Films

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66 films

Country: FranceClear filters
Blue THE 400 BLOWS lettering and sketched city streets cover lined paper, crossed by a red pencil trail.
The 400 Blows
1959 · François Truffaut99 min · Drama

A boy slips through the cracks. Tender, true.

GentleBleakModerate
Breathless: Huge ivory lettering cuts across blue and red fields above sunglasses and a newspaper.
Breathless
1960 · Jean-Luc Godard90 min · Crime

Cool, restless — the moment cinema broke its rules.

StrangeRomanticPatient
Original illustration for La Haine: An expansive concrete courtyard from a slightly low viewpoint, three empty benches cast three different long shadows toward a distant apartment tower; a circular clock graphic crops at upper edge without readable numerals.
La Haine
1995 · Mathieu KassovitzSocial drama

Three friends move through the day after a riot while anger, police pressure, and boredom keep narrowing their options.

TenseBleakEasy
Original illustration for The Artist: A grand Art Deco cinema doorway becomes a layered paper stage; a silver microphone at one side and a strip of silent-film frames at the other.
The Artist
2011 · Michel Hazanavicius100 min · Romantic comedy-drama

A silent-film star meets a rising performer just as recorded sound changes what cinema asks of both of them.

FunnyRomanticEasy
LA VIE ET LA PASSION DE JÉSUS-CHRIST lettering above three framed paper scenes, with Momo beside an early film camera and curling filmstrip.
La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ
1898 · Georges Hatot, Louis Lumière11 min · Religious drama

Episodes from the life and Passion of Christ are arranged as a succession of brief, carefully staged tableaux.

GentleBeautifulModerate
A Trip to the Moon — Momo watches a rocket approach the moon in a layered paper astronomy theatre.
A Trip to the Moon
1902 · Georges Méliès11 min · Sci-Fi

A rocket in the Moon’s eye: a voyage built from stage illusion.

StrangeBeautifulEasy
Robed figures move across shallow theatrical stages in muted hand-applied colors above the title Life and Passion of the Christ.
Life and Passion of the Christ
1903 · Ferdinand Zecca, Lucien Nonguet44 min · Religious drama

The life of Christ unfolds through an extended series of theatrical scenes, from the Nativity to the Passion and Resurrection.

BeautifulGentleModerate
Original illustration: A golden paper spinning wheel, curling thread and open storybook in a layered blue forest, with Momo beside the wheel.
La légende de la fileuse
1908 · Louis Feuillade8 min · Fantasy drama

A spinner’s legend is presented as a compact piece of visual folklore in an early film by Louis Feuillade.

GentleStrangeModerate
A woman in a coral silk sleeve turns beneath a broad ribbon bearing L'Aventurière.
L'Aventurière
1910 · Louis FeuilladeDrama

An early French drama by Louis Feuillade, made before the crime serials that would define his international reputation.

MysteryRomanticModerate
Momo leans into an oversized daisy with a playful tongue-out smile on a yellow and lilac ground.
Bébé a le béguin
1911 · Louis FeuilladeComedy

Bébé develops an infatuation in a compact French comedy built around childhood imitation and adult social behaviour.

FunnyGentleEasy
Original illustration: An engraved coal mine with a headframe, miners, worn boots and a lunch tin beneath the title.
Germinal
1913 · Albert Capellani150 min · Social drama

A migrant worker enters a mining community where hunger, dangerous labour, and collective anger lead towards a strike.

BleakTensePatient
Momo looks up at a small snail crossing the brim of his red hat.
Oscar the Hermit
1913 · Louis FeuilladeComedy

Louis Feuillade turns the figure of a hermit into the centre of a brief French silent comedy.

FunnyStrangeEasy
The name Rebecca rests on a faded violet archival film-paper strip against pale grey.
Rebecca
1913 · Henri AndréaniDrama

Rebecca is a French silent film directed by Henri Andréani in 1913.

Original illustration: Large cream Judex lettering above layered paper rooftops, a folded message and Momo on a parapet.
Judex
1916 · Louis FeuilladeCrime serial

A mysterious avenger intervenes in the affairs of a corrupt banker across twelve episodes of disguise, pursuit, and shifting allegiance.

MysteryTenseModerate
Street maps, dark coats and torn city fragments surround the title Barrabas.
Barrabas
1919 · Louis FeuilladeCrime serial

Conspiracy, false accusation, and criminal organisation unfold across Louis Feuillade’s long-form thriller serial.

MysteryTenseModerate
Momo flies through a monochrome montage of rooftops, a funeral carriage and circles.
Entr'acte
1924 · René Clair22 min · Avant-garde comedy

Objects, bodies, city views, a cannon, a funeral procession, and cinematic tricks collide in a playful refusal of ordinary narrative logic.

StrangeFunnyModerate
A small piece of red-and-white striped fabric floats in a large turquoise whirlpool.
The Whirlpool of Fate
1925 · Jean Renoir71 min · Drama

An orphaned girl enters the life of a travelling showman and a new rural community in Jean Renoir’s early feature.

GentleBleakModerate
Two figures turn their backs and elbows in different directions.
Carmen
1926 · Jacques Feyder110 min · Romantic tragedy

Carmen’s independence and Don José’s obsession unfold across carefully designed locations in Jacques Feyder’s adaptation of Mérimée.

RomanticTenseModerate
A woman in a long pale pink dress faces away from us between curtains, above audience silhouettes.
Nana
1926 · Jean Renoir150 min · Drama

A performer’s social ascent and destructive relationships expose the appetites and hypocrisy of the men who try to possess her.

BleakRomanticPatient
Three diagonal panels link a snowball, a cannon and marching soldiers.
Napoléon
1927 · Abel Gance331 min · Biography

Abel Gance follows Napoleon from embattled schoolboy to military commander in a torrent of movement, montage, and monumental ambition.

TenseBeautifulPatient
An orange mask and a lilac mask overlap, joined by a curling black ribbon.
The Loves of Casanova
1927 · Alexandre Volkoff, Anatole Litvak132 min · Historical romance

Casanova moves through romance, disguise, danger, and courtly spectacle across an expansive eighteenth-century adventure.

RomanticBeautifulModerate
A girl's hands protect a lit match whose warm glow opens into translucent fantasy shapes.
The Little Match Girl
1928 · Jean Renoir, Jean Tedesco32 min · Fantasy drama

A poor girl selling matches on a winter street escapes hunger and cold through visions that grow increasingly elaborate.

BleakBeautifulModerate
The Passion of Joan of Arc — A white flower and severe architectural shadows form a stark woodcut.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
1928 · Carl Theodor Dreyer81 min · Drama

A face, a trial, and nowhere for the truth to hide.

BleakBeautifulPatient
Two eighteenth-century sleeves and hands pass a sealed note around lively Figaro lettering.
Figaro
1929 · Gaston RavelHistorical comedy

Beaumarchais’s Figaro moves through a late-silent adaptation drawing on The Marriage of Figaro and material from the surrounding plays.

FunnyRomanticModerate
A heavy chain with an open link lies across rough stone and dark green velvet.
The Count of Monte Cristo
1929 · Henri Fescourt223 min · Adventure drama

Edmond Dantès’s imprisonment, escape, reinvention, and revenge unfold across an unusually expansive silent adaptation of Dumas.

TenseRomanticPatient
Un Chien Andalou: Paper ants fall from a glove above a bicycle wheel, moon and surreal stairways.
Un Chien Andalou
1929 · Luis Buñuel16 min · Experimental

Sixteen minutes of dream logic sever cause from effect and make familiar objects suddenly unsafe.

StrangeBleakPatient
The word Distress is compressed into a deep fold in pale blue-grey paper.
Distress
1930 · Jean DurandDrama

Jean Durand’s Détresse was filmed in 1929 and released in France on 23 May 1930.

BleakGentlePatient
Two rescue miners reach through collapsed rock beneath German and French flags.
Comradeship
1931 · Georg Wilhelm Pabst92 min · Social drama

After an underground disaster, German miners cross the border to rescue French workers despite the political divisions above them.

TenseGentleModerate
A man sits with his back to us at a wooden counter, facing a turquoise sea beside an empty glass.
Marius
1931 · Alexander Korda130 min · Romantic drama

A young man working in his father’s Marseille bar loves Fanny but cannot silence his longing to leave by sea.

RomanticGentleEasy
Wet hands rest over a fish-covered work surface, with the title on a pale apron.
Fanny
1932 · Marc Allégret140 min · Romantic drama

Fanny faces pregnancy and an uncertain future after Marius leaves Marseille for the sea, while the people around the harbour debate love, duty, and security.

RomanticGentleModerate
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse — Perspective lettering, scattered manuscript pages and red rings surround an empty chair.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
1933 · Fritz Lang121 min · Crime thriller

A criminal mastermind confined to an asylum appears to direct a new empire of terror through written instructions.

MysteryTensePatient
Original illustration: A cloud of paper pillow feathers and playful figures disrupt a rigid school building beneath Zero for Conduct lettering.
Zero for Conduct
1933 · Jean VigoComedy-drama

Four boys return to a boarding school whose petty rules soon invite an uprising.

FunnyStrangeModerate
L'Atalante — Momo wears a narrow red neck strap while leaning on a boat beside a white cat in a glowing river sunset.
L'Atalante
1934 · Jean Vigo89 min · Drama

A newly married couple drifts between a cramped barge and the promise of Paris.

RomanticStrangeModerate
La Grande Illusion: Two metal cups and a flower sit behind prison bars overlooking distant mountains.
La Grande Illusion
1937 · Jean Renoir113 min · War

Prisoners and captors discover that class, nationality, and friendship do not divide along the same lines.

GentleBleakModerate
Original illustration for The Rules of the Game: An ornate country-house interior sliced into overlapping paper doorways and a miniature theatre stage, chandelier and empty chairs at mismatched social scales.
The Rules of the Game
1939 · Jean Renoir106 min · Comedy-drama

A country-house farce that quietly indicts everyone.

FunnyStrangePatient
Original illustration for Children of Paradise: A deep 19th-century Paris theatre of layered crimson curtains and ivory balconies, a small anonymous mime silhouette with a white sleeve framed against a crowded boulevard made of tiny paper cutouts.
Children of Paradise
1945 · Marcel Carné190 min · Drama

On a crowded theatrical boulevard, love becomes performance and performance becomes fate.

RomanticBleakPatient
Les dames du Bois de Boulogne 1945
Les dames du Bois de Boulogne
1945 · Robert Bresson84 min

A society woman turns her former lover's next romance into an instrument of revenge.

RomanticTenseModerate
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST lettering above an invented moonlit corridor with candle-bearing stone arms and a red rose. Original illustration.
Beauty and the Beast
1946 · Jean Cocteau93 min · Fantasy

A familiar fairy tale enters a castle where arms hold candles and statues breathe.

RomanticStrangeEasy
Original illustration for Mr. Hulot's Holiday: A sunlit seaside hotel composed of playful paper balconies overlooks striped bathing huts and a tiny sailboat.
Mr. Hulot's Holiday
1953 · Jacques Tati87 min · Comedy

Monsieur Hulot arrives at a seaside hotel and gently disrupts the routines by which everyone else is trying to enjoy a proper holiday.

FunnyGentleEasy
Original illustration: Oversized paper earrings, ballroom cards, red ribbon and mirror fragments beneath The Earrings of Madame de lettering.
The Earrings of Madame de . . .
1953 · Max Ophuls100 min

A pair of earrings passes through sale, gift, concealment, and return as an aristocratic marriage gives way to forbidden love.

RomanticBleakEasy
THE WAGES OF FEAR lettering on a timber crate below a mountain bridge and two cargo trucks, with Momo crouching to check a bridge plank.
The Wages of Fear
1953 · Henri-Georges Clouzot152 min · Thriller

Four men, two trucks, and a road where every bump can end the film.

TenseBleakModerate
Diabolique: An empty engraved swimming pool, a key and a long doorway shadow create a quiet green interior.
Diabolique
1955 · Henri-Georges Clouzot117 min · Thriller

A carefully planned murder leaves behind one impossible problem: the body will not stay where it belongs.

TenseMysteryModerate
Rififi: Giant black lettering is pierced by a rope descending from a ceiling into an open umbrella.
Rififi
1955 · Jules Dassin118 min · Crime

Four thieves prepare a silent heist whose precision cannot protect what follows.

TenseBleakModerate
A Man Escaped: Engraved hands braid fabric into rope beneath a small prison window.
A Man Escaped
1956 · Robert Bresson101 min · Drama

A prisoner prepares an escape one sound, tool, and repeated gesture at a time.

TenseModerate
The Lovers 1958
The Lovers
1958 · Louis Malle90 min

A restless married woman finds a new attraction that unsettles both her domestic life and an existing affair.

RomanticStrangeModerate
Hiroshima mon amour: An anonymous embracing couple fades into a softly painted river and Hiroshima skyline.
Hiroshima mon amour
1959 · Alain Resnais90 min · Drama

A brief affair in Hiroshima opens a difficult passage between public catastrophe and private memory.

RomanticBleakPatient
Original illustration: An engraved wallet and gloved hands on a station bench, with rails receding beneath Pickpocket lettering.
Pickpocket
1959 · Robert BressonCrime drama

A solitary young man treats theft as proof that ordinary rules do not apply to him.

StrangeBleakPatient
Original illustration for Eyes Without a Face: An empty luminous white theatrical face mask, realistic thin smooth ceramic, hangs within a narrow ivy-covered window over a soft foggy garden.
Eyes Without a Face
1960 · Georges FranjuHorror

A surgeon hides his injured daughter while pursuing a series of experiments intended to restore her face.

StrangeBeautifulModerate
L'Avventura: A white paper dress lies on dark rocks beside layered blue sea and an orange sun.
L'Avventura
1960 · Michelangelo Antonioni143 min · Drama

A woman disappears from a rocky island, and the search slowly exposes a different kind of absence.

MysteryBeautifulPatient
Original illustration for La Dolce Vita: A silver camera flash and elegant stemmed glass seen close up; the glass reflection contains an abstract Roman dome and a flowing nocturnal boulevard.
La Dolce Vita
1960 · Federico Fellini174 min · Drama

Rome, glamour, emptiness — beautiful and exhausting.

StrangeBeautifulPatient
Rocco and His Brothers — Five coats and boxing gloves hang near a Milan window.
Rocco and His Brothers
1960 · Luchino Visconti179 min · Drama

A mother and her five sons move from southern Italy to Milan, where work, boxing, ambition, and desire pull the family into competing futures.

BleakBeautifulPatient
Original illustration: Layered paper formal gardens, clipped hedges, colonnades, steps and empty chairs beneath the title.
Last Year at Marienbad
1961 · Alain Resnais94 min · Drama

In a vast hotel, a man insists that a woman promised to leave with him last year—or perhaps in another version of the past.

StrangeMysteryPatient
Original illustration for Cléo from 5 to 7: Paris late-afternoon street unfolds from an elegant oval cafe mirror into layered pavement arcs, plane-tree leaves and a giant clock dial whose only numerals are 5 and 7.
Cléo from 5 to 7
1962 · Agnès Varda89 min · Drama

Ninety anxious minutes in Paris, measured by mirrors, streets, and attention.

GentleBeautifulModerate
Original illustration: Three overlapping paper bicycle wheels, river scenes and postcards beneath Jules and Jim lettering.
Jules and Jim
1962 · François Truffaut105 min · Romantic drama

Two friends love the same mercurial woman across years of art, war, marriage, travel, and changing agreements.

RomanticBeautifulEasy
A dense spiral of desks and papers dwarfs one small central human figure.
The Trial
1962 · Orson WellesDrama

A man is arrested without being detained and drawn through a legal system that never states the charge against him.

StrangeMysteryPatient
8½: A sculptural paper 8 and fraction become a stairway and circus stage with a director's chair.
8½
1963 · Federico Fellini138 min · Drama

A director unable to make his next film retreats into memories, fantasies, and an ever-growing production circus.

FunnyStrangePatient
The Fire Within — An empty cafe table with a notebook and water overlooks a soft Paris evening.
The Fire Within
1963 · Louis MalleDrama

A man leaving treatment spends a day revisiting Paris, old friends, and the life he cannot persuade himself to re-enter.

BleakGentlePatient
The Soft Skin 1964
The Soft Skin
1964 · François Truffaut117 min

A married literary scholar begins an affair, and a romance gradually takes on the pressure of a suspense story.

RomanticTenseModerate
Chimes at Midnight — A helmet and goblet occupy a warm tavern against a distant cold palace.
Chimes at Midnight
1965 · Orson Welles115 min · Historical drama

Falstaff’s warmth, vanity, and appetite fill the space between a prince’s youth and a king’s responsibilities.

FunnyBleakModerate
Original illustration for Au hasard Balthazar: A small grey donkey stands quietly beside an orchard gate, seen slightly from above; a worn harness hangs on weathered wood, scattered pale blossoms and long early-morning shadows.
Au hasard Balthazar
1966 · Robert BressonDrama

A donkey passes from owner to owner, carrying the weight of human tenderness, use, and cruelty.

BleakGentlePatient

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