French Noir

Maurice Legrand, a meek cashier married to a nagging wife, has a secret passion: he's a Sunday painter. He falls in love with Lulu, a young woman dominated by Dédé, the pimp who she works for. Dédé pushes Lulu into a relationship with him.

Lilac is consorting with the criminal scum of Paris but then she falls in love with a handsome detective...

Pierre Gilieth has committed a murder in Paris. He flees to Barcelona, where he runs out of money. He joins the Spanish Foreign Legion and there he meets two fellow countrymen, Mulot and Lucas. He tries to forget his crime, but Lucas's friendship soon appears to be less unselfish.

A charismatic thief makes friends with a bankrupt baron who comes to live in the thief's slum. Meanwhile the thief seeks the love of a young woman, who is held emotionally captive by her slumlord family.

A wanted gangster is both king and prisoner of the Casbah. He's protected from arrest by his friends, but is torn by his desire for freedom. A visiting Parisian beauty may determine his fate.

Soldier Lucien meets elegant Madeleine one night in Cannes. Lovestruck, he follows her to Paris after he is discharged. Their love affair begins anew, but eventually runs cold and he returns to Orange in the south of France. She follows.

In this classic adaptation of Emile Zola's novel, a tortured train engineer falls in love with a troubled married woman who has helped her husband commit a murder.

On the meandering Canal St. Martin, at the Parisian Hôtel du Nord, a nearly fatal gunshot separates a dejected young couple. But, amid a sad but beautiful panorama of lively characters, love has the final say. Can life be a fairy tale?

A military deserter finds love and trouble (and a small dog) in a foggy, French port city.

Frank, a hobo, ends up in a garage-truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Nick Marino, its older, kind and naive owner, is married to Cora, a sexy and mercenary woman half his age. Frank, although not a fan of hard work, accepts Nick's offer to work for him. Of course, it is not for Nick's sake that the young man becomes his attendant, but for the love of Cora under whose spell he has fallen at once. It does not take long before Cora, who despises her husband, asks her lover to help her get rid of him. Frank is reluctant at first but.

After one of her fellow taxi dancers is murdered by an unknown man who she met through a personal column advert, Adrienne Charpentier is recruited by the police to answer a series of similar adverts to try to track down the killer.

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

The captain of the tugboat Cyclone, André Laurent, rushes off to save the Mirva. He abandons his sick wife Yvonne and the couple celebrating their marriage. In the early morning, the Cyclone tugs the Mirva ashore with Catherine aboard.

A French village doctor becomes the target of poison-pen letters sent to village leaders, accusing him of affairs and practicing abortion.

A society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.

After an elderly maid is murdered, opinions are manipulated, evidence is planted, violence erupts, and panic ensues.

The local building contractor Martin Roumagnac is fascinated by the fashionable Blanche Ferrand. To impress Blanche, Martin presents her with a villa. However, this ruins him financially. Despite Martin's many efforts for the femme fatale Blanche, she is not able to chose between him and the rich consul De Laubry.

Madame Rose runs a seedy hotel in a suburb of Paris. Strong-minded but without the least moral scruple, she once killed her husband, whose honesty was a hindrance to her business. Under a suspended sentence, she now indulges in smuggling. One day, Victor, one of her former accomplices hounded by the police, finds sanctuary with her. During a drinking spree, he has the bad idea to entrust to her a suitcase filled with bank notes, loot with which he hopes to rebuild his life in South America. But Rose, lured by temptation, betrays Victor, who is arrested. However, he manages to escape with only one thing in mind: to take revenge on Rose.

A jealous husband intends to kill the man his wife is meeting for business, but arrives to find the deed already done.

Dedee is a prostitute who works in Monsieur Rene's nightclub on Antwerp's harbour. The porter is Marco, her pimp. Dedee is not happy until she meets Francesco, an Italian sailor. They fall in love and Dedee starts to dream about escaping her daily dull grind.

A police detective with a striking resemblance for a murdered criminal impersonates the deceased to identify his murderer.

A French fugitive arrives in Genoa, where he becomes entangled with an Italian woman and her daughter.

During the cold and rainy off-season a man arrives in a seaside town and, giving his name only as Pierre, checks into the only hotel which remains open. His arrival arouses curiosity and a degree of suspicion, as people note that he appears to know the area, yet gives no explanation for his presence at that bleak time of year in the dead-end town.

Three gangsters and an ex-con carpenter all fall for the same beautiful golden-haired woman in Belle Époque France.

In a decrepit South American village, four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerine shipment without the equipment that would make it safe.