Like a French Film

Jan 21, 2002 — A fresco conceived on a majestic scale, Marcel Carné’s masterpiece sweeps its audience back to the 1820s, painting the detail of a world obsessed with both theater and crime.

Oct 7, 2020 — Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 3 Spanning almost fifty years and four continents, Criterion’s recently released third collection of films restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project is a treasure trove of discoveries, each illuminated by a unique...

Feb 12, 2019 — In a stark, forbidding prison, a nun ascends a staircase, framed by vertical bars, and walks down a corridor, unlocking cell doors. Women start coming out; two of them quarrel. Smoking on her bunk, one inmate sighs when told she...

Apr 11, 2018 — Before the Cannes Film Festival rolls out its main lineup tomorrow, there are a couple of items to see to. From the festival itself today, there’s this year’s poster, as mentioned earlier, as well as the list of eight films...

Apr 21, 2009 — “Just takes a few months to get to be a hundred. If you’re in the right place at the right time.” I first saw Henri-Georges Clouzot’s masterpiece The Wages of Fear when the restored version was released in the U.S.,...

Nov 27, 2008 — An enormous welter of insoluble problems is on display in Luis Buñuel’s classic—the ending solves nothing; the story just begins again.

May 15, 2000 — Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7, the first fully-achieved feature by the woman who would become the premiere female director of her generation, dazzled when it opened, and looks even more timely today in its tackling of the fashionable...

Jul 24, 2024 — The retrospective lays the groundwork for the release of a new restoration of Army of Shadows.

May 11, 2022 — Louis Feuillade’s influential serial Les Vampires reflected the French national subconscious at the time by depicting a madcap world of anarchy and violent spectacle.

Oct 2, 2020 — This wild week we’re celebrating William Greaves, watching Denis Lavant dance, and listening to Léonce-Henry Burel’s juicy stories about Robert Bresson.