is a Special Section, a court comprised of individuals handpicked for this exact purpose.
In 1977 France, the Ministry of the Future chooses two “normal,” white, middle-class citizens, Claudine and Jean-Michel, for a national experiment. They will be monitored and displayed on television for six months in a model apartment outfitted with state-of-the-art products and nonstop surveillance—the template for “a new city for the new man".
Three men with a penchant for gambling on the horses soon find themselves in trouble because of their addiction. Pierre (Michel Piccoli) is the math whiz who uses his talent for picking the winners. Charles (Michel Galabru) is the wealthy scrap-iron magnate who has embarrassing evidence on many prominent political figures. Loic (Jacques Dutronc) is the aspiring politico who seeks to further his career by any means possible. Charles approaches Loic and asks his political party for a loan in hopes of fixing an upcoming race....
Mise-en-scène, at the Comédie-Française, of La Vie de Galilée by Bertolt Brecht. This is the last staging by Antoine Vitez.
Famed swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his cousin Roxane. He has never expressed his love for her as he his large nose undermines his self-confidence. Then he finds a way to express his love to her, indirectly.
Father Birotteau and Father Troubert, both of whom are priests at Tours, have separate lodgings in the house belonging to the crabby spinster Sophie Gamard in that city. Birotteau is an other-worldly, gentle, introspective type; Troubert, who is ten years younger than his fellow boarder, is very much of the world: he is a careerist devoured by ambition.
A journalist is assigned to interview an eccentric anthropologist who has exhumed the skeleton of Jörg Jenatsch, a revered freedom fighter who was mysteriously murdered in 1639. Initially disinterested, the journalist begins to uncover unflattering truths about the national hero and experiences visions in which he seems to be witnessing events that transpired over 300 years ago. As he obsessively pursues the investigation, his personal life and his grip on reality disintegrate, drawing him relentlessly toward the fatal carnival at which Jenatsch was killed.
In a building on the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris lives ten-year-old Roger, who is surrounded by women - his great-grandmother, his grandmother, and his mother Nicole. Living in an exclusively feminine environment, the boy wishes more than anything else to have a masculine presence around. His dream comes true when he meets Jacques, who's madly in love with Nicole and who is about to completely turn the boy's life upside down.
Violette and François are a couple with a child. As they cannot lead a good life with odd jobs, François starts to steal.
For no apparent reason, "the man" decides he is going to live only in the bathroom of his apartment (clothed). Perhaps he wants the isolation he might find there. His solitude destroyed by a bevy of friends, some housepainters hired by his girlfriend, and his family, our philosophical hero makes his way to a nondescript hotel room in Venice, where he spends his time playing darts in his room. When his girlfriend visits him there, he responds to this interruption of his musings by briefly using her forehead as a dartboard. Eventually he returns to his Paris apartment, and reconciles with his injured girlfriend.
In the year 2222, a former drug dealer is kept in a state of hibernation. Reanimated, he tells his story. Leader in the narcotics market, his situation was prosperous until, during a political change, the government legalized its use.
This romantic, political drama is about the reunion of an Algerian woman who abandoned her lover 35 years earlier to live in France, and the lover who chose to stay in Algeria and fight the French colonials.