Discover Movies

In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.

In Montauban in 1944, Julien Dandieu is a surgeon in the local hospital. Frightened by the German army entering Montauban, he asks his friend Francois to drive his wife and his daughter in the back country village where Julien has an old castle. One week later, Julien decides to meet them for the week end, but the Germans are already occupying the village.

Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.

Darien, a left-wing police informant, is forced to lure his old friend Sadiel to Paris, allegedly to film a television special about the Third World. Sadiel, the exiled leader of a North African state, is being hunted by the ruthless Colonel Kassar, who will stop at nothing to capture his political rival. Once Sadiel arrives in Paris, Darien realizes he has been manipulated. He tries to turn back the clock, not realizing what or who he’s truly dealing with.

Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent assist small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French politics. But when his great scam involving millions is exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.

Two people, a Frenchman and a Jewish German woman, meet on a train while escaping the German army entering France.

In the 19th century a mysterious woman named Adele H. crosses the ocean, from Europe to North America, to relentlessly pursue a handsome officer that denies her satisfaction.

Don Sallust is the minister of the King of Spain. Being disingenuous, hypocritical, greedy and collecting the taxes for himself, he is hated by the people he oppresses. Accused by The Queen, a beautiful princess Bavarian, of having an illegitimate child to one of her maids of honor, he was stripped of his duties and ordered to retire to a monastery.

The true story of Victor of Aveyron. In a French forest circa 1798, an abandoned child — feral, filthy and mentally impaired — is found. Dr Jean Marc Gaspard Itard becomes interested in the case and patiently attempts to civilise the boy.

Oscar François de Jarjayes was born female, but her father insisted she be raised as a boy as he had no sons. She becomes the captain of the guards at Versailles under King Louis XVI and Marie Antonette. Her privileged, noble life comes under fire as she discovers the hard life of the poor people of France. She is caught up in the French Revolution, and must choose between her loyalty and love.

Adèle lives in the shadow of her husband, Ferdinand, a painter. After her father's death, they leave the provinces for Paris. She refines his paintings and comforts him. Thanks to her brushstrokes, Ferdinand discovers fame and success. And love in all this? Sacrificed on the altar of creation...

Having failed in their quest for the Holy Grail, the knights of the Round Table return to Camelot, their number reduced to a mere handful. Seeing a rift developing between Lancelot and Mordred, Arthur urges his knights to bury their differences and become friends. However, the king is unaware that Lancelot is having an affair with his queen, Guinevere. Lancelot is torn between his duty to his king and his love for the queen, whilst Mordred is determined to use his infidelity to destroy him.

In Nazi-occupied France, a German officer is assassinated. The Germans demand justice, and the Vichy government is quick to capitulate. Unable to apprehend the actual culprits, Minister of Justice Joseph Barthélémy decides the execution of token Frenchmen will suffice, but the problem is finding judges and jurors eager to participate in a sham trial of innocent men. The solution is a Special Section, a court comprised of individuals handpicked for this exact purpose.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin is raised by his father and his grandfather because his mother dies when he's still very little. He works as a handyman, studies the law at a university and travels the country as an actor before he becomes the celebrated playwright Molière who impresses firstly the Duke of Orleans and then even King Louis XIV.

In Paris, in 1942, on a Thursday, the Parisian police herded together some 13,000 Jews for deportation to German territory. In this story, Paul (Christian Rist) is a teenager who tries to prevent this from happening. At first he attempts to save two elderly Jews, but they are resigned to their fate and comply with the order to assemble. For a short while, he is able to keep Jeanne (Christine Pascal) from joining them, but, after a long and strenuous day, she finally escapes from him he is too tired to chase after her.

Nicolas Philibert goes to America after killing a French aristocrat. On his return he tries to divorce his wife, Charlotte, but when he sees others trying to woo her his own interest is rekindled.

The film chronicles Perceval's knighthood, maturation and eventual peerage amongst the Knights of the Round Table, and also contains brief episodes from the story of Gawain and the crucifixion of Christ.

A Stalinist assassin tracks exiled revolutionary Leon Trotsky to Mexico in 1940.

France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier attempts to shoot his love who refused to marry him and to commit suicide. Upon release from the filthy asylum where he was placed, with bullets still remaining in his head, he wanders the country roads and rapes and murders many teenagers over years. The judge Rousseau captures him, but to serve his ambition seeks to avoid that Bouvier is simply declared insane.

In 1662, ten years after the Fronde, King Louis XIV, then aged 24, was still feeling the insult. When the name of Baron de Fargues came to his ears, the king unleashed a blind vengeance against this amnestied former rebel. But Louise de La Vallière, Louis XIV's mistress, could jeopardize the plan.

A look at 18th-century France, when the depravity of the authorities contributed to social oppression, and the uprisings flared up one after another.

"Race d’Ep!" (which literally translates to "Breed of Faggots") was made by the “father of queer theory,” Guy Hocquenghem, in collaboration with radical queer filmmaker and provocateur Lionel Soukaz. The film traces the history of modern homosexuality through the twentieth century, from early sexology and the nudes of Baron von Gloeden to gay liberation and cruising on the streets of Paris. Influenced by the groundbreaking work of Michel Foucault on the history of sexuality and reflecting the revolutionary queer activism of its day, "Race d’Ep!" is a shockingly frank, sex-filled experimental documentary about gay culture emerging from the shadows.

We follow Ronsard to the Loire Valley, listening to him evoke his loves through odes and sonnets. Thus, Cassandre, Marie d'Angevine, Hélène de Surgères come back to life for a few moments for us. This evocation does not forget the friendship between Ronsard and another great poet of the 16th century, also born on the banks of the Loire, Joachim du Bellay. It takes us to the castles of Blois and Taley, to the manor of La Denysière, to Couture, Ronsard's birthplace, and to the priory of Saint-Cosme-les-Tours, where the poet died.

The portrait of Eldridge Cleaver, the "Minister of Information" for the Black Panthers movement, in exile in Algiers.

Roland des Roncesvalles is a legendary knight from the age of chivalry in France. In the 11th-century epic La Chanson de Roland, he is depicted as a key figure in halting the advance of the Arabs into France. In this story, the 10th-century legend is staged by a group of 12th-century pilgrims using the 11th-century poem. Their acting is interrupted by a violent peasant uprising, which kills many of the pilgrims. However, one of the survivors, is converted to the peasant cause and later speaks out in favor of more just treatment for the downtrodden.

Aloise creates a series of haunting drawings while she is incarcerated in an institution for the insane in turn-of-the-century Switzerland. She endures torments as a musically gifted girl and later as a young woman; her developing madness and the barbaric treatments of the time are shown.

A three part film, based on the novel of the same title by Victor Hugo, telling of the adventures of two children, a blind girl and a badly scared boy, who are rescued and looked after by a vagabond.

A captain in the Czar's army encounters danger and romance while carrying a secret message across 19th-century Russia.

The love affair between Abélard and Héloïse, or the extraordinary passion between a brilliant 37-year-old professor and his young student, has left its mark on their lives. While their uncle Fulbert's criminal jealousy dogged them and tragedy separated them, these events made their romantic adventure all the more unusual and famous. And it is the strength of the bond between these two extraordinary heroes that will overcome all obstacles, whatever they may be.

Recording of the play 1789, a collective creation by Théâtre du Soleil at La Cartoucherie de Vincennes in 1970, edited from several shows.

Blanche is the young, pure, beautiful wife of the Master of the castle, in a secluded land. Every man is in love with her, including the King and his servant Bartolomeo, visiting the Master.

D'Artagnan and his musketeer comrades must thwart the plans of Cardinal Richelieu to usurp King Louis XIII's power.

Three episodes from the history of socialism: Babeuf, whose virulent discourse is a radical assessment of the bourgeois revolution of 1789 (Vincent Nordon episode); the legend of Napoleon I, or the formation of the state as it still dominates today (François Barat episode); and the carnage of the Paris Commune, which official history strives to repress and forget (Joël Farges episode). What does it mean to make a historical film today? It means illuminating the present in the light of the past, and therefore adopting the new modes of modern storytelling to challenge what dominates us, structures us, and oppresses us.

A few years after the revocation of theEdict of Nantes, the Camisards, Protestants from the Cévennes region, mostly peasants and silk workers, formed groups following Gédéon Laporte and fought Louis XIV's dragoons.

A film-détournement biography of Mao Tse-tung in which the life of the recently deceased Great Helmsman is told in his own words, using quotes culled from various Red Guard publications. The rise to power of the film's namesake appears as the inevitable outcome of a dialectical logical. Or so the voice-over might lead one to believe. If the usual practice of détourned films is for the soundtrack to undermine the image, here the reverse occasionally takes place. The images critique Mao's words. They show that which, even in the official visual record of the times, the narrative elides. The film is dedicated to Li Yhi Zhe, the nominal author of a famous Democracy Wall critique of the Maoist state.

Aboard a giant slave ship in an abandoned Citroën factory, the history of the West Indies is traced through several centuries of French oppression. The ship becomes a stage for the people to tell stories via song and dance—from their enslavement to their displacement in Metropolitan France.

Antoine Saint-Just, comrade of Robespierre and youngest member of the Committee of Public Safety, is drawn into the tempestuous political & military conflicts of France under the Terror.

Blanche was raped in her adolescence by a servant, a cowherd named Baptiste. Her family, anxious to hide the shame that this scandal has cast on their reputation, locks the young girl in their manor, thinking that four walls are enough to silence the mockery. One day, Blanche, whom the whole country nicknames "Madame Baptiste", tries to commit suicide, consumed by the painful memory she carries within her. A man saves her and, charmed by the woman who now owes him her life, he asks her to marry him, thus defying the moral barriers set by public opinion. Life now seems happy for Blanche, but one day, at the agricultural show, the insult comes again: "Madame Baptiste!"...

Abel Gance's 1971 sound edition of his epic 1927 'Napoleon', which contains much of the silent original, with new material shot and added in both 1965 and 1971, and with sound synchronization from both the 1932 reissue and this version.

The Basilica of Monreale, near Palermo in Sicily acts as subject and springboard of Carné's final film; Its hundreds of gorgeous and intricate tiled mosaics vividly depict scenes from the Bible. Kinetic camerawork and dramatic narration of each scene compliment these stunning pieces in order to retell the Holy Book's age-old Story.

Since the contemporary turn of the century short subjects of Georges Melies, the first French-made film to discuss the long taboo topic of the Dreyfus Case.

A writer, Kamouraska is based on a real nineteenth-century love-triangle in rural Québec. It paints a poetic and terrifying tableau of the life of Elisabeth d'Aulnières: her marriage to Antoine Tassy, squire of Kamouraska; his violent murder; and her passion for George Nelson, an American doctor. Passionate and evocative, Kamouraska is the timeless story of one woman's destructive commitment to an ideal love.

After serving as an embassy secretary in London at the end of 1787, a position he didn't exactly enjoy, the poet André Chénier returns to Paris. When the Revolution breaks out, he becomes enthusiastic about it, and never ceases to express his love of liberty and high principles. But he also speaks out against excesses and troublemakers. For her part, the beautiful Aimée de Coigny, who has just divorced the Duc de Fleury, leads a dissolute life. In 1793, the Convention decides to put "the Terror on the agenda". Aimée de Coigny and her new lover, Casimir de Montrond, are arrested. At the Saint-Lazare prison, their life together is preserved. Six months later, Chénier is arrested and imprisoned. Dazzled by the young woman's beauty, the poet dedicates his most beautiful verses to her. But Aimée remains unmoved by his love.

French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (François Simon) lives in 18th-century exile with his mistress (Dominique Labourier).

The problems raised by the project to eliminate a secondary railroad line in Provence.

Spain, 16th century. The beautiful Dona Sol inspired a deep passion in Hernani, banished from the kingdom. Unable to live without her, he defies the ban and finds her in secret. Several rivals threaten the idyll. She is to marry her uncle, Don Ruy Gomez, and is also loved by the young King of Spain himself, Don Carlos.

A young miller takes under her protection an orphan brought up by an old woman.

The story of a small village in Touraine between 1788 and 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, with its lord, its wealthy peasants, and its poor. The wealthy peasants, expelled from the communal pastures by the count, take him to court. Guillaume Coquard joins the other villagers in drafting the cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances). On the eve of the convocation of the Estates General, the village loses its lawsuit. On the night of August 4, 1789, the deputies vote to abolish privileges. The peasants will be able to buy them back. But the poorest wonder: with what?