Cahiers du Cinema's Twenty Years of French Cinema: the Best French Films since the Liberation
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- DirectorRobert BressonStarsMartin LaSalleMarika GreenJean PélégriMichel passes the time by picking pockets, careful to never be caught despite being watched by the police. His friend Jacques may suspect, while both men may have their eyes on Jeanne, the pretty neighbor of Michel's ailing mother.
- DirectorMax OphülsStarsMartine CarolPeter UstinovAnton WalbrookWhen she is reduced to appearing in a circus, a notorious beauty thinks back on her past loves.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsAnna MagnaniOdoardo SpadaroNada FiorelliThree men of varying social standing - a viceroy, a bullfighter, and a soldier - vie for the affections of an actress in 18th-century Peru.
- DirectorJean CocteauStarsJean CocteauFrançoise ArnoulClaudine AugerThe Poet looks back over his life and work, recalling his inspirations and obsessions.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsJean-Louis BarraultTeddy BilisSylviane MargolléMr. Joly, doctor Cordelier's lawyer, is amazed to discover that his client and friend leaves his possessions to a stranger, Opale, a sadistic criminal. He needs this man to prove that people's behavior can be adjusted at will...
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsPatrice MoulletMarino MaséGeneviève GaléaDuring a war in an imaginary country, unscrupulous soldiers recruit poor farmers with promises of an easy and happy life. Two of these farmers write to their wives of their exploits.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsEmmanuelle RivaEiji OkadaStella DassasA French actress filming an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a married Japanese architect as they share their differing perspectives on war.
- DirectorMax OphülsStarsJean GabinDanielle DarrieuxSimone SimonThree separate stories about the same thing: le plaisir (pleasure).
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsDelphine SeyrigJean-Pierre KérienNita KleinIn the seaside town of Boulogne, no one seems to be able to cope with their past, least of all Hélène, an antique furniture saleswoman, her stepson Bernard, and her former lover Alphonse.
- DirectorJacques RozierStarsJean-Claude AiminiDaniel DescampsStefania SabatiniParis, summer 1960. Michel is about to leave for Algeria for military service. He meets Liliane and Juliette, two inseparable friends. Michel goes on vacation to Corsica, where the two girls decide to join him
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsJean-Paul BelmondoJean SebergVan DoudeA small-time crook, hunted by the authorities for a car theft and the murder a police officer, attempts to persuade a hip American journalism student to run away with him to Italy.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsNadine BallotDeniseElolaThe arrival of Nadine, a new student, at a school in Abidjan is the starting point for a discussion about interracial relationships.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsIngrid BergmanJean MaraisMel FerrerPolish countess Elena falls in love with a French radical party's candidate - a general - in pre-World War I Paris, but another officer pines for her. Starring Ingrid Bergman, with Mel Ferrer and Jean Marais as the rivals for her affection.
- DirectorClaude ChabrolStarsBernadette LafontClotilde JoanoStéphane AudranFour Parisian women navigate the world of romance and daily life looking to fulfill their dreams but often find real-life to be inescapable.
- DirectorJacques BeckerStarsSimone SignoretSerge ReggianiClaude DauphinThree gangsters and an ex-con carpenter all fall for the same beautiful golden-haired woman in Belle Époque France.
- DirectorSacha GuitryStarsMichel SimonJean DebucourtJacques VarennesThrough a series of circumstances and plot twists an enterprising man manages to get away with murdering his wife, even though he cheerfully admits his guilt in court.
- DirectorJacques DemyStarsAnouk AiméeMarc MichelJacques HardenA bored young man meets with his former girlfriend, now a cabaret dancer and single mother, and soon finds himself falling back in love with her.
- DirectorRobert BressonStarsFlorence DelayJean-Claude FourneauRoger HonoratA Joan of Arc's trial reconstruction concerning her imprisonment, interrogation and final execution at the hands of the English. Filmed in a spare, low-key fashion.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsAnna KarinaJean-Claude BrialyJean-Paul BelmondoAn exotic dancer is desperate to become a mother and accepts her reluctant boyfriend's suggestion that she be impregnated by his best friend.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsAnna KarinaMichel SuborHenri-Jacques HuetDuring the Algerian War, a man and woman from opposing sides fall in love with one another.
- DirectorJean CocteauStarsJean MaraisFrançois PérierMaría CasaresA poet in love with Death follows his unhappy wife into the underworld.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsBrigitte BardotJack PalanceMichel PiccoliA French writer's marriage deteriorates while working on Fritz Lang's version of "The Odyssey", as his wife accuses him of using her to court favor with the film's brash American producer.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsJean-Pierre CasselClaude BrasseurO.E. HasseAn upper-class corporal from Paris is captured by the Germans when they invade France in 1940. Assisted and accompanied by characters as diverse as a morose dairy farmer, a waiter, a myopic intellectual, a working-class Parisian, and a German dental assistant, the corporal tries to escape from prison camps, sometimes making it a few yards, sometimes reaching the French border.
- DirectorSacha GuitryStarsMichel SimonMarguerite PierryLaurence BadieA mean bourgeois meets up with his twin brother again .
- DirectorMarcel CarnéStarsArlettyJean-Louis BarraultPierre BrasseurThe theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan in 1830s Paris and the four men who love her.
- DirectorClaude ChabrolStarsJean-Claude BrialyBernadette LafontJean TissierRoland, an idler living on the Left Bank in Paris, is determined to inflict a terrible revenge on his friend Arthur, after the latter subjected him to a harmless joke. He engages the services of the seductive Ambroisine, who pretends to fall in love with Arthur. Oblivious to his friend's scheming, Arthur is certain that Ambroisine's feelings for him are genuine and looks forward to their wedding day.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsJeanne MoreauOskar WernerHenri SerreDecades of a love triangle concerning two friends and an impulsive woman.
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsBetty SchneiderGiani EspositoFrançoise PrévostAnne Goupil is a literature student in Paris in 1957. Her elder brother, Pierre, takes her to a friend's party where the guests include Philip Kaufman, an expatriate American escaping McCarthyism, and Gerard Lenz, a theatre director who arrives with the mysterious woman Terry. The talk at the party is about the apparent suicide of their friend Juan, a Spanish activist who had recently broken up with Terry. Philip warns Anne that the forces that killed Juan will soon do the same to Gerard. Gerard is trying to rehearse Shakespeare's "Pericles", although he has no financial backing. Anne takes a part in the play to help Gerard, and to try to discover why Juan died.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsAnna KarinaSady RebbotAndré S. LabartheTwelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.
- DirectorRobert BressonStarsPaul BernardMaría CasaresElina LabourdetteA society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsOumarou GandaGambiPetit Touré"I, a Negro" depicts young Nigerien immigrants who left their country to find work in the Ivory Coast, in the Treichville quarter of Abidjan, the capital. These immigrants live in squalor in Treichville, envious of the bordering quarters of The Plateau (the business and industrial district) and the old African quarter of Adjame. The film traces a week in these immigrants' lives, blurring the line between their characters' routines and their own. Every morning, Tarzan, Eddy Constantine and Edward G. Robinson seek work in Treichville in hopes of getting the 20 francs that a bowl of soup costs them. They perform menial jobs as dockers carrying sacks and handy labor shipping supplies to Europe. At night, they drink away their sorrows in bars while dreaming about their idealized lives as their "movie" alter-egos, alternatively as an FBI Agent, a womanizing bachelor, a successful boxer, and even able to stand up to the white colonialists that seduce away their women. These dream-like sequences are shot in a poetic mode. Each day is introduced by an interstitial voice of god omniscient narration from Jean Rouch, providing a universal thematic distance to the movie's events. The film is book-ended by a narration directed at both Petit Jules and the audience from Edward G. Robinson fondly looking back on his childhood in Niger and concluding that his life is worthy of his dreams.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsAnna KarinaClaude BrasseurDanièle GirardTwo crooks with a fondness for old Hollywood B-movies convince a languages student to help them commit a robbery.
- DirectorÉric RohmerStarsJess HahnMichèle GirardonVan DoudeA French-American in Paris lives by sponging off his working friends, and throws a party using borrowed money when his rich American aunt dies, believing firmly in his horoscope.
- DirectorRobert BressonStarsClaude LayduNicole LadmiralJean RiveyreA young priest taking over the parish at Ambricourt tries to fulfill his duties even as he fights a mysterious stomach ailment.
- DirectorJean-Pierre MelvilleStarsNicole StéphaneEdouard DermitheRenée CosimaThe dangerously obsessive relationship between a psychologically manipulative brother and sister who isolate themselves and draw others into their mind games.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsJean-Pierre LéaudAlbert RémyClaire MaurierA young boy, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsCharles AznavourMarie DuboisNicole BergerA pianist helps his brother escape from two gangsters, who retaliate by abducting their kid brother.
- DirectorRoger LeenhardtStarsRenée DevillersPierre DuxBerthe BovyA schoolboy remembers his last holiday in the big house of his family in the country, before it was sold.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsMichel BouquetReinhard HeydrichHeinrich HimmlerThe history of Nazi Germany's death camps of the Final Solution and the hellish world of dehumanization and death contained inside.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsPaul MeurisseCharles BlavetteAndré BrunotEtienne Alexis, a candidate for president of the new Europe, is a scientist promoting artificial insemination for social betterment and therapy to eliminate passion. His wealthy household (his family owns chemical corporations that will profit from his ideas) is stiff, intellectual, and sterile. To celebrate his engagement to a German cousin, he hosts an aseptic picnic, where mother nature asserts herself. A shepherd's flute conjures a windstorm that throws Alexis together with the luscious Nénette, a farm lass who wants to have a baby but is unimpressed with men.