In the last days of the Nazi-occupied France, writer Marguerite Duras awaits the return of her husband, Robert Antelme, arrested for being a Resistance fighter and then deported, while she maintains a tense relationship with her ambiguous lover and a dangerous game with a French collaborationist. Even when the Liberation arrives, she must still endure the unbearable pain of waiting.
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.
On the night of August 24, 1944, the fate of Paris rests with General von Choltitz, who plans to destroy the city on Hitler's orders. As the general prepares to detonate explosives throughout the capital, Swedish consul Raoul Nordling uses diplomacy in a desperate bid to convince him to defy the orders and save Paris.
Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, variously await their fate.
At the beginning of the 1940s, in a France occupied by Nazi forces, lived the Jewish Joffo family. Happy and tight-knit, she sees her future darken when all members of the family are forced to wear the yellow star. Fearing the worst, the parents organized their family to flee to the free zone in the south of the country. Maurice, twelve years old, and Joseph, ten years old, will therefore leave alone in order to maximize their chances of finding their older brothers already settled in Nice. The brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Jews rise against the Nazis.
A dramatized account of the French Resistance, this wartime film depicts how railway workers sabotaged German trains to disrupt troop movements and supply lines during the Nazi occupation. Blending documentary realism with fiction, it pays tribute to the courage and sacrifice of ordinary workers who became central to the fight for liberation.
In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.
In July 1942, during the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup of Jewish families in Paris, 13 year old Tauba Birenbaum and her parents, who are Polish Jews, find refuge in a tiny room for the next 765 days. Living conditions are tough and they fear being discovered at any moment. But while her parents sink further into despair, Tauba’s fighting spirit shines through. She finds joy in every little thing, from a piano drawn on the floor, to the views of Paris through an open window. Despite extreme circumstances, she will keep hope until the liberation of Paris, and take back control of her life.
Directed by Philippe de Broca, the film recounts a bloody episode of the French Revolution. 1793, the Terror . In Vendée and in Bretagne, the chouans are revolting against the young Republic and fight for the monarchy restauration. The civil war divides also the family of the Count Savinien de Kerfadec, a liberal and generous noble and a flying machines inventor.
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.
A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.
This gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian, a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer division of the Parisian Resistance on 30 operations against the Nazis in 1943. The Nazis branded the group an Army of Crime, an anti-immigrant propaganda stunt that backfired as the team's members became martyrs for the Resistance.
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.
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
In Louis Malle's lauded drama, Lucien Lacombe is a young man living in rural France during World War II who seeks to join the French Resistance. When he is rejected due to his youth, the resentful Lucien allies himself with the Nazis and joins the Gallic arm of their Gestapo. Lucien grows to enjoy the power that comes with his position, but his life is complicated when he falls for France Horn, a beautiful young Jewish woman.
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
In the summer of 2014, a World War II veteran sneaks out of his care home to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landings in Normandy.
Carole Bouquet
Lucie Aubrac
Daniel Auteuil
Raymond Aubrac
Patrice Chéreau
Jean Moulin
Éric Boucher
Serge Ravanel
Jean-Roger Milo
Maurice
Heino Ferch
Klaus Barbie
Jean Martin
Paul Lardanchet
Bernard Verley
Charles-Henri
Andrzej Seweryn
Lieutenant Schlöndorff
Pascal Greggory
René Hardy
Alain Maratrat
Lassagne
Jean-Louis Richard
Mr. Henry
