Direction: Alain Resnais
The best movies, series, and documentaries directed by Alain Resnais. Explore exceptional titles that showcase a unique filmmaking vision.
Night and Fog
1955 · Documentary · 32 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Plot This lyrical and graphic documentary--one of the first cinematic reflections on the Holocaust's horror--has deeply affected film's treatment of the Holocaust ever since, including Spielberg's "Schindler's List". Documentarian Alain Resnais...
8.2
5K votes
8.2
5K votes
Hiroshima mon amour
1959 · Movie · 88 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Emmanuelle Riva · Eiji Okada · Bernard Fresson · Stella Dassas
Plot A young French actress is making an anti-war film in the rebuilt Japanese city of Hiroshima, which was devastated in a nuclear bomb blast at the end of the Second...
7.5
10K votes
7.5
10K votes
Last Year at Marienbad
1961 · Movie · 91 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Delphine Seyrig · Giorgio Albertazzi · Sacha Pitoeff · Françoise Bertin
Plot A cinematic puzzle, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad is a radical exploration of the formal possibilities of film. Beautifully shot in Cinemascope by Sacha Vierny, the movie is a...
7.4
5K votes
7.4
5K votes
Statues also Die
1953 · Documentary · 30 min. · France
Direction Chris Marker · Alain Resnais
Plot Statues Also Die traces the devastating impact of French colonialism on African art. As Resnais' co-director, Chris Marker, stated, "We want to see their suffering, serenity, humor, even though we...
7.4
818 votes
7.4
818 votes
Far from Vietnam
1967 · Documentary · 120 min. · France
Direction Claude Lelouch · Agnès Varda · Jean-Luc Godard · Chris Marker
Cast Anne Bellec · Karen Blanguernon · Bernard Fresson · Maurice Garrel
Plot Seven directors combine efforts for this documentary, a searing anti-American indictment of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, William Klein, Joris Ivens, Agnes Varda, Claude Lelouch, and Jean-Luc...
7.4
312 votes
7.4
312 votes
All the Memory of the World (S)
1956 · Documentary · 21 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Plot Toute la mémoire du monde is a documentary about the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It presents the building, with its processes of cataloguing and preserving all sorts of printed material,...
7.2
470 votes
7.2
470 votes
My American Uncle
1980 · Movie · 123 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Gérard Depardieu · Nicole García · Roger Pierre · Marie Dubois
Plot Prof. Henri Laborit uses the stories of the lives of three people to discuss behaviorist theories of survival, combat, rewards and punishment, and anxiety. René is a technical manager at...
7.2
761 votes
7.2
761 votes
The War Is Over
1966 · Movie · 122 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Yves Montand · Ingrid Thulin · Geneviève Bujold · Jean Bouise
Plot For some soldiers, the war is never over... Legendary "New Wave" director Alain Resnais (Last Year at Marienbad) helms this emotionally-charged suspense-drama set in France and on the streets of...
6.9
856 votes
6.9
856 votes
Same Old Song
1997 · Movie · 120 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast André Dussollier · Agnès Jaoui · Lambert Wilson · Jean-Pierre Bacri
6.9
1K votes
6.9
1K votes
I Love You, I Love You
1968 · Movie · 90 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Claude Rich · Olga Georges-Picot · Anouk Ferjac · Annie Fargue
Plot A man recovering from an attempted suicide is recruited to be the first human guinea pig in a time travel experiment. The organizers intend to send the man exactly one...
6.8
521 votes
6.8
521 votes
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
2012 · Movie · 115 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Mathieu Amalric · Lambert Wilson · Michel Piccoli · Anne Consigny
Plot From beyond the grave, celebrated playwright Antoine d’Anthac gathers together all his friends who have appeared over the years in his play "Eurydice". These actors watch a recording of the...
6.7
279 votes
6.7
279 votes
Mélo
1986 · Movie · 112 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Sabine Azéma · Fanny Ardant · Pierre Arditi · André Dussollier
Plot In Paris in the 1920s, a concert violinist meets and falls in love with a stylish young flapper who's the wife of an old friend. Romaine instigates the affair with...
6.7
216 votes
6.7
216 votes
Cinétracts
1968 · Documentary · 90 min. · France
Direction Chris Marker · Philippe Garrel · Jean-Luc Godard · Jean-Denis Bonan
Plot A series of 41 documentary shorts, directed (without credit) by several famous French filmmakers and each running between two and four minutes. Each "tract" espouses a leftist political viewpoint through...
6.7
22 votes
6.7
22 votes
Providence
1977 · Movie · 104 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast John Gielgud · Dirk Bogarde · Ellen Burstyn · David Warner
Plot Clive Langham (Sir John Gielgud) spends one tormenting night in his bed suffering from health problems and thinking up a story based on his relatives. He is a bitter man...
6.6
682 votes
6.6
682 votes
Guernica (S)
1950 · Documentary · 13 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais · Robert Hessens
Cast María Casares · Jacques Pruvost
Plot On April 26 1937 the small Basque town of Guernica was bombed without warning by the German aviation. Two thousand people, all civilians, got killed. Like millions all over the...
6.5
439 votes
6.5
439 votes
The Year 01
1973 · Movie · 90 min. · France
Direction Jacques Doillon · Alain Resnais · Jean Rouch
Cast Gérard Depardieu · Miou-Miou · Gérard Jugnot · Coluche
Plot "Stop everything and reflect!". Built starting from this slogan, three accounts of political fiction imagined and filmed in the United States, in France and Africa. A merry utopia on the...
6.5
73 votes
6.5
73 votes
Van Gogh (S)
1948 · Documentary · 18 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Plot The biography of Dutch artist Van Gogh, illustrated only with images of his paintings and drawings, or details of those, and according dramatic musical score.
6.5
315 votes
6.5
315 votes
Love Unto Death
1984 · Movie · 92 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Sabine Azéma · Fanny Ardant · Pierre Arditi · André Dussollier
Plot Elisabeth and Simon have been deeply in love for two months when Simon momentarily dies, but comes back to life. Simon does not want any further medical tests, but the...
6.4
279 votes
6.4
279 votes
Le Chant du Styrène (S)
1958 · Documentary · 13 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Sacha Vierny
Plot Poetic and aesthetic visit of a large polystyrene factory. The film was an order by French industrial group Pechiney to highlight the merits of plastics.
6.4
237 votes
6.4
237 votes
Smoking/No Smoking
1993 · Movie · 293 min. · France
Direction Alain Resnais
Cast Sabine Azéma · Pierre Arditi
Plot Smoking - 146 minutes. No Smoking - 147 minutes. Two films designed to be seen side by side, in either order, are completely unlike 'filmed theatre' in the usual sense...
6.4
406 votes
6.4
406 votes