This comic excursion from Louis Malle is set in May 1968, concurrent with a series of Parisian student uprisings. After the death of family matriarch Mme. Vieuzac (Paulette Dubost), the survivors converge on the French countryside for her funeral; they include her two sons, Milou (Michel Piccoli) and Georges (Michel Duchaussoy); Camille (Miou-Miou ...
This homage to the cinema by venerated movie-maker Agnes Varda, often dubbed the "grandmother" of the French New Wave, features an all-star international cast. The story is based upon the memories and insights of the 100-year old Mr. Simon Cinema. He lives in a magnificent house filled with movie memorabilia. To help him remember the important ...
Filmed on locations ranging from Denmark to the Universal backlot, Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz is based on a novel by Leon Uris. Frederick Stafford, a veteran of European-filmed James Bond rip-offs of the 1960s, is cast as Andre Devereaux, a French secret agent assigned to snoop around Cuba in the months prior to the 1962 missile crisis. Someone is ...
Marcello Mastroianni stars in this French farce, an absurd "western" set in Paris, with Mastroianni as the incurably vain General George Armstrong Custer. Richard Nixon is the American president, but everyone is costumed appropriately for the previous century. Buffalo Bill (Michel Piccoli), the famous scout, is here portrayed as a limp-wristed ...
The second screen version of Octave Mirbeau's novel (originally filmed in 1946 by Jean Renoir), Diary of a Chambermaid charts the ambitions of Celestine (Jeanne Moreau), a woman who comes to work in the 1930s for a Normandy estate occupied by Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne), his daughter (Francoise Lugagne), and the daughter's husband, Monsieur ...
Tom Berenger seems bemused by his surroundings in the Italian Beyond Obsession. An American engineer, Berenger falls in love with Eleanora Giorgi, and as these things are wont to happen, he ends up in bed with her. But Eleanora carries a great deal of emotional baggage in the person of her political-prisoner father Marcello Mastroianni. Soon ...
Michel Piccoli plays Akiva Liebskind, a Russian chess genius in the Swiss-filmed Dangerous Moves. He is pitted against Soviet exile Pavius Fromm (Alexandre Arbatt), who, since childhood, has dreamed of nothing but defeating Liebskind. Both men soon become obsessed with winning. Already suffering from a weak heart, Liebskind courts a coronary, ...
In this ponderous French mystery-drama, based on an Ellery Queen story, blackmail would seem to be the least of the problems of Charles (Anthony Perkins). His adoptive father Theo (Orson Welles) has a madwoman for a mother, and a gorgeous woman of Charles' age (Marlene Jobert) for a wife. In fact, Charles is deeply attracted to her. In addition, ...
Loosely based on a story by Honore de Balzac, this historical drama is set in Egypt in 1798, as Napoleon was leading the French army into the Middle East. Officer Augustin Robert (Ben Daniels) has been assigned to escort artist Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis (Michel Piccoli), who is to record and catalog his findings as he studies the ...
A man who's been confronted with new responsibilities must decide what to do with his career in this drama with comic undertones. Gilbert Vance (Michel Piccoli) is an aging but highly respected actor who, after completing a performance of Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King in which he plays opposite an attractive and talented actress named Sylvie ...
Confusion and wrong assumptions are the cause of tragedy in this stylish gangster noir by director Jean-Pierre Melville. Maurice (Serge Reggiani) and Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo) are friends going way back, and both have had a shady past. Silien wants to leave his illegal activities behind him -- but would he actually be in league with the police, ...
One of Luis Buñuel's most episodic films, The Phantom of Liberty focuses on no one particular narrative. In the beginning, a man sells postcards of French tourist attractions, calling them "pornographic." A sniper in Montparnasse is hailed as a hero for killing passersby. A "missing" child helps the police fill out the report on her. A group of ...
In this romantic melodrama, Lucille (Catherine Deneuve) is a young woman who takes comfort in the arms of her older wealthy lover Charles (Michel Piccoli). She meets a young man, Antoine (Roger van Hool) who is involved with an icy socialite (Irène Tunc). Lucille and Antoine become lovers and the former leaves Charles to move in with the young man ...
This French language drama from Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira takes an ironic look at the pretentiousness of international jet-setters while simultaneously examining an obsessive romantic relationship between an aging Lothario and a beautiful married woman. The tale begins at a garden party in a lovely villa in the Azores held by Rogerio ...
Under the tutelage of one-time husband, director Roger Vadim, Jane Fonda plays the much-younger wife of stuffed-shirt millionaire Michel Piccoli. When Piccoli's handsome young stepson Peter McEnery comes to visit, Fonda is immediately smitten. When Piccoli forces McEnery into a marriage of convenience, she contemplates committing suicide over ...
Subversive Italian satirist Marco Ferreri directed and co-wrote (with Rafael Azcona) this grotesquely amusing French black comedy about four men who grow sick of life, and so meet at a remote villa with the goal of literally eating themselves to death. The quartet comes from various walks of life -- a pilot (Marcello Mastroianni), a chef (Ugo ...
This critically acclaimed French drama blends film noir and science fiction elements in a story about a strange and deadly plague. A sexually transmitted disease called STBO is sweeping the country; it's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment. ...
La Guerre est Finie represents one of the few "linear" films of French director Alain Resnais. Instead of indulging in his beloved flashbacks and flashforwards, Resnais sticks to a logical progression of events in relating this jaundiced tale of political activism. Yves Montand plays a tired, ageing revolutionary whose current target is Spain's ...
Despite a fast-paced story that slams the broadcast industry and lotto mentality, this sci-fi action thriller emphasizes action over anxiety, and so its hunt-and-kill premise is less exciting than it sounds. Based on a Robert Sheckley tale, the action is brought about by a television show invented by money-motivated executives with ratings on the ...
Mixing together the erotic and a theme of imminent death, director Michel Deville has fashioned an increasingly unsettling tale, based on the French novel Sur la Terre Comme au Ciel by Rene Belletto. When David (Christophe Malavoy) arrives at the home of Julia (Nicole Garcia) and Graham (Michel Piccoli) to teach guitar to their teenage daughter, a ...
Giovanni (Lou Castel) comes home after his brother's suicide to encounter the same family problems that have been around for years: his mother is a religious fanatic now obsessed with her son's errant spirit, his older brother has a cold and uncaring relationship with his children and his wife, and Giovanni's uncle who runs the wealthy family's ...
In this French tragicomedy, once Pierre sees Auriele, he cannot rest until he finds her. Pierre is just minding his own business, when this woman walks by. He does not know who she is, where she lives, what she does or anything. Pierre, a music critic and TV commentator, uses his resources to try to find her. His life is pretty meaningless ...
The biblical tale of Joseph is told from an Egyptian perspective in this interesting character study. In this film, Joseph is called Ram. Ram, tired of his family's backward superstitious life, and tired of being picked on by his brothers, wants to go to Egypt to study agriculture. His brothers travel with him across Sinai, but then suddenly sell ...
Burt Lancaster stars as Lou, an aging mob flunkey, barely making a living in Atlantic City. Susan Sarandon plays Sally, a casino croupier whose husband Dave (Robert Joy) steals a large supply of drugs from the mob. When he is killed, the narcotics pass to the unwilling Sally. Lou, in the midst of longtime affair with middle-aged gangster's widow ...
Belle de Jour dramatizes the collision between depravity and elegance, one of the favorite themes of director Luis Buñuel. Catherine Deneuve stars as a wealthy but bored newlywed, eager to taste life to the fullest. She seemingly gets her wish early in the film when she is kidnapped, tied to a tree, and gang-raped. It turns out that this is only a ...
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