Country: France

Direction Daniel Costelle · Isabelle Clarke

Cast Mathieu Kassovitz

Synopsis Apocalypse: The Second World War (TV Miniseries) (2009) is a gripping documentary series that chronicles the global conflict of World War II through rare, restored footage and firsthand accounts. Spanning six episodes, it vividly portrays the war's key events, from...

Direction Teo Hernández

Cast Jakobois · Gaël Badaud · Michel Nedjar · Pascal Martin

Synopsis Lacrima Christi, third part of the tetralogy Le Corps de la Passion (The Body of the Passion, 1977-1980), is inspired by Christian mythology, from which it draws a creative transformation force, in a search for identity that questions the two...

Direction Jean-Pierre Cuny

Direction Pascal Plisson · Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Direction Daniel Costelle · Isabelle Clarke

Cast Mathieu Kassovitz

Synopsis Culled from more than 500 hours of archival material, unfolding in five 52-minute installments, 'Apocalypse WWI' takes us to the battlefields, inside the minds of those who govern, and to the heart of the everyday life of civilians behind the...

Direction Jacques Becker

Cast Philippe Leroy · Marc Michel · Michel Constantin · Jean Kéraudy

Synopsis In The Hole (The Night Watch) (1960), directed by Jacques Becker, five inmates in a Parisian prison meticulously plan a daring escape. The story follows their tense, methodical preparations as they dig a hole through their cell floor, facing constant...

Direction Claude Lanzmann

Cast Simon Srebnik · Michael Podchlebnik · Motke Zaïdl · Hanna Zaïdl

Synopsis Claude Lanzmann directed this 9 1/2 hour documentary of the Holocaust without using a single frame of archive footage. He interviews survivors, witnesses, and ex-Nazis (whom he had to film secretly since though only agreed to be interviewed by audio)....

Direction Carl Theodor Dreyer

Cast Maria Falconetti · Eugene Silvain · Maurice Schutz · Michel Simon

Synopsis The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) depicts the harrowing final days of Joan of Arc, the young French heroine condemned by her English captors. Focused on her trial and interrogation by ecclesiastical judges, the film captures Joan's unwavering faith...

Direction Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Synopsis Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent three years collecting real-life emotional stories from more than 2,000 women and men in 60 countries. Those emotions, those tears and smiles, those struggles and those laughs are the ones uniting us all. A combination of testimonies...

Direction Pierre-André Boutang · Michel Pamart

Cast Gilles Deleuze · Claire Parnet

Direction Émilie Tronche

Cast Émilie Tronche

Synopsis An emotional portrayal of adolescence follows Samuel and his friends, blending introspection, humor and nostalgic songs.

Direction Jean-Charles Fitoussi

Cast Frédéric Bonpart · Hélène Boons · Leos Carax · Adeline D'Hermy

Synopsis Alix, a woman created by scientific William Stein, is born at the age of twenty-seven and sets out in search of the one thing she should never be able to experience: the (damn) feeling of love.

Direction Robert Bresson

Cast François Leterrier · Roland Monod · Charles Le Clainche · Maurice Beerblock

Synopsis April 1943, during WWII. Fontaine, a 27 years old young man who is a member of the French Resistance fighting against the nazis, is arrested by the Gestapo in order to be interrogated. Fontaine suspects that he will be executed,...

Direction Marcel Carné

Cast Jean-Louis Barrault · Pierre Brasseur · Pierre Renoir · Arletty

Synopsis It follows a mysterious woman (Arletty) loved by four different men (all based on historical figures): an actor, a criminal, a count, and, most poignantly, a mime (Jean-Louis Barrault), in a world teeming with hucksters and aristocrats, thieves and courtesans,...

Direction H.G. Clouzot

Cast Yves Montand · Charles Vanel · Véra Clouzot · Peter van Eyck

Synopsis The Wages of Fear (1953) follows four desperate men in a South American town who accept a perilous job to transport highly unstable nitroglycerin across treacherous terrain. Hired by an American oil company, they must drive two trucks loaded with...

Direction Chris Marker

Synopsis French essay film focusing on global political turmoil in the 1960s and '70s, particularly the rise of the New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America.

Direction Alain Resnais

Synopsis Night and Fog (1955) is a powerful documentary short that contrasts the serene present-day remnants of Nazi concentration camps with harrowing archival footage from World War II. Directed by Alain Resnais, the film juxtaposes tranquil landscapes with stark black-and-white images...

Direction Wim Wenders · Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

Cast Sebastião Salgado

Synopsis During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history ; international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He...

Direction Jean-Claude Rousseau

Direction Peter Watkins

Synopsis We are in the year 1871. A journalist for Versailles Television broadcasts a soothing and official view of events while a Commune television is set up to provide the perspectives of the Paris rebels. On a stage-like set, more than...