Jacques Prévert

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Produced for television by Claude-Jean Philippe, the « Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma », recounts the history of French cinema from its birth to the beginning of the 1960s. With commentary read by Jean Rochefort.

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...

In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

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.

A married tugboat captain falls for a woman he rescues from a sinking ship.

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.

A young shepherdess and a chimneysweep plan to get married and escape the clutches of a tyrannical king in love with her, assisted by the guile of a cheeky mockingbird, the king's archenemy.

Mild-mannered novelist of Western fiction, Amédée Lange, and his colleagues take over a publishing house after their exploitative boss disappears, only for the superior to return and try to reclaim the profits from their successful cooperative.

Down a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean, an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, as acts of both revenge and kindness render him front-page news.

The bell ringer at a way station in the French Alps, murders a passing horse trader with a thrown rock and relieves him of his bankroll, in order to bribe the daughter of his only friend, a head injury victim considered the village simpleton, into marrying him, despite her love for a lowly woodsman who is, in turn, being cajoled into marriage by the daughter of the wealthy innkeeper.

Newly married couple Juliette and ship captain Jean struggle through marriage as they travel on the L'Atalante along with the captain's first mate and a cabin boy.

After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events that led him to the killing.

A forest full of animated animals encourage a pair of snails, who are fully clad in black because they are in mourning for a dead leaf, to celebrate the new spring and reclaim the colors of life. Based on the children's poem by Jacques Prévert entitled "Chanson des escargots qui font à l'enterrement" ("Song of the snails who are on their way to a funeral").

Suppose lost and found objects could talk... But they can! At least four of them... : -A statuette of Osiris remembers how two ex-lovers, a model and a good for nothing who claimed to be an Egyptologist, met again one Christmas Eve. -A violin has things to say about Raoul, a humble policeman who lost Solange, a widowed grocer he loved, to a god-dam seducing busker also named Raoul. -A scarf was witness to an eerie romance between a young madman and girl he had saved from suicide. -A funeral wreath lets us know how it caused a young woman to believe her lover dead. After having told their respective story, the objects return to their customary stillness.

When her fiancé breaks off their engagement, Danielle leaves London and returns to her mother, Jenny, in Paris. With her business partner Benoît, Jenny runs what appears to be a respectable nightclub – it is in fact a place where wealthy men can buy the favours of attractive young women. Oblivious to her mother's professional and personal life, Danielle meets a handsome young man named Lucien, and falls in love with him – not realising that he is Jenny's lover...

Anthology of four love stories that have some historical basis.

A chimney sweep and his beloved shepherdess are aided by Wonderbird in their escape from a ruthless dictator

A budding romance between two toy dancers is put into dangers when the boy is conscripted into the toy army.

There's never a dull moment at the Hôtel du Libre Echange. Deceptions, hitches and other misunderstandings make a few people mingle whereas, for their own sake, they should not. An example among others: an expert who has come to the hotel for professional reasons had better not meet his wife, who is there to cheat on him with his best friend.