Catherine Frot

Objectively, Odette Toulemonde has nothing to be happy about, but is. Balthazar Balsan has everything to be happy about, but isn’t. Odette, awkwardly forty, with a delightful hairdresser son and a daughter bogged down in adolescence, spends her days behind the cosmetic’s counter in a department store and her nights sewing feathers on costumes for Parisian variety shows. She dreams of thanking Balthazar Balsan, her favorite author, to whom – she believes – she owes her optimism. The rich and charming Parisian writer then turns up in her life in an unexpected way.

The story of Danièle Delpeuch and how she was appointed as the private chef for François Mitterrand.

Paris in the 1920s. Marguerite Dumont is a wealthy woman with a passion for music and the opera. For years, she has performed regularly for a circle of guests. But Marguerite sings tragically out of tune and no one has ever told her. Her husband and her close friends have always encouraged her in her illusions. Things become very complicated the day she gets it into her head to perform in front of a genuine public, at the Opera.

For Pierre Brochant and his friends, Wednesday is “Idiots' Day”. The idea is simple: each person has to bring along an idiot. The one who brings the most spectacular idiot wins the prize. Tonight, Brochant is ecstatic. He has found a gem. The ultimate idiot, “A world champion idiot!”. What Brochant doesn’t know is that Pignon is a real jinx, a past master in the art of bringing on catastrophes...

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

Eve used to be one of the most famous rose creators in the world. Today, her company is on the verge of bankruptcy. On top of that, her secretary Vera has hired three outcasts with absolutely no gardening skills. Though they have nothing in common, they come up with the most crazy plan that could change their lives forever...

Mélanie Prouvost, a ten-year-old butcher's daughter, is a gifted pianist. That is why she and her parents decide that she sit for the Conservatory entrance exam. Although Mélanie is very likely to be admitted, she unfortunately gets distracted by the president of the jury's offhand attitude and she fails. Ten years later, Mélanie becomes her page turner, waiting patiently for her revenge.

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

One evening, when they come home, Mr. and Mrs. Prioux are astounded to find that a certain Patrick has moved into their place. This strange young man has returned home to his parents in order to introduce his wife.

Choukri, alias Chouchou, a transvestite Maghrebi with clear eyes, comes illegally to Paris to find his nephew. Hired as an assistant by a psychotherapist, known for his good mood, he also work as a waiter in a transvestite cabaret of Clichy where he meets Stanislas.

A husband wants to win back his wife, even though she has been living with her lesbian lover for six months.

A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.

Christine’s life has not been easy lately. Her lonely routine is divided between free food banks distributions and wandering the streets. On a cold winter night she founds Suli, an 8-year-old Eritrean boy, sobbing in front of her shelter. Christine understands that he is lost and has been separated from his mother. Bounded by their marginal condition, they embark together on an emotional journey to find Suli’s mother in the underground world of Paris...

Louise, who has just written a novel, comes to Paris to meet with a potential publisher. While in the city, she stays with her older sister, Martine, who in many ways is the exact opposite of Louise: she lives in a fashionable neighborhood, is cold to others, and has snobby friends, while Louise lives in a small town and is thoroughly unpretentious. Louise's apparent happiness -- and similarities to their mother -- gradually gets on Martine's nerves.

With gun-toting rivals on his tail, a daring bank robber takes refuge in the quiet residential street here he grew up and where his mother, Maniette, still lives. An unscrupulous property developer, Korazy, is buying up the neighborhood to turn it into a gleaming new banking district, but to her son's disgust Maniette leads the inhabitants resistance. Her ingenious methods provoke her boy's admiration, but he fights back with sneaky traps and underhand tricks when Maniette tries to force him to do the right thing just once in his life.

Jean has been the conservative mayor of a small town for several years. He intends to run for another term. Edith, his wife, is the paragon of the traditional devoted housewife and mother. So it comes as quite a shock when she tells her husband of forty years that deep down, she has always been... A MAN! Totally blindsided, Jean didn't see this coming. For a politician campaigning on family values, this is too much! But Edith, still the loving wife, make a deal with him: she will postpone her transition and stay a woman until after the elections. But as we know, campaigns are all about digging up dirt to keep the rumor mill turning

Professor Henri Laborit uses three people's stories to discuss behaviourist theories of survival, combat, rewards and punishment, and anxiety: René is a technical manager at a textile factory and must face the anxiety caused by corporate downsizing; Janine is a self-educated actress/stylist who learns that the wife of her lover is dying and must decide to let them reunite; and Jean is a controversial career-climbing writer/politician at a crossroads in life.

Loosely based on "4.50 from Paddington" by Agatha Christie.

A modern remake of Renoir's classic film. Aix-en-Provence, a spring night. Christian Lespinglet, an over-indebted gallery owner, rescues a homeless man, Boudu, from the waters of a canal who was trying to drown himself. Heroic to his detriment, he brings him home, for a few hours only... The incongruous arrival of Boudu will act like a mad dog in the game of skittles that is Christian's life...

Gilbert and Simone live a restless retreat in a village in the South of France. The departure of Étienne, her neighbor and lover, the lack of money, but especially the constant bitterness of her husband, push Simone to flee the home. Gilbert then realizes that he is ready to do anything to find his wife, his love.

A story of a modest ordinary crook trying his best to turn his boring life into an affordable extraordinary adventure.

Après quinze ans passés derrière les barreaux, Bruno, qui prône la révolution prolétarienne, s'évade. Ce dernier veut continuer la lutte, faire sortir ses camarades de prison, libérer les masses du joug capitaliste. Tous ses anciens alliés n'y croient plus, même Jeanne qui s'est mariée et a maintenant des enfants.

After seven years of marriage, a couple of professional workers (he, a doctor and she, a banker) try to refresh their sex life.

An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.

Prudence and Bélisaire Beresford have decided to take things easy. But when a rich Russian heiress disappears, Prudence can't resist and Bélisaire is forced onto the adventure. Their investigation will put them on the trail of a mysterious scientist who holds the secret to eternal youth...

In Le Havre, just like every morning, the 5:48 a.m. bus leaves Place des Martyrs to begin its route, driven by Gilles, a quiet and exhausted driver. This morning, at his wits’ end, despised by the authorities and abandoned by his wife, he takes his passengers hostage. While the police and media rush to the scene, inside the bus, the hostages, grappling with the same distress as Gilles, may not be so innocent after all…

Franck shows up in a gossip magazine photo behind a brawling TV star at a football match.

The final installment in director Lucas Belvaux's trilogy follows Pascal, a cop who sees a return to credibility in the capture of escaped convict Bruno--who in turn is harbored by Pascal's morphine-addicted wife Agnes. Pascal's already precarious ties to Agnes are strained further when he meets and falls for her fellow schoolteacher friend Cecile. With Pascal focused on Bruno and Cecile, Agnes is forced to find a fix on her own.

A woman, concerned by her husband's eccentric behavior, hires a detective to follow his every move -- which yields unexpected results.

Ninon is a spirited hotel-manager who teaches self-defense classes to her terrified eldery neighbors. Daiga, an aspiring Lithuanian actress newly arrived to Paris, becomes fascinated with the life of a mysteriously beautiful drag performer.

Jacques (Patrick Chesnais) and his master (Guy Tréjan) ride through the countryside on a mysterious journey punctuated by adventures, according to the people they encounter and the inns that receive them along the way. At the same time, Jacques tells his master how he came to know the beautiful Denise (Marie-Christine Rousseau), following the many twists of chance that occurred after the episode of the Battle of Fontenoy.

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A fugitive takes refuge in a manor where a blind retired thespian lives.

Robinson, appropriately named as we will soon discover, is on vacation in Biarritz with his wife. What follows is the story behind the loss of his arm, a story that becomes increasingly bizarre and eventually apocalyptic, leading us down a narrative path of labyrinthine complexity. The resulting film is an extraordinary feat of imagination and daring, set against the backdrop of a world on the verge of destruction.

The Beresfords investigate mysterious deaths at an old people's home.

Elsa Valentin is in the middle of a brutal divorce and custody battle when she is struck by the appearance of a pretty young girl named Lola (Héloïse Cunin). Her interest in the child grows to an obsession, and she finds any possible excuse to be near her. When Lola's mother, Claire, grows unnerved by all this, Elsa admits she believes Lola is her daughter.

Marc runs a psychotherapy course at a large country house belonging to his wife Colette. His clients are depressed and his job is to cure them of their neuroses.

Wednesday is the day when children are not in school and stay at home. It is also the day when the parents are not there. In Nantes, in the spring, twenty or so carefree and boisterous kids between the ages of three and eleven take advantage of this day to make their parents go crazy. Emma, 9 years old and naturally romantic, decides that Roland, the little boy she met in the street, is unhappy and persuades her friends to adopt him. Victoria spends the day with Martin Socoa, an often distant father whom she learns to love. There are also Muriel, Bruno, Colette and Henri who take off and create panic in their parents' home, while Marylin lives the founding drama of her childhood with a mother of an unreal sweetness. Throughout these little stories, we realize that the world of children has its own logic, totally different from that of adults.

After a computer operator has been through a painful relationship, he is determined to look the other way every time any interesting woman enters his life. He has his other loves - photography and model planes - to challenge him anyway. However, one day a car breaks down in front of his house, and a young mother with her 10-year-old daughter come in looking for assistance. The daughter is endearing and would make a terrific subject for a photo contest. As both the young mother and the computer operator studiously ignore the flicker of romantic sparks, it is only a matter of time before the flame either grows or is extinguished.

1920. Jean Rezeau and his elder brother were living happily in their family estate in Brittany, until the death of their grandmother. The return of their mother, a worthy descendant of fairytales' witches, brings an all new atmosphere to their home.

Born with their immune systems damaged, Tom and Lola are doomed to live their lives in isolation, sealed in separate plastic bubbles. However, neither cold urethane nor chillier hospital technicians can keep down the beguiling spirit of these indomitable siblings.

Twenty years ago, Robert left his home in the provincial northern town of Boulogne to make it as an actor. His career never amounted to much, as he managed only a couple of acting jobs on TV. Without warning, he returns to his hometown and drops in on his sister who is in the throes of a sordid affair with her married boss. Later, Robert drops in on his younger brother, who lives with his elderly mother. As the film progresses, it quietly, sensitively depicts Robert's disruption of the lives of the members of his family.

When he was eight years old, Ferdinand was chosen to play a supporting role along a famous actress. Today, a producer is asking him to write and direct a film about his childhood memories...

John Dubury, a fifty-year-old man disappointed by his life, sees his wife die from a fatal fall while they are on vacation together. And while an accident is initially thought to be the cause of death, suspicions soon turn to John... especially since a witness claims to have seen him push his wife.

Dominican friar Etienne de Bourbon visits a 13th-century French village in search of heretics for the Inquisition. Despite the opposition of the local priest and the indifference of the villagers, he finds a seemingly perfect suspect: a young woman who lives in a forest outside the village and cures people with herbs and folk remedies. In the process, he discovers the cult of the greyhound "Saint" Guinefort, and confronts his own troubled past.

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A philosophizing uninvited hitchhiker terrorizes a writer, who's selling dictionaries while he's struggling with writer's block.

A french fantasy film with Christoph Waltz

Martin Lamotte made his directorial debut with this French comedy. Building contractor Patrick is unaware that Helene, his wife for 15 years, intends to celebrate their wedding anniversary with a surprise party. She's invited friends and relatives to spend the weekend at their blue house. Elsewhere down the road, at an identical blue house, Patrick and his other love, Elizabeth, the mother of his two-year-old daughter, are planning an engagement party for the son of their neighbor. Neither woman knows about the other, and this sticky situation requires Patrick to rush back and forth from one blue house to another throughout the evening. The story is told in flashback by Patrick -- from his hospital bed.

Whilst driving through rural France, Antoine Bonfils comes across a community of babas - men and women who have turned their back on the modern commercialist world and live, free of constraints, as close to nature as they can. After a tiff with his girlfriend, he decides to swap his comfortable but empty life in Paris for a new life with the babas. Adapting to the new life-style proves to be far from easy...

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The true story of General Smyslovsky and the anti-Communist 1st Russian National Army receiving shelter in Liechtenstein in 1945 and successfully resisting Soviet pressure to be returned for execution in the USSR.

Fabienne is a police officer. She does her job well but is gradually growing tired of the dehumanized nature of her work : arresting undocumented aliens day after day does not fit in with her ideals. That's why when, one night, Olga, the Kazakh prostitute she apprehends, begs her to free her not to leave her four-year-old son alone, she hesitates... And why, after Olga has run away and is found dead, Fabienne decides to deal with this matter personally...

After World War II, the orderly life of a deputy secretary of state for family affairs, who had succeeded in closing brothels and increasing penalties for abortion offenses, is turned upside down when he learns on the same day that his wife is expecting a child and that his son has impregnated his secretary! This is only the beginning of a series of unexpected events that will shake up the foundations of this bourgeois family...

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The life and times of the famous French writer Guy de Maupassant.

Several mountaineers attempt to climb La face de l'Ogre near Chamonix. Their starting point is a small mountain hotel from where many tourists observe them. Among these is Hélène, who has been staying there for a few weeks but who is excluded by the other tourists. Then she meets a city girl named Marion and they immediately become friends. She tells him that she is waiting for her husband who has tried to climb the mountain and should be back any day. But then the weather turns sour, which causes hope to wane but also brings women together in anxiety. Finally the weather improves and Marion's husband comes back but not Hélène's and she must finally accept the truth.

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Burgundy, France. Solange's 60th birthday celebrations are violently interrupted by her estranged brother, Bernard. His outburst will reawaken painful memories and reveal untold stories of the Algerian War.

A hired labourer, Joseph, works on a farm inhabited by Monique, a war widow, and Jeanne, her captivating daughter who longs to escape to the big city.

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The story takes place in Carhaix, in the heart of Brittany. A small hospital, with a calm maternity clinic, where few births take place. Mathilde, a mid-wife, Firmine, a pediatric nurse, and Louise, the owner of the Carhaix bowling alley, are all friends and lead a happy existence. Catherine, director of the establishment's Human Resources, is sent to restructure the hospital and, most importantly, to eventually shut down the maternity clinic, which is losing money. Four women whose age, personalities, and origins are different, but who will form a quartet overflowing with humanity and humor as they join forces to save the clinic. Life, love, friendship, Brittany and... bowling.

Pierrette is a woman who describes herself as having "opted for the temporary on a permanent basis." After 15 years of living the good life in Switzerland, Pierrette one day packs her bags full of fashionable outfits and returns to her native Paris with no idea of what she'll do. Pierette, however, leads a charmed life; while her son is forced to work the graveyard shift at a factory due to poor job prospects, she's able to find a job right away at a high school. Pierrette soon reintroduces herself to her 23-year-old daughter and one-time best friend, trying to use her charm to skate over years of neglect. She just as suddenly finds a new beau, Ackerman, and starts helping him out with his antique business. However, what would seem like a simple matter -- buying a clock from an elderly woman -- soon turns out to be very complicated and fraught with consequence.

Martin and Gert lead a very quiet life, until the day when their path crosses that of Marie and Francis. Martin, the shy one, lets himself be seduced by Marie. Gert wasted no time in understanding and dropped into Francis' arms.

Shocked by the death of his ten-year-old son, a scientist conducts a successful cloning experiment.

On June 3, 1974, eight-year-old Marie-Dolorès Rambla was kidnapped in Marseille. The little girl's body was found a few days later. Christian Ranucci quickly became the prime suspect. A couple claimed to have seen him get out of a car at the spot where the body was discovered, carrying a large package. While in custody, Christian Ranucci confessed to the murder. But he eventually recanted his confession. His mother, Héloïse, convinced of his innocence, began a relentless fight to try to get him acquitted. It was a lost cause: Ranucci was sentenced to death and executed. When Patrick Henry's trial took place, Héloïse wrote a letter dictated by her conscience. Robert Badinter read it out in court. Héloïse begged that another mother, Patrick Henry's, be spared the torment she had endured...

The story of Georges Mandel, an anti-Nazi French parliamentarian who refused to abdicate to the Vichy regime.

Camille is an emancipated 30-something woman who has no desire to settle down and have a family, preferring to coast along on a succession of ephemeral relationships and one-night stands. However, her lifestyle fails to satisfy her fully, and in a moment of depression she runs into a complete stranger, Alexis, whom she instantly falls in love with. Alexis, alas, is married, with two children, and works for the Socialist Party. None of this is going to deter Camille though…

Elle est rousse. Elle est écossaise. Elle aime le rugby et la cornemuse. Elle vit à Londres, mais se considère en exil. Elle a un fichu caractère et une sacrée descente au whisky. Elle s’appelle Imogène Mc Carthery… du clan des McLeod !

Story of a snooty young critic at the centre of several plotlines which run throughout his apartment block.

The last vestiges of a family that has gone from cherry season to sorrow... Madame Ranevskaya is a spoiled, aging aristocrat who, upon returning from a trip to Paris, must face the loss of her magnificent Cherry Orchard estate after defaulting on her mortgage. In denial, she continues to live in the past, deluding herself and her family, while the magnificent cherry trees are chopped down by the new owner Lopakhin, her former serf, who has his own agenda.

Pattern never changes. She finds lonely, anonymous, almost invisible women doing menial jobs, becomes their friend and confidante and then kills them and takes their identity, their job and their apartment. Police investigator Judith Corel serves as bait in an attempt to trap the chameleon killer.