Movies: René Clair

A 17th-century witch returns to wreak havoc in the life of a descendant of the Puritan witch hunter who burned her....

Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island and while they are waiting for the mysterious host to appear, a recording levels serious accusations at each of the guests. Soon they start being murdered, one by one. As the survivors try to keep their w...

In this classic French satire, Louis, a convict, escapes from prison and takes on legitimate work, making his way up in the business world. Eventually becoming the head of a successful factory, Louis opts to modernize his company with mechanical inno...

Debt-ridden painter Michel is overcome with joy at discovering that he has just won 1 million florins in the Dutch lottery, but almost immediately, he discovers that his softhearted girlfriend, Béatrice, has given away his jacket containing the winni...

Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most 'dada' film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and c...

A young turn-of-the-century newspaper man finds he can get hold of the next day's paper. This brings more problems than fortune, especially as his new girlfriend is part of a phony clairvoyant act....

Armand, a boastful womaniser, makes a bet that he can seduce any girl he wants. He soon crosses paths with a beautiful Parisian divorcee, who is nothing like anyone he has ever met before....

In the tenement slums of Paris between the world wars, impoverished street singer Albert yearns for beautiful Romanian immigrant Pola. Pola's boyfriend, local hoodlum Fred, grows jealous of Albert's constant attention to his woman and frames the hapl...

The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Que...

A night watchman on the Eiffel Tower wakes up to find the entire population of the city frozen in place....

A daydreaming French composer sees himself as a fine figure dashing through history....

Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as a professor in a circa-1700 French university, despairs at the ravages of old age ... whereupon Mephistopheles, agent of Lucifer, appears as a virile, handsome young man and exchanges bodies with him to induce...

In old New Orleans, a beautiful adventuress juggles the attentions of a rich banker and a dashing sea captain....

A light, comedy romance about a cab driver named Jean and a flower girl named Anna that takes place in Paris during the Bastille day celebration of July 14th....

Donald Glourie shares his crumbling ancestral home with the ghost of his Highland ancestor, Murdoch, who has been condemned to haunt the castle until he avenges a 200-year-old insult from a rival clan. To clear his mounting debts, Donald sells the di...

The seven stages in the life of the modern Frenchwomen are disclosed by seven directors in a witty way: 1 - Childhood, 2 - Adolescence, 3 - Virginity, 4 - Marriage, 5 - Adultery, 6 - Divorce, 7 - The Single Woman....

In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connecti...

Emile is a French film producer at the beginning of the century. One of his friends leaves his daughter Lucette in his house, when he is starting a tour through France. Emile falls in love with her. Problems starts when his younger friend Jacques com...

"Les quatre vérités" aka "The Four Truths" is a movie anthology that consists of four segments, all loosely parodying fables from the 17th-century French poet Jean de la Fontaine. The US cut usually features only 3 segments....

Businessman Victor Hardy wants to buy the entire area around the small village of Cabosse. He claims that he wants to return to nature, but he also intends to profit by selling the water from the village fountain, which is reputed to enhance longevit...