1920s French Movies

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Michel Corbier, a widower, remarries Madeleine. His children, Lalie and Jo, see her as their second mother and call her "Nène."

No overview available

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

Concepcion de la Playa Setta, an Andalusian noblewoman, the daughter of the provost marshall of Flanders, is in love with the Duke Philippe de Hornes. He is a Brussels gentleman in revolt against her people, the Spanish occupiers. When her rebellious lover is hurt during an uprising against the troops of Philip II, Concepcion takes him in in her house. And she personally defends him when, at his trial. Condemned to be hanged through the intervention of the Duke of Alba, de Hornes is eventually reprieved by the new governor and set free. The two lovers meet again and can live happily from now on.

Marquis Sévéro, a rich, lazy Parisian, wants to divorce his wife so that he can marry his own goddaughter Denise. But Denise herself loves André Berval, an engineer employed by the marquis. Filled with jealousy, the marquis sends André to the Antilles, to prospect some land he has just acquired. He promises André that he can marry Denise if he is successful in the tropics, but he then writes to Alvarez, his manager at the site, asking him to prevent André from ever returning to France. The brutal Alvarez forms an instant hatred for André when the engineer breaks up Alvarez's attempt to rape Papitou, a beautiful native girl. Papitou becomes devoted to André, and protects him against Alvarez's schemes. But she faces a crisis herself when she learns that André plans to marry Denise.

This light-hearted comedy takes place at and around a Parisien haute-couture fashion house and tells a love triangle story.

A man once rejected by a young woman returns twenty years later to take revenge.

As Jean is walking across the countryside in search of work, he helps and befriends a young woman, Françoise, who is having trouble controlling the cow that she is leading. Jean finds work at a local farm, but he soon finds himself caught in the middle of the conflicts in Françoise's family.

After the death of her mother, Germaine moves in with her father in a small town near the Rhône river. She falls in love with a young man, Alban, already engaged.

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

In Gossette (1923), Dulac experimented with and designed a number of special lenses and prisms to produce a variety of effects and multiply the expressive means which translate the characters' visions and mental states. She also reversed class and gender roles, as she made the female character Gossette come to the aid of Phillipe de Savières, falsely accused of murder, in order to save his name.

The tragedy of a man, about to kill himself, contemplating his past in a series of flashbacks.

Count Moffat becomes infatuated with Nana, a presumptuous stage actress, vulgar, hypocritical and promiscuous, willing to do anything to succeed.

No overview available

A young couple go to the carnival. After some savage heavy petting they meet a sinister fakir who offers to sell them Truth for six sous. A set of uncanny events follow. At worst 'avant-gardist' in the extreme, at best the counterpart to Cœur Fidèle's 'fête foraine' sequence after the abolition of melodrama. Excellent black screen cutting and chaotic camera shaking characterize the style.

No overview available

Comtesse Della Gentia and her lover Paul attempt to seduce and blackmail a rich neighbour Juan, who is in love with a naïve young friend of theirs, Clarisse. Their plot fails; the Comtesse kills herself at a ball, and her lover re-covers her face with its mask.

Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most dada film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and chased by its pallbearers) and a dizzying roller coaster finale. A film of contradictions and agreements.

A famous singer Claire Lescot, who lives on the outskirts of Paris, is courted by many men, including a maharajah, Djorah de Nopur, and a young Swedish scientist, Einar Norsen. At her lavish parties she enjoys their amorous attentions but she remains emotionally aloof and heartlessly taunts them. When she is told that Norsen has killed himself because of her, she shows no feelings. At her next concert she is booed by an audience outraged at her coldness and she decides to visit the vault in which Norsen's body lies.

No overview available

No overview available

Rival knights compete for the hand of a beautiful maiden in this period feature from Jean Renoir.

No overview available

A trapeze artist suffers the curse that causes her kisses to be deadly.

A family of strict magistrates holds firm in protecting one of their members,who commits an error which provokes a storm of outrage.

No overview available

A neglected Baroness falls in love with her oldest son's military officer friend, their adulterous romance leading the two to flee to Algeria.

The film displays Madame Récamier 's conflict with Napoleon. Twice she was pressed to become one of the Empress's ladies. In revenge for her refusal Napoleon declined to save her husband from ruin.

A young French woman inherits her uncle's property in Algeria, and finds herself plotted against by her envious cousins, but also romanced by a handsome but previously irresponsible young man from a neighbouring farm.

During this harsh winter, as Christmas approaches, Angélique, a poor child, is found by an old couple, Hubertine and Hubert. But this couple is not the richest, and the life of this small family is hard and laborious. Angélique likes to escape to the city, to dream. One day, she meets Félicien, with whom she falls in love. But she is told that this handsome man is the bishop's son, so marrying him is impossible.

No overview available

Maldone is a canal worker, happy with his life after running away from his family estate. He falls in love with Zita, a young gypsy girl, during a local fete. However, after his brother dies, Maldone is called back to manage the estate. There, he takes up the life of a landowner and marries a neighbor's daughter. Years later Maldone is still restless on the estate, and becomes obsessed with Zita, after meeting her by chance one evening.

Belphégor deals with a series of mysterious appearances by a masked-and-robed figure in the Louvre; a security guard is murdered, and a later police trap is foiled when the phantom—“Belphégor” (the name of a legendary demon)—uses knock-out gas. Journalist Jacques Bellegarde of “Le Petit Parisien” (the real-life newspaper which published the original story in serial installments), investigates, and eventually discovers famous detective Chantecoq and his vivacious daughter Colette are also on the case.

No overview available

Lefranc is vain selfish man. The only person he loves is his eldest son Bernard, a ship-of-the-line lieutenant. Richard, the youngest son, is a common fisherman. Bernard gets married to a rich heiress, Hélène d'Argel and Richard gets married on the same day with Louise Kermarech, daughter of a fisherman. Years later, Bernard looses his wife and disappears at sea. His daughter Germaine ignores her cousin Gaud and Yvonnic Lefranc. Richard also dies at sea. Germaine will bring grand-father Lefranc closer to his grand-children.

One of the longest films ever made

A silent, surreal short involving a man buying a pearl necklace. He meets a woman who also desires the necklace.