
A Thanksgiving dinner brings a host of family together in a Harlem apartment, where a 24-year-old schoolteacher named Dorothy Gale lives with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry . Extremely introverted, she has, as Aunt Em teases her, “never been south of 125th Street”, and refuses to move out and on with her life. While Dorothy cleans up after the meal, her dog Toto runs out the open kitchen door into a violent snowstorm. She succeeds in retrieving him, but finds herself trapped in the storm…
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Tag Archives: french
The Tenant / Le locataire (1976) Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Thriller, Drama

In Paris, the shy bureaucrat Trelkovsky rents an old apartment without bathroom where the previous tenant, the Egyptologist Simone Choule, committed suicide. The unfriendly concierge (Shelley Winters) and the tough landlord Mr. Zy establish stringent rules of behavior and Trelkovsky feels ridden by his neighbors. Meanwhile he visits Simone in the hospital and befriends her girlfriend Stella. After the death of Simone, Trelkovsky feels obsessed for her and believes his landlord and neighbors are plotting a scheme to force him to also commit suicide.
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Subway (1985) Luc Besson, Christopher Lambert, Isabelle Adjani, Richard Bohringer, Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Helena, the beautiful young wife of a wealthy businessman, invites a stranger Fred to her party. Fred repays her by stealing compromising documents from her husband’s safe, with the aim of blackmailing the couple. Pursued by police and the henchmen of Helena’s ruthless husband, Fred goes on the run, taking refuge in the Paris metro. Here, he meets other social misfits, including a roller-blader the police have been hunting for several months. Whilst Helena realises that she has fallen in love with Fred and makes every attempt to contact him, Fred occupies himself with forming a band by recruiting buskers. Meanwhile, the police and Helena’s husband are getting closer to their target…
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La rupture / The Breach (1970) Claude Chabrol, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Michel Bouquet, Thriller, Drama

Hélène Régnier walks out on her drug-addicted husband Charles after he brutally attacks their infant son. She stays in a run-down hotel whilst her son convalesces in hospital and she files for divorce. Charles’s wealthy bourgeois father is adamant that Hélène will lose custody of her child and, to that end, he engages a former business associate of Charles, Paul Thomas, to discredit her. When Paul fails to uncover any incriminating evidence against Hélène he concocts a scheme that will destroy her reputation. Things do not go quite as planned…
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MADO (1976) Claude Sautet, Michel Piccoli, Ottavia Piccolo, Jacques Dutronc, Drama

Middle-aged businessman Simon Léotard finds his future in jeopardy when his partner Julien commits suicide after having accumulated a mass of debts. Simon’s unscrupulous business rival Lépidon offers to save him from bankruptcy by buying his company, at a discount rate. Reluctant to fall into Lépidon’s trap, Simon decides to resolve the crisis himself. A prostitute, Mado, provides him with the solution to his problems…
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Docteur Popaul / Scoundrel in White (1972) Claude Chabrol, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Mia Farrow, Laura Antonelli, Comedy

Dr Paul Simay is a lady’s man who claims to prefer ugly women. He makes his point by winning a bet that he can sleep with the most ugly women in a year. He therefore has no qualms about marrying Christine, a paraplegic with buck-teeth, especially when her father is a wealthy doctor who can advance his career. His views change when he meets Christine’s beautiful sister, Martine. When she realises that Paul has been cheating on her and has given her sister a child, Christine decides to extract a cruel revenge…
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TANGUY (2001) Étienne Chatiliez, Sabine Azéma, André Dussollier, Éric Berger, Comedy

Edith and Paul Guetz are so happy with the birth of their son Tanguy that they promise he can live with them forever. Twenty-eight years later, Tanguy, a cultivated intellectual, is still ensconced in the family home – and his parents can hardly wait to see the back of him. When Tanguy reveals that it will be at least another year before he can complete his doctoral thesis and start looking for a full-time job, Edith’s nerves finally give way. She persuades her husband that the time has come to drive their stay-at-home son away, by whatever means possible..
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Fait d’hiver (1999) Robert Enrico, Charles Berling, Claude Brasseur, Jean-François Stévenin, Drama

A la fin d’un week-end, Louis Riquier, père divorcé refuse de rendre ses enfants à leur mère. Armé, barricadé dans sa maison, il tient tête à un escadron de gendarmerie. Les médias s’emparent de l’affaire, la tension monte et la situation s’envenime. Riquier menace de tuer ses enfants…
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EQUUS (1977) Sidney Lumet, Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Colin Blakely, Drama, Mystery

Sidney Lumet directed this film version of Peter Shaffer’s dramatic play, transforming theatrical symbolism into cinematic realism. Richard Burton received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance as Martin Dysert, a psychiatrist determined to unravel the disturbed mind of Alan Strang (Peter Firth), a young stableboy. In a fit of rage, Strang has blinded a stable of six horses. The court then assigns Dysert to probe the young man’s mind in order to understand why he committed such a violent act. But the doctor, who is battling demons of his own, wonders if he can save the boy–and whether saving him at all is the right thing to do. Joan Plowright stands out as Dora Strang, the young boy’s mother.
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The Fugitive (1993) Andrew Davis, Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Action, Adventure, Crime

Ford is prison escapee Dr. Richard Kimble, a Chicago surgeon falsely convicted of killing his wife and determined to prove his innocence by leading his pursuers to the one-armed man who actually committed the crime. Jones is Sam Gerard, an unrelenting bloodhound of a U.S. Marshal. They are hunted and hunter. And as directed by Andrew Davis, their nonstop chase has one exhilarating speed: all-out. So catch him if you can. And catch an 11-on-a-scale-of-10 train wreck (yes, the train is real), a plunge down a waterfall, a cat-and-mouse jaunt through a Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade and much more. Better hurry. Kimble doesn’t stay in one place very long!
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