French Films and Music: Feature Films

A small-time hood kills a policeman and tries to leave France, but his American girlfriend betrays him to the police and he gets killed trying to escape.

A young woman is left devastated by the unexpected death of her husband and child. She retreats from the world around her, but is soon reluctantly drawn into an ever-widening web of lies and passion as the dark, secret life of her husband begins to unravel.

Angelique, a young student, is in love with a married doctor. She tries to convince him to leave his pregnant wife. Is the love affair the one-sided obsession of a desperate woman clinging to a hopeless dream, and turning it into a nightmare when she realizes it may not come true?

In this satire on mechanization of the modern world, a convict escapes from prison and becomes director of a large phonograph factory. Just as he is being proclaimed a leading citizen they come to arrest him.

Based on the director's life, this film chronicles Malle's experiences during the German occupation of France in World War II. Julien (Malle) is 12 years old, and the smartest boy in his class at boarding school when a new student appears. The two form a friendship even though Julien senses that there is something different about his new friend.

Stolen Kisses is a continuation of the story of Antoine Doinel, (first told in the film The 400 Blows) and in many respects the autobiography of François Truffaut -- his thoroughly dishonorable discharge from the army, his initially awkward but finally successful encounters with women. But the pain of encounter with the world of earlier work here becomes acceptance of life, with which comes an openness to its joy.

The film dramatizes the harrowing events of 1957, a key year in Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Recreates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, the French torture prisoners for information and the Algerians resort to terrorism in their quest for independence. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés. The French win the battle, but ultimately lose the war as the Algerian people demonstrate that they will no longer be suppressed.

This dramatized adaptation of the classic fairy tale tells the fable of the kindly beast and the self-sacrificing beauty whose love releases the prince in him. It contains such visual displays as tears that become real diamonds and walls that grow arms to light Beauty's path through the castle of the Beast.

In this animated film, a bicyclist is kidnapped from the Tour de France by mysterious gangsters; his grandmother travels to the city of Belleville (which has a sardonic version of the Statue of Liberty in its harbor), where she tracks him down with the help of a musical trio gone to seed, the Belleville Triplets.

This irrepressible and timely satire on racism, colonialism, and war is set in the Ivory Coast during the First World War where a group of French colonials learn that their country is at war with Germany. Spurred on by a capricious moment of patriotism, the Frenchmen decide to attack their German neighbors who reside in a colony up the river.

When Fernando and Marie decide to dedicate themselves full time to various political causes, their nine-year-old daughter, Anna, must learn to face the world on her own.

Following the premiere of her latest picture Viviane finds herself with a dead man in her apartment. Frederic is a writer who's been falsely accused of murder, thanks to Viviane. Viviane has fled Paris for Bordeaux with a cabinet minister, and once Frederic escapes from prison, he is not far behind. Once they reach the city, which is in chaos, they become entangled in a plot involving a rickety physicist, his endlessly resourceful assistant, an amiable ex-con, a shady reporter and several bottles of heavy water that absolutely, positively must not fall into the hands of the Germans.

A middle-aged man falls in love with a much younger woman in this satire of sexual obsession.

A young woman returns to Cameroon to trace her past. Soon the sights, sounds and smells sweep her back to her childhood and memories of the people who populated her youth.

Junon is the matriarch of the troubled Vuillard family, who come together at Christmas when they learn she needs a bone marrow transplant from a blood relative. The Vuillard's shared history of physical and mental illness, estrangement, self harm, and loss doesn't lead itself to the idea of a cheerful holiday season. Hopefully the Christmastime reunion, a scheme concocted by three of the youngest family members, will finally bring peace to their family.

Cyrano is a brilliant but hideously ugly poet, trying to get his true love, Roxanne.

In this remake of Fingers, Tom, a ne'er-do-well, works with two scheming real estate men who have little or no morals. He decides to return to the piano, practicing Bach's Toccata in E Minor for an important audition that could be a life-changing event.

Paris, 1942. Lucas Steiner is a Jew who feels compelled to leave the country in order to survive the German occupation during WWII. His wife Marion is an actress and a member of the Resistance who goes on to direct the theater for him. She tries to keep the theater alive by rehearsing a new play. She hires Bernard Granger for the leading role. The troupe believes that the show must go on no matter the circumstances. But Lucas never left the country; he is actually hiding in the basement.

In this mystery drama about murder in a private school for boys, the wife and the mistress of a tyrannical headmaster dispose of him only to be mystified by the disappearance of his body and ghostly hints of his presence.

In this film a senior Soviet chessmaster and his former star pupil, now a dissident living in exile, square off in a highly publicized chess tournament. However, both become pawns in a much larger game.

A new priest arrives in the French country village of Ambricourt to attend to his first parish. The rural congregation rejects him immediately. Through his country diary entries, the suffering young man relays a crisis of faith that threatens to drive him away from the village and God

Cynthia Hawkins is the operatic superstar whose refusal to make a recording frustrates her adoring public. A young fan named Jules makes a secret tape and is stalked by thugs who plan to blackmail the singer.

This film dramatizes the story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body except his left eye, which he used to blink out his memoir.

After the German occupation of Paris during World War II, a young widow flees the war-torn city with her two children and must rely on a mysterious young stranger in order to survive.

François and his fellow teachers prepare for a new year at a high school in a tough neighborhood. Armed with the best intentions, they brace themselves to not let discouragement stop them from trying to give the best education to their students. Cultures and attitudes often clash in the classroom, a microcosm of contemporary France. As amusing and inspiring as the teenaged students can be, their difficult behavior can still jeopardize any teacher's enthusiasm for the low-paying job. François insists on an atmosphere of respect and diligence. Neither stuffy nor severe, his extravagant frankness often takes the students by surprise. But his classroom ethics are put to the test when his students begin to challenge his methods.

At the center of this intimate and touching story is Georges Lopez - a remarkably devoted teacher responsible for nurturing a dozen children ages 3 to 11 in all their school subjects and life's lessons. The film demonstrates how a teacher, if well trained, dedicated and sensitive to a child's educational and emotional needs, can hugely influence a generation of children at their most critical time of development.

This is a daring and provocative exploration of the complexities of sexual awakening involving 12-year-old Anais. With her family on holiday by the sea, she yearns for the experience of first love. However, she experiences it by proxy when her beautiful older sister, Elena, gets involved with an older boy. Soon Elena's naive hopes of romance will be shattered setting a chain of events in motion that will shatter her family forever.

This is a period comedy-farce set in 17th century Spain and based on Victor Hugo's play Ruy Blas about an unscrupulous minister who when dismissed, plots to have the queen fall in love with his valet disguised as a visiting prince.

During the filming of an anti-war film in Japan, a French actress falls in love with a Japanese architect. While sharing an intimate relationship, they also begin sharing the memories of a war experienced at opposite sides of the world.

Two strangers, a criminal named Milan and a retired poetry teacher, Manesquier, meet in a sleepy French village and gradually become unlikely friends. As their friendship grows, each develops a desire to trade his life with that of the other.

A shell-shocked Juliette is released from prison after serving 15 years for murdering her young son. As life has moved on, she must relearn certain basics. After being banished from her family, she is now reunited with her younger sister, Lea. Hopefully, Juliette will learn to forgive herself in the process.

Eliane, a rubber plantation owner in French Indochina, hides her torrid love affairs from upper-class society, but when her adopted Indochinese daughter innocently falls in love with Eliane's secret lover, the scandal may destroy their family.

This is the story of Jean Cadoret, a hunchback who inherits a farm from his mother and foolishly hopes to become a gentleman farmer. But even before he arrives, his powerful neighbor is plotting to steal his land. The ending is heartbreak and tragedy for Jean who is no match for his wily neighbor.

A troupe of underemployed actors joins a charismatic young man to help a church update its annual Passion play, which attracts a city full of hope, praise, temptation, and condemnation.

The friendship of Jules, who is German, and Jim, who is French, and their twenty year love for the same woman is examined in the film.

Based on west African folklore, this is the story of a remarkable baby boy who is born with the ability to speak, amazing intelligence, and physical abilities. The film features a musical score by icon Youssou N'Dour and South Africa's finest vocal talents.

The film is based on the true story of Adele Hugo's obsessive love affair which led her to run away from home to follow her womanizing lover across an ocean to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Fate drives a man to murder and suicide. A jealous husband forces his wife to help him murder her elderly lover, starting a series of tragic consequences.

This farce involves a flamboyant homosexual couple's attempt to appear to be conventional parents in front of the prospective in-laws of the son of one of the men.

Born on the same day, a young Polish singer and a French music teacher and aspiring singer share the same talents and the same sense that somewhere there exists another person with whom her life is intertwined.

Two French air corps officers, one of whom, an aristocrat, are shot down and captured during World War I. In spite of their different class backgrounds, they are drawn together in attempts to escape. The aristocrat sacrifices his own chances in order to aid his companion's escape.

Three young, unemployed Frenchmen living in the ghettos surrounding Paris get embroiled in a violent conflict with the local police.

Frictions and personality clashes beset the making of a romantic film in Nice.

A comedy drama set on the eve of World War II, contrasting the affairs of the French aristocracy and the working class at a weekend house party.

Thrown into a political marriage of convenience by her ruthlessly power-hungry family, the beautiful Margot soon finds herself hopelessly drawn into their murderous affairs. It's then she realizes her only hope of escape lies somewhere between the heroic soldier who loves her and the enemy husband who could save her.

This is a dramatic retelling of the life of Edith Piaf, considered one of the great performers of France. Raised in a brothel, taken to work in a circus by her father, and eventually abandoned by her parents, she spent her teen years on the streets. Eventually "rescued" by a crime figure who gives her career a start, she makes her way to international success, despite recurring frailty, illness, wild moods, drug and alcohol problems.

During the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, the nation's movie studios continued to operate. Jean Devaivre is an assistant director for Continental Pictures, a studio which has recently been taken over by the Germans and is headed by Dr. Greven. With a wife and son to support, Devaivre feels he has little choice but to continue with his work. Screenwriter Jean Aurenche, a man who lives for wine, women and song, refuses to work for Greven, and struggles to find a way to make a living with his words.

An American widower in Paris, desolate at the unexplained suicide of his wife, plunges into a torrid sexual relationship with a stranger, a young French girl half his age.

This film presents two magical views of balloons. A young boy in Paris makes friends with a red balloon that has a mind of its own. The dreaded pincushion man spreads terror throughout balloon land by throwing his needles. Both film and cartoon are without dialogue.

An all-star French cast assembles for an elegant dinner party, but whenever they try to eat, something happens to interrupt them. The director mixes biting social satire with bold surrealistic invention as the dinner party serves to lampoon such targets as diplomats, wealthy socialites and even radical terrorists.

This is the dramatic story of Edmond Dantes, a young French sailor who is falsely denounced as a political traitor and unjustly imprisoned for eighteen years without trial. After a daring escape, Dantes flees to the island of Monte Cristo, where he finds a colossal treasure bequeathed to him by a dying fellow inmate. Using these riches, he assumes a new identity and devises a plan of vengeance upon all those who betrayed him.

The main character is a middle-aged, middle-class, and middle-management positioned executive in paper industry who suddenly becomes unemployed. Surprisingly, his methods of competing in the work-force market are everything but ordinary.

Pierre and his snobbish friends have a standing date for dinner. Every week, they compete to see who can bring the biggest idiot to the party.

Amelie is a young woman who had a decidedly unusual childhood; misdiagnosed with an unusual heart condition, Amelie didn't attend school with other children, but spent most of her time in her room, where she developed a keen imagination and an active fantasy life. Despite all this, Amelie has grown into a healthy and beautiful young woman who works in a cafe and has a whimsical, romantic nature. She decides to step into the lives of others around her to help them out.

Describing the last 48 hours in the life of a dissolute playboy headed towards suicide, the film evokes images of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe, but presents a picture of dissolution and suicide devoid of self-pity.

The plot revolves around the unraveling of the identity of a 16th century peasant who disappeared as a young husband, and the man who returns to resume his marriage nine years later.

A Scottish soldier is assigned the task of disarming a bomb in a small French town at the close of World War I. The townspeople have deserted the town leaving behind the inmates of the local insane asylum who embrace the soldier as their king.

Leolo Lozone, a twelve-year old dreamer, uses his imagination to escape the realities around him through writing.

Unemployed music teacher Clement Mathieu becomes the supervisor at a boarding school for the rehabilitation of minors. Dismayed by the repressive administration, he works to positively transform the students' lives through music.

This romantic story is set against a backdrop of the popular theater and the underworld of mid-19th century Paris, with Arletty starring as a beautiful and sophisticated actress loved by four men.

Victor Hugo's stirring novel of redemption and revolution is brought to life by the artistry of director Billie August and his brilliant cast.

This classic film tells the story of a tender, bittersweet love story, sung throughout in French.

This is the latest French adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' classic story of lust, deceit and revenge.

This is a film about the significance of the start of the 21st Century for people still struggling to enter the 20th. Abderrahmane Sissako's solution was to improvise a 'fictional documentary' out of daily life in Sokolo, his father's village in Mali near the southeastern corner of Mauritania.

A young boy who isn't an orphan is transported away from his home during Operation Moses at a Sudanese refugee camp, in order to honor his mother's wishes of finding a better and safer life.

Jean-Louis Trintignant plays an engineer seeking the perfect mate. Just when he thinks he has found her, he finds himself accidentally spending the night sharing the bed of a seductive divorcee, Maud.

Ludovic is waiting for a miracle. With six-year-old certainty, he believes he was meant to be a little girl and that the mistake will soon be corrected. But where he expects the miraculous, Ludo finds only rejection, isolation and guilt--as the intense reactions of family, friends, and neighbors strip away every innocent lace and bauble.

Ten years have passed since the tragic events of Jean De Florette. Jean's daughter, Manon, appears in town to accuse the Soubeyrans of killing her father. A tragedy results that nearly destroys Cesar, the neighbor who destroyed Jean.

A comedy in which the vague and clumsy M. Hulot, in contrast to his more wealthy sister and brother-in-law, is constantly at odds with the modern world.

An elderly Turkish Muslim grocer befriends a lonely teenage Jewish boy in a working class section of Paris.

The enchanting story of Marcel Pagnol's childhood in the south of France focuses on a very special summer when he was 11 years old. In the countryside of Provence he fell under the spell of the rugged hills, made new friends and strengthened the unique bond with his father.

The story of Marcel Pagnol's childhood holidays in Provence continues in My Mother's Castle. During a Christmas in the region Marcel's affection for the area deepens and he also learns to love and appreciate his Mother's true nature.

Ten years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, this piece documents the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek. One of the first cinematic reflections on the horrors of the Holocaust, the film contrasts the stillness of the abandoned camps' quiet, empty buildings with haunting wartime footage.

In an unspecified country in Africa, after ten years of bloody war, the Nayaks, the President's ethnic group, and the Bonandes, rebels supporting Colonel Theo, come together to celebrate the peace agreement. But the reconciliation festivities are overshadowed by the terrible barbarities that have been committed on both sides.

This film is a dramatization of the life of Joan of Arc centering on her trial and execution.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane ’Marji’ Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family. Their long dream is realized when the hated Shah is defeated in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, Marji grows up to witness firsthand how the new Iran has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study. This change proves an equally difficult trial for Marji and finds herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and her homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.

Fourteen-year-old Antoine Doinet lives in a cramped apartment with his mother and stepfather, neglected by them and unlucky at school. Living an intense imaginative life of his own he gets into trouble and is finally committed to reform school from which he escapes and runs towards the sea, which he has never seen.

The final installment in the director's trilogy named after the colors of the French flag, Red is the story of a beautiful young woman and her meeting with an unusual stranger- a meeting that leads her down a path of intrigue and secrecy.

This fish out-of-water drama describes what occurs when a minor country aristocrat enters the depraved world of the 18th century court at Versailles.

This film is based on the life of French painter Séraphine de Senlis

Carla works in a real estate office and has a hearing problem. Carla makes the acquaintance of Paul, a small-time criminal who has just been released from prison on parole. Before long, it becomes obvious that Paul is having an influence on Carla's normally stable nature. Carla and Paul's actions go from malicious to seriously criminal when Paul hatches a scheme to rob a nightclub owner to whom he owes money -- a scheme that involves Carla's keen skill as a lip reader.

Eight years after the heinous murder of his wife, pediatrician Alex Beck still grieves for his beloved wife, Margot. When two bodies are uncovered near where Margot’s body was found, the police reopen the case and Alex becomes a suspect again. The mystery deepens when Alex receives an anonymous e-mail with a link to a video clip that seems to suggest Margot is somehow still alive.

This is a three DVD set containing the films: The Blood of a Poet. Orpheus. Testament of Orpheus In the first film, Jean Cocteau turns the Orpheus legend into a story of a poet and his encounter with death and the middle world. .In the second an artist is driven mad by the sight of his own blood and a drawing of a mouth that seems to come to life. The combination sends him off on a series of bizarre adventures that strive to explain how artists become obsessed with their own works. In his last film Cocteau portrays an 18th century poet who travels through time on a quest for divine wisdom. In a mysterious wasteland, he meets several symbolic phantoms that bring about his death and resurrection. The film finished the circle of the journey begun in Blood of a Poet, exploring the torturous relationship between the artist and his creations.

Two young lovers in Senegal turn to crime to raise the money to escape to their dream city, Paris.

This film tells the story of a provocative tale of romance, lust, desire, and intrigue based on the lives of 17th century French composer Sainte Colombe and his protegee, Marin Marais.

A dysfunctional family eats together one night a week. On this Friday family politics and fights disrupt a birthday party.

A daredevil race-car driver and a movie script girl meet while visiting their children's boarding school. They soon share a love filled with warmth, humor and truth, and intertwined with the demands of career and parenthood.

Mathilde is waiting desperately for her fiance to return from the war. When bad news arrives she refuses to believe he is dead. Instead, she begins her own investigation into his infantry, hiring a private detective and piecing together his war stories.

The film tells the story of an aimless drifter who deeply touches the lives of the people she meets on the road, confronting them with her own ideas of freedom.

Two years after World War I, Major Dellaplane helps two women search for the men they have lost in the war.

Part of a trilogy of films (Three colors) by director Krzysztof Kieslowski, White presents the mysterious tale of a man whose life disintegrates when his beautiful wife of six months deserts him. Forced to begin anew, he rebuilds his life, only to plan a dangerous scheme of vengeance against her.

A Greek pacifist leader is murdered at a rally. Despite the official police report of accidental death, a journalist's persistent questioning leads to a full-scale investigation, revealing corruption in high places.