Valentine Tessier

Paris, 1482. Today is the festival of the fools, taking place like each year in the square outside Cathedral Notre Dame. Among jugglers and other entertainers, Esmeralda, a sensuous gypsy, performs a bewitching dance in front of delighted spectators. From up in a tower of the cathedral, Frollo, an alchemist, gazes at her lustfully. Later in the night, Frollo orders Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer and his faithful servant, to kidnap Esmeralda. But when the ugly freak comes close to her is touched by the young woman's beauty...

Police Commissioner Jules Maigret returns to the small village where he spent his childhood at the request of the Countess of Saint-Fiacre, who has received a disturbing anonymous letter.

Elsa Lundenstein is accused of having murdered her lover. The jury discusses the case vividly. All members are somehow prejudiced because of personal life experience and subsequently each member reads something different into the presented facts.

Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario 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.

In the early 16th century, Italy is ruled by the powerful Borgia family, led by César Borgia and his sister Lucrèce. In a ruthless power play, César plots to have his sister’s husband murdered. But without her brother’s knowledge, Lucrèce has taken a strong lover who will challenge the Borgias.

Because they brought her back a lost piece of jewelry, a very rich lady accedes to the request of three old people and transforms a vacant lot into a park for the neighborhood children.

Lydia (Danielle Darrieux) is a student, poor and orphaned, who pretends to be the daughter of a famous writer.

In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.

After being hurt in the face, Count de Roger Tinchebraye is forced to hide his disfigured face behind a leather mask. Dispirited for a while, he decides to become a Casanova-like seductor. When he meets true love, cynical Roger does not believe in it and lets pure Judith marry an old marquis. But once Judith's husband dies, he sees Judith again, shows her his disfigured face, which does not discourage the young woman from loving him. Nevertheless, he distances himself from her forever

French version of the Selma Lagerlof story, most famously filmed in 1921 by Victor Sjostrom, about a poor sinner who only realizes what misery he's wrought when he dies on New Year's Eve and is collected by Death in his carriage.

Recently released from reform school, Élisa works at Madame Irma's before moving to Paris, where her success is growing. On a trip to the provinces, she meets Bernard, a blind man. They soon fall in love, but Élisa hides her activities from him. When he finds out, he hits her. The situation quickly degenerates.

Michel is a middle-aged man with money and social standing. But he dreams of owning a doll to be his lover. When he finally gets one, he realizes he has become a slave to his own fantasy.

The story takes plays during the annual Good Friday pageant in a tiny Italian village. Local priest Don Vincenzo faces a crisis when the girl selected to play the Virgin Mary shows up pregnant.

Léopold, a young schoolboy, returns from boarding school to spend the summer vacations with his family. He is delighted to see his grandmother Eglantine again. The good times spent with all those close to him make him forget the stress of school. But with the start of the new school year fast approaching, Léopold learns of Eglantine's death.

Middle-aged lust: a man, in his thirteenth and therefore omen-filled marriage year, cheats on his wife.

In 19th-century France, a little girl follows her two sisters into a Carmelite monastery with the goal of becoming a saint.

In his prison cell, the composer Remi Bonvent composed an opera, The columns bed. The director of the prison, Porey Cave, succeeds made believe he is the author of this work. The death of the two protagonists will prevent the discovery of the truth.

"La neige était sale" is based on a novel and play by the phenomenally prolific Georges Simenon. Upon learning that his mother was a prostitute, Frank (Daniel Gélin) dejectedly vows that he, too, will live a life of debauchery. Part of his self-degradation program is to kill someone, and since the story takes place during the Nazi occupation of France, he chooses a German officer as his victim. His steady descent into psychosis and depravity becomes his ultimate undoing.

A hero of the Paris streets is recruited for a conspiracy against Mazarin in the court of the King, but he reveals the subversive plot to Anne of Austria.

Young women search for love whilst living in a cheap Parisian boardinghouse that does not allow men.