Poetic Realism (1930–1939)

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

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.

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

During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.

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.

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

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.

Victor Berthier, a good man but also a very jealous one, killed his wife in a fit of jealousy. After serving a few years in a chain gang, he is released for good behavior. He feels very happy to be able to return to Paris and to meet Lise, his daughter, again. But, to his dismay, he finds that Lise, through the fault of André, her lover and pimp, has unwillingly committed a murder.

In a repressive boarding school with rigid rules of behavior, four boys decide to rebel against the direction on a celebration day.

Mr. and Mrs. Noblet run a boarding house on the French Riviera. One day, they are led by circumstances to welcome a little boy Pierre, whose father is in jail, into their home. Which makes Louise Noblet all the happier as she can't have children herself. But, after a while, Pierre's father is released from prison and reclaims his son... Time passes and Pierre, now a young adult, lives in Paris more or less on the wrong side of the law. He has a mistress, Nelly, who does not say no to other men's money... Louise, who still loves Pierre as her own son, wants only one thing - to help him get by.

Pierre (Pierre Richard-Willm), a young lawyer, has enormous debts due to his mistress Florence (Marie Bell), and her whims of luxury life. Pierre has gone too far and put the family firm in jeopardy. They ask him to expatriate. To avoid scandal, Pierre joins the Foreign Legion. In Morocco, near the desert, Pierre goes with his comrades of the Legion to a bar-restaurant-brothel, owned by a shady character, Mr. Clement (Charles Vanel). Clement lives more or less with Ms.Blanche (Françoise Rosay) who is a fortune teller with cards, as a hobby. But Clement is also after his girls now and then. Pierre is still obsessed with Florence but he meets Irma (Marie Bell), one of Clement's girls, who is the double of Florence except for hair color. Irma has had an accident and has lost part of her memory at a certain point of her recent past, and Pierre slowly persuades himself she is Florence, but cannot remember it. Advised by Ms.Blanche, Irma finally accepts to act as if she was Florence because she is falling in love with Pierre. Near the end of his contract with the Legion, Pierre receives news from France. He has inherited a fortune. He asks Irma to come to France with him, and they make plans. But Clement tries to rape Irma and Pierre has to kill him.

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.

Tells the story of the Spanish invasion of Flanders

Five unemployed penniless workers win 100,000 Francs with the national lottery. Instead of sharing the money, they buy a ruin and build an open-air cafe. But difficulties come to split their friendly group apart.

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 bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II, as the rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau.

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 shimmering glass hotel at the top of a remote Provençal mountain provides the setting for a tragicomic tapestry about an obsessive love pentangle.

The theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan in 1830s Paris and the four men who love her.