French films

The end and beginning of the love of the French couple Marion and Gilles is disclosed backwards through five moments in their lives: 1st moment: They divorce and have one last brutal intercourse without love. 2nd moment: With their relationship shaken, they have a dinner party with Gilles's gay brother Christophe and his younger mate, when an infidelity is disclosed at the dinner table. 3rd moment: The troubled pregnancy of Marion and the delivery of their premature son Nicolas, with the total absence of Gilles. 4th moment: Their wedding, when Marion commits adultery with an unknown guest of the hotel. 5th moment: When they meet each other in an Italian resort and begin their relationship.

Sometimes, solemn but somehow empty vows of love and devotion are just not good enough, and a simple "I love you" may prove to be insufficient. As a result, Angela, a tall, slender, and graceful exotic dancer, has set her sights on talking her unwilling lover, Émile, into starting a family; however, he seems absorbed with his other passion: cycling. But, Angela wants a child, and she takes no for an answer. Could Alfred Lubitsch, a handsome neighbour and Émile's bosom friend, lend a hand? And, what happens when a pressing demand turns into a misunderstanding, and love transforms into jealousy?

In pre-WWI Paris, two friends, Jules (Austrian) and Jim (French), fall in love with the same woman, Catherine. But Catherine loves and marries Jules. When they meet again in Germany after the war, Catherine starts to love Jim - This is the story of three people in love, a love that doesn't affect their friendship, and about how their relationship evolves with the years.

Tomas is a doctor and a lady-killer in 1960s Czechoslovakia, an apolitical man who is struck with love for the bookish country girl Tereza; his more sophisticated sometime lover Sabina eventually accepts their relationship and the two women form an electric friendship. The three are caught up in the events of the Prague Spring (1968), until the Soviet tanks crush the non-violent rebels; their illusions are shattered and their lives change forever.

1968 and 1969 in Paris during and after the student and trade-union revolt. 20-year-old François is a poet dodging military service. He takes to the barricades, but won't throw a Molotov cocktail at the police. He smokes opium and talks about revolution with his friend Antoine, who has an inheritance and a flat where François can stay. François meets Lilie, a sculptor who works at a foundry to support herself, and they fall in love. A year passes; François continues to write, talk, smoke, and be with Lilie. Opportunities come to Lilie: what will she and François do?

Twelve-year-old Antoine falls profoundly in love with a voluptuous but suicidal hairdresser, a formative experience he never forgets. Much later in life, he seeks to repeat his romance by marrying Mathilde - also voluptuous and also a hairdresser - with whom he forms an intimate and consuming relationship in an attempt to blot out the miseries of this world from their lives.

A woman and three men. Nina, who's come to Paris to act and sleeps with any man at hand, meets Paulot, a young estate agent; he's smitten. She also meets Paulot's flatmate Quentin, a compulsive who stalks her. To Paulot's jealous dismay, she's willing to sleep with Quentin, and wants Paulot's friendship. After a desperate act by Quentin, Nina and Paulot share a flat, but she still won't take him as a lover; instead, her energy goes into a production of "Romeo and Juliet" directed by a detached, intense man who becomes her father figure. Quentin's ghost taunts her, Paulot wants to end all contact, and the director plans to return to London. The art of the theater may be her only refuge.

Zorg is a handyman working at the seaside in France, maintaining and looking after the wooden bungalows. He lives a quiet and peaceful life, working diligently and writing in his spare time. He is in love with Betty, a young woman who is as beautiful as she is wild and unpredictable. After a dispute with Zorg's boss, they leave and Betty finds a place to stay at her girlfriend's house. The girlfriend's lover owns an Italian restaurant and there they find a job. She is obsessed to try to get one of Zorg's books published, but it is rejected, which makes Betty fly into a rage. Suddenly, Betty's wild manners start to get out of control. Zorg sees the woman he loves slowly going insane. Is his love for Betty strong enough, if even if it comes to the worst?

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their children's boarding school. Slowly the widower and widow reveal themselves to each other, with each revelation hidden by a misperception. They become closer and closer, until she reveals that she can't have a lover because her husband's memory is still far too strong. Much of the film is told wordlessly in actions or through hearing each person's thoughts.

Camille (Audrey Tautou) works evenings as an office cleaning woman, and makes graceful drawings in her free time, living in the attic of a Parisian apartment block. Philibert (Laurent Stocker) is a young, aristocratic history buff living - temporarily - in an apartment lower down, part of the estate of his late grandmother. He has let out part of it to up-and-coming cook Franck (Guillaume Canet), a gruff young loner and womaniser with a genuine love for his frail grandmother, Paulette (Francoise Bertin). When Camille falls ill, Philibert insists she stay with the two of them so he can look after her. And even though she and Franck clash, the trio manage to live together and learn from each other.

Spring of 1999: 15-year-old Camille and 19-year-old Sullivan are mad about each other. Sullivan, however, wants to go to South America for a year and this drives Camille to despair. He leaves in the fall and after a while he stops writing to her. After a suicide attempt, she ends up in the hospital. After four years she works, studies architecture and lives alone. She meets a famous architect, Lorenz, who restores her self-confidence. In 2007, Camille and Lorenz have a strong relationship. She is his assistant but she feels strong enough to set up an agency soon. She develops into a more fully formed woman, with new interests. After 7 years she sees Sullivan again. After their first meeting everything seems to go well, but a few months later the old feelings come back and her heart is torn again.

A disturbed actress seduces a photographer; they begin an affair. As her mental and physical health deteriorates, important questions are raised on love, caring, relationships, responsibility and moral choice, reaching the inevitable climax.

Martin is a middle-aged philosophy teacher in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Lacking direction or purpose in his life, he initiates an affair with Cécilia, a young artist's model who might have killed her former lover with the intensity of her sexual appetite. They share a purely erotic relationship as an intellectual abyss separates them. Before long, he needs to possess her and cannot resist a sharp descent into violent jealousy.

2 Jours - 2 Days follows two days in the relationship of a New York based couple - a French photographer Marion and American interior designer Jack - as they attempt to re-infuse their relationship with romance by taking a vacation in Europe. Their trip to Venice didn't really work out, - they both came down with gastroenteritis. They have higher hopes for Paris. But the combination of Marion's overbearing non-English-speaking parents, flirtatious ex-boyfriends, and Jack's obsession with photographing every famous Parisian tombstone and conviction that French condoms are too small, only adds fuel to the fire. Will they be able to salvage their relationship? Will they ever have sex again? Or will they merely manage to perfect the art of arguing?

Paris by night. Alex, 22, wants to become a filmmaker. He is fascinated by first times and his girlfriend, Florence, has just left him for his best friend, Thomas. First break-up, first attempted murder: Alex tries to strangle Thomas, but gives up and wanders the streets. That evening, Mireille, a girl from provincial France who has come up to Paris to make commercials, is left by her boyfriend. Alex witnesses this separation. These two tormented souls run into each other at a party....

Someone I loved (Je L'Aimais) is based on the best-selling novel by Anna Gavalda. It's the story of Pierre (Daniel Auteuil), who takes his daughter-in-law, Chloe (Florence Loiret Caille) and two small granddaughters to the family chalet to stay following a family crisis. Pierre's son, Adrian, has abruptly dumped his wife and children, and Chloe who "never saw it coming" is so emotionally devastated, Pierre thinks it's wise to take her away somewhere quiet for a few days until she stabilizes.

Set against Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, while it was closed for repairs, this film is a love story between two young vagrants: Alex, a would be circus performer addicted to alcohol and sedatives and Michele, a painter driven to a life on the streets because of a failed relationship and an affliction which is slowly turning her blind. The film portrays the harsh existence of the homeless as Alex, Michele and Hans, an older vagrant survive on the streets with their wits. As they both slowly get their lives back together, Michele becomes increasingly dependent on Alex as her vision deteriorates further. Fearing that Michele will leave him if she receives a new medical treatment Alex attempts to keep Michele practically a prisoner. The streets, skies and waterways of Paris are used as a backdrop to the story in a series of stunning visuals which dominate the film.

After a love affair ends badly, a young Parisian named Paul (Romain Duris) sinks into the same kind of deep depression that led his sister to kill herself. He moves back home with his father (Guy Marchand) and aimless brother Jonathan (Louis Garrel) but refuses to get out of bed. One night, Paul rises from his torpor and makes a fateful visit to the Seine.