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

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