Direction: René Clair

The best movies, series, and documentaries directed by René Clair. Explore exceptional titles that showcase a unique filmmaking vision.


À nous la liberté (Freedom for Us)

1931 · Movie · 79 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Raymond Cordy · Henri Marchand · Paul Ollivier · André Michaud

Plot A famous left-wing satirical comedy about two ex-convicts, one of whom works his way up from salesman to factory owner, where he oversees a highly mechanised operation where the workers...

7.2

774 votes

7.2

774 votes

Silence Is Golden

1947 · Movie · 95 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Maurice Chevalier · François Périer · Marcelle Derrien · Dany Robin

Plot Paris, 1920, period of the silent cinema. Emile, a film maker, takes under his wing Jacques and schools him in the art of seduction whilst counselling him never to fall...

7.1

167 votes

7.1

167 votes

Entr'acte (S)

1924 · Movie · 22 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Jean Börlin · Inge Frïss · Francis Picabia · Marcel Duchamp

Plot An absolute dada movie. Somebody gets killed, his coffin gets out of control and after a chase it stops. The person gets out of it and let everybody who followed...

7.1

999 votes

7.1

999 votes

Gate of Lilacs

1957 · Movie · 95 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Pierre Brasseur · Georges Brassens · Henri Vidal · Dany Carrel

Plot An old bum becomes infatuated with a pretty young girl who gets entangled with a young gangster.

7.1

261 votes

7.1

261 votes

Bastille Day (July 14)

1933 · Movie · 86 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Annabella · George Rigaud · Raymond Cordy · Paul Ollivier

Plot Jean is a young cab driver. Anna, a flower-girl neighbour, is in love with him. But he is still thinking to Pola, who just left him. Jean asks her to...

6.9

136 votes

6.9

136 votes

Under the Roofs of Paris

1930 · Movie · 96 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Albert Préjean · Pola Illéry · Gaston Modot · Bill Bocket

Plot In René Clair's irrepressibly romantic portrait of the crowded tenements of Paris, a street singer and a gangster vie for the love of a beautiful young woman. This witty exploration...

6.9

670 votes

6.9

670 votes

The Horse Ate the Hat

1928 · Movie · 112 min. · France

6.9

107 votes

6.9

107 votes

Beauties of the Night

1952 · Movie · 87 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Gérard Philipe · Martine Carol · Gina Lollobrigida · Magali Vendeuil

Plot A young composer has vivid dreams of the past that reflect, yet conflict with his waking life.

6.8

53 votes

6.8

53 votes

Paris Asleep

1924 · Movie · 35 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Henri Rollan · Charles Martinelli · Louis Pré · Madeleine Rodrigue

Plot Early roots of sci-fi magic are given to us in the form of a scientist who invents a ray that makes people caught in its beam fall asleep where they...

6.8

329 votes

6.8

329 votes

The Million

1931 · Movie · 83 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Annabella · René Lefèvre · Jean-Louis Allibert · Paul Ollivier

Plot Michel, a Parisian artist, is being hounded by numerous impatient creditors. To make things worse, when he is embracing the woman whose portrait he is painting, he is surprised by...

6.8

268 votes

6.8

268 votes

It Happened Tomorrow

1944 · Movie · 84 min. · United States

Direction René Clair

Cast Dick Powell · Linda Darnell · Jack Oakie · Edgar Kennedy

Plot An ambitious newspaper reporter, eager to scoop the competition, wishes he could know the news before it happens. A mysterious old man grants the reporter that power, even as he...

6.7

614 votes

6.7

614 votes

Beauty and the Devil

1950 · Movie · 95 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Michel Simon · Gérard Philipe · Nicole Besnard · Simone Valère

Plot Professor Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as an alchemist in a circa-1700 university, despairs at still knowing nothing of the true secrets of nature...whereupon his old acquaintance Mephistopheles, servant...

6.7

94 votes

6.7

94 votes

And Then There Were None

1945 · Movie · 97 min. · United States

Direction René Clair

Cast Walter Huston · Roland Young · Louis Hayward · June Duprez

Plot Ten people are invited for a weekend on an island by a Mr U. N. Own, but he isn't on the island. At dinner a record is played, by that...

6.7

3K votes

6.7

3K votes

I Married a Witch

1942 · Movie · 78 min. · United States

Direction René Clair

Cast Fredric March · Veronica Lake · Robert Benchley · Susan Hayward

Plot In 1672, two witches (Jennifer and her father Daniel) are burned by puritan Jonathan Wooley; in 1942, they re-materialize to plague his descendant Wallace Wooley, candidate for state governor. Wallace...

Max

6.5

2K votes

6.5

2K votes

All the Gold in the World

1961 · Movie · 85 min. · France

6.4

220 votes

6.4

220 votes

The Imaginary Voyage

1926 · Movie · 80 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Dolly Davis · Jean Börlin · Albert Préjean · Jim Gerald

Plot The movie describes a meek bank clerk enamored with a typist. The hero lacks confidence in himself and lets his colleagues push him around, which leads the girl to have...

6.4

62 votes

6.4

62 votes

The Grand Maneuver

1955 · Movie · 106 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Cast Michèle Morgan · Gérard Philipe · Brigitte Bardot · Jacques Fabbri

Plot Clair's romantic comedy on the power of love over pride. Set in a pre-WWI garrison town, a handsome soldier (Philipe) wagers that he can seduce any woman he pleases before...

6.4

291 votes

6.4

291 votes

La tour (S)

1928 · Documentary · 11 min. · France

Direction René Clair

Plot This is a documentary about the famous tower which was built for the 1889 World Fair and should have been destroyed afterward but the people in Paris were wise enough...

6.4

76 votes

6.4

76 votes

The Last Billionaire

1934 · Movie · 92 min. · France

6.3

59 votes

6.3

59 votes

The Ghost Goes West

1936 · Movie · 95 min. · United Kingdom

Direction René Clair

Cast Robert Donat · Jean Parker · Eugene Pallette · Elsa Lanchester

Plot In the 18th Century the Glourie clan are called cowards by their rivals, the MacClaggan clan, for not going off to war with the English. And so the womanizing Murdoch...

6.2

409 votes

6.2

409 votes