Alain Resnais

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Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

At a weekend gathering, a man tells a woman that they had spent time there together a year prior. But, the woman has no recollection whatsoever and is convinced that he is simply fabricating the encounter. The more he speaks about their activities the previous year however, the more compelling he becomes. The question remains however – did they meet previously or not?

On the eve of his 78th birthday, ailing, alcoholic writer Clive Langham spends a painful and sleepless night mentally composing and recomposing scenes for a novel in which characters based on his own family are shaped by his fantasies and memories, alongside his caustic commentary on their behaviour.

The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.

At the end of the 15th century, a man and a woman, posing as traveling minstrels, are sent by the Devil to a castle to seduce its inhabitants.

Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent assist small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French politics. But when his great scam involving millions is exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.

This impressionistic portrait of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics pays as much attention to the crowds and workers as it does to the actual competitive events. Highlights include an epic pole-vaulting match between West Germany and America, and the final marathon race through Tokyo's streets. Two athletes are highlighted: Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who receives his second gold medal, and runner Ahamed Isa from Chad, representing a country younger than he is.

Professor Henri Laborit uses three people's stories to discuss behaviourist theories of survival, combat, rewards and punishment, and anxiety: René is a technical manager at a textile factory and must face the anxiety caused by corporate downsizing; Janine is a self-educated actress/stylist who learns that the wife of her lover is dying and must decide to let them reunite; and Jean is a controversial career-climbing writer/politician at a crossroads in life.

An American in Paris lives by sponging off his working friends, and throws a party using borrowed money when his rich American aunt dies, believing firmly in his horoscope.

Joey Wellman, an American cartoonist from Cleveland now largely forgotten at home, visits France with his partner Lena to attend an exhibition in Paris about the comic strip (bande dessinée) which features his work. He also hopes to be reconciled with his daughter Elsie who has been a student in Paris for two years, in flight from the American culture of which she sees her father as a typical example. Elsie is naively infatuated with French literature, and is trying to secure an introduction to the brilliant university professor Christian Gauthier, an expert on Flaubert but also an enthusiast for comic books. The meeting of father and daughter goes badly, but Elsie is persuaded to join Joey and Lena for the weekend at the country house of Gauthier's mother, Isabelle. During a comic-themed masquerade party, all of the characters are made to reconsider their present and past relationships.

From beyond the grave, celebrated playwright Antoine d'Anthac gathers all his friends who have appeared over the years in his play 'Eurydice'. These actors watch a recording performed by a young acting company, La Compagnie de la Colombe. Do love, life, death and love after death still have any place on a theater stage? It's up to them to decide. And the surprises have only just begun...

In this whimsical fable, Resnais deftly interweaves three story lines: the creation of an early-20th-century utopia; romantic high jinks at a school conference; and a fantasy sparked by F/X pioneer Georges Méliès.

In seven different parts, Godard, Ivens, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.

A penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Sète in the South of France.

On his way from Madrid to Paris, Diego, a chief of the Spanish Communist Party, is arrested at the border for an ID check but manages to flee. When he arrives in Paris, he searches for one of his comrades to prevent him from going to Madrid where he could be arrested.

A musical drawing room farce set in Paris circa October, 1925. Middle-aged Gilberte flirts with men but loves her husband Georges, wishing he were more demonstrative. He's negotiating a deal with American Eric Thomson, who turns out to be Gilberte's first husband from an annulled and secret stateside marriage. Along with her sister Arlette, Gilberte begs Eric not to tell Georges about their past. Meanwhile, a young artist, Charly, pursues Gilberte while Arlette tries to match him with the young Huguette, who loves him. Will Eric play along or try to re-win Gilberte's affection? Can Gilberte play one off against another? And who will manage to kiss whom on the lips?

We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.

In the seacoast town of Boulogne, antique furniture saleswoman Hélène lives with her stepson, Bernard, who's back from military duty in Algiers. An old lover of Hélène's comes to visit, Alphonse, with his niece Françoise; he too is back from Algiers, where he ran a café. Bernard speaks of his fiancée, Muriel, whom Hélène has not met. The past is obscured by guilt, misperceptions, and missed possibilities. Appearances deceive, things change. As Hélène and Alphonse try to sort out a renewal, everyone seems off-kilter just enough to hint that all cannot end well.

Seven lonely lives in Paris: a middle-aged estate agent who believes a colleague is sending messages in video tapes she loans him; his co-worker whose Bible is close at hand in times of stress; her late-night charge, an angry, nasty bedridden old man; his son, a patient bartender; the bartender's best patron, an ex-soldier who's lost his moorings while his fiancée looks for a large flat for them; and, the estate agent's much younger sister, who answers personals and waits in cafés with a red flower pinned on her jacket. Will any connect? Can open hearts trump fears?