The story of a gentle-hearted beast in love with a simple and beautiful girl. She is drawn to the repellent but strangely fascinating Beast, who tests her fidelity by giving her a key, telling her that if she doesn't return it to him by a specific time, he will die of grief. She is unable to return...
Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument over a fly in the Sunday soup escalates into nuclear war. In "Sloth," a movie star would rather pay someone to tie his shoe than bend over to do it himself, and he can't be bothered to...
Therese, a café owner, mourns the mysterious disappearance of her husband sixteen years earlier. A tramp arrives in the town and she believes him to be her husband. But he is suffering from amnesia and she tries to bring back his memory of earlier times.
In Paris around 1900, a young man raised by his wealthy uncle plots revenge after his cousin is betrothed to a rich neighbor. He steals the fiancé's family jewels, reveling in the thrill, and sets off on a lifelong path of burglary.
Elsa Lundenstein is accused of having murdered her lover. The jury discusses the case vividly. All members are somehow prejudiced because of personal life experience and subsequently each member reads something different into the presented facts.
Rudolf, the only heir to Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary, is trapped in a loveless marriage to a Belgian princess. As he seeks to flee his stifling environment, he meets the beautiful Maria, and the two enter into a scandalous affair. Despite the interference of the Emperor, the couple...
A bored bisexual millionaire picks up a young destitute street artist and whisks her away to her villa in Saint Tropez. They meet a dashing local architect and both fall for him, setting in motion a ménage à trois of deception and betrayal.
During a stay at a roadside inn, long-distance lorry driver Jean Viard meets a young woman Clothilde who works there. Their friendship soon develops into a passionate love affair, even though Jean is already married and is old enough to be Clothilde’s father. Things take a turn for the worse when...
In November 1942, American troops landed in Tunisia. German paratroopers were immediately launched and occupied Tunis. A French squadron of chasseurs d'Afrique was sent to Medjez-el Bab with the mission of occupying the bridge over the Medjerda. But the captain is mute and the cavalrymen don't know...
In France in 1946, the difficult return to civilian life of five deportees and prisoners of war after having lived through the hell of the Second World War.
Hercule, a young peasant, inherits a Parisian newspaper with a large circulation. The editor-in-chief, Vasco, takes advantage of his ignorance to make corruption prevail. But Hercules gradually realizes the role that we make him play.
A famous convict Jacques Collin, alias Trompe la mort, or abbot Carlos Herrera, also called Vautrin, escapes from prison. Chance makes him meet Lucien de Rubempré, an impetuous and eternal lover who, when he is dismissed, collapses. Moved by this fragility, he takes him under his wing, and will do...
A group of travelers, including a monk, stay in a lonely inn in the mountains. The host confesses the monk his habit of serving poisoned soup to the guests, to rob their possessions and to bury them in the backyard.
In Haute-Provence, two rival farming clans clash over the four seasons of the year. A young lumberjack, who has gone up to Rebeillard country to fell trees, has not been heard from for several months. Concerned by his long absence, his father sets out to find him. Antonio, known as "Bouche d'or"...
A Paris real estate developer feels compelled to withdraw from his seemingly perfect life into a world of his own. Is the man going insane? By conventional standards, maybe, but it's clear that the life he's fleeing is madder still from his point of view, and since that point of view is unfailingly...
In the Camargue, a herdsman has just become engaged to a young local girl when his heart is troubled by a stranger who is playing the comedy of love for him. After this disappointment, he resumes the interrupted idyll.
Somewhat reminiscent of 'Mädchen in Uniform' (1931), the story is set in a private girl's school, populated almost exclusively by children from broken homes. Among the few students who can claim family stability is Micheline Presle, but even her happiness is threatened when her lawyer father Andre...