Films with: Renoir, Jean

Bas-fonds The lower depths /

Les bas-fonds (93 min.): A Baron, forced by circumstances, gives up his life of luxury and to takes up residence in the slums of Paris. The Baron observes the frustrated romance between Wasska Pepel and Natacha, the thwarted dreams of an actor, and the oppressive cruelties of landlord Kostileff. Donzoko (125 min.): Sutekichi, a vulgar, comical thief takes up residence in a slum flophouse inhabited by many eccentric, destitute people. Osugi, the cruel landlady, and her sister, Okayo, both desire him, and fight each other over him. Set in Edo-period Japan.

DVD 3354

Bête humaine

Train engineer Jacques lusts after the wife of his co-worker Roubaud. Roubaud kills his boss and Jacques witnesses the murder. In order to keep Jacques quiet, Roubaud allows Jacques to have an affair with his wife, creating a tragic love triangle.

DVD 10494

Boudu sauvé des eaux Boudu saved from drowning /

A well-off bookseller rescues a tramp from a suicidal plunge into the Seine and his family dedicates itself to reforming him. He shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations, challenging the hidebound principles of his hosts.

DVD 4121

Crime de Monsieur Lange

When Batala, the owner of a small publishing company, disappears with the firm's capital, the employees band together to take over the company and collectively publish a series of comic books written by Monsieur Lange, one of the employees. Based on the adventures of a mythical cowboy, "Arizona Jim," the comic books are instant best sellers, and the cooperative continues its great success by producing films based on the character of "Arizona Jim." However, the infamous Batala, who is considered dead, reappears.

DVD 12289

Diary of a chambermaid

Celestine is a sexy and saucy servant whose forthrightness has a curious effect on a wealthy Parisian household. Determined to elevate her lot in life, Celestine uses her unsubtle charms to beguile the master of the household.

DVD 10466

Elena et les hommes Elena and her men : une fantaisie musicale /

Ingrid Bergman plays a beautiful, impoverished Polish princess in turn-of-the-century Paris. Having sold her last pearl to pay the rent, Princess Elena accepts a marriage proposal from a wealthy suitor for reasons of finance rather than love. Sis also a woman who may have the future of France in her hands-- a famous general has fallen in love with her, and politicians believe they can use her to convince the general to take control of the government.

DVD 3399

French cancan une comédie musicale /

Nineteenth-century Paris comes alive in Jean Renoir's tale of the opening of the Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women: an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl-turned-cancan star. Includes a cameo by Edith Piaf.

DVD 3642

Jean Renoir

Whirlpool of fate: after the suspicious death of her father a young girl runs away from her brutal uncle and joins a gypsy camp. Nana: A women rises from poverty to become a dance hall queen and courtesan in 1860s Paris, destroying the lives of the men who fall in love with her. Charleston parade: shows the journey of a man in blackface to a post-Apocalyptic Paris, where he meets a girl who teaches him the Charleston, and they leave together in his spaceship. The little match girl: the visions seen by a poor match seller as she lights her matches one by one to keep from freezing to death. La Marseillaise: a dramatization of the French Revolution, from the period immediately preceding it in 1789 up to the first bloody confrontation. The doctor's horrible experiment: experimental fantasy about a Jekyll/Hyde-type psychiatrist/lunatic creating havoc in 1950s Paris. The elusive corporal: set in a German P.O.W. camp in 1940, this is the story of a French corporal who is determined to escape to return to Paris and fight once more.

DVD 8642

Jean Renoir's Grand illusion

A classic tale of adventure. Duty and honor conflict in a German prisoner of war camp during World War I, when an aristocratic French officer becomes friends with the commandant yet must cooperate with his comrades in a daring escape.

DVD 18

Jean Renoir's The golden coach

An eighteenth-century comic fantasy about a viceroy in Central America who receives a golden coach and gives it to the star of a touring commedia dell'arte company. Shot and released simultaneously in English, French, and Italian language versions; Renoir was said to prefer this English language version of the three.

DVD 3641

Nuit du carrefour

When a diamond dealer is found dead at a crossroads, Maigret investigates.

DVD 10468

Régle du jeu The rules of the game /

Cloaked in a comedy of manners, this scathing critique of corrupt French society is about a weekend hunting party at which amorous escapades abound among the aristocratic guests, which are also mirrored by the activities of the servants downstairs.

DVD 3351

River

The film eloquently contrasts the growing pains of three young women with the immutability of the holy Bengal River in India, around which their daily lives unfold.

DVD 1378

Southerner

Realistic drama of life in the rural South in the mid-twentieth century. A family of tenant farmers struggles against poverty, illness, and nature.

DVD 539

This land is mine

The manner and cowardice of Albert Lory, a mother-fixated, slovenly school teacher in an unnamed country in Europe, are the subjects of his students' cruel jokes. Yet Lory's true inner courage is brought to light when the Nazis try to bribe him to keep his mouth shut in a court where he is being tried for a murder he did not commit. Instead, in the face of Nazi threats, he stands and delivers an impassioned speech on the preciousness of liberty.

DVD 10467

Woman on the beach

Peggy feels trapped, lacking the will to break free of her husband Tod, a famed painter whose career and eyesight she destroyed during a violent quarrel. A war-traumatized sailor, eager to claim Peggy for himself, is convinced Tod feigns blindness to control her. To prove it, he'll take Tod for a stroll along the seaside cliffs and watch as the artist nears the edge. Filled with primal lust, bold imagery and murderous hearts, 'The Woman on the Beach' is Jean Renoir's fever dream of a film noir.

DVD 10465