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There's nothing movie audiences love more than poking around in a character's brain, especially when said character is, well, not particularly well-adjusted. Since the birth of film, movies have been unpacking what makes people tick, using the psychological thriller genre -- which often verges on horror -- to delve into the inner workings of fascinating yet unsettling characters. Whether it's a serial killer, an abusive husband, or an obsessive housekeeper, these cinematic figures give our protagonists plenty to be dealing with as they unleash chaos on all who surround them. 

Dark, twisted, and often disturbing, the psychological thriller keeps audiences on the edge of their seats and constantly wrongfooted, as they attempt to parse the complexity of what they're seeing. This type of movie isn't the best choice to have playing on in the background while you're absentmindedly folding laundry or making dinner, but for the viewer who's willing to give it their full attention,...

Richard Gere began his professional film career in 1975, appearing in the crime thriller "Report to the Commissioner." In 1976 and 1977, he secured notable supporting roles in "Baby Blue Marine" and "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," before securing his first leading role in 1978's "Bloodbrothers," a coming-of-age drama about two Italian-American brothers living in the Bronx. That same year, Gere appeared in Terrence Malick's dreamy "Days of Heaven," more or less securing him as a permanent Hollywood fixture. Gere has been working steadily ever since, using his affable on-camera charm and approachable good looks to remain one of the industry's most reliable movie stars. His high-profile marriage to model Cindy Crawford in 1991 only added to the actor's status as a sex symbol.

Gere often takes roles that require more razzle-dazzle than deep acting range, but Gere has been nominated for Golden Globes and Emmys, and won a SAG Award, so he's no slouch as a thespian.

The year’s shortest month gets the biggest bang as Severin Films today announced their February 27th releases featuring uncensored 4K restorations of the infamous 1960’s western ‘roughies’ from the depraved minds of exploitation legends Bob Cresse and Lee Frost, Hot Spur and Scavengers.

‘“The Kings of esoteric boutique companies” (Video WatchBlog) are also proud to release – because Severin co-founder/president David Gregory considers it one of the best films he saw as a jury member at the FrightFest and Sitges Film Festivals – the North American disc premiere of director/co-writer Andrew Legge’s time-travel mind-bender, Lola.

Previous limited edition title Spider Labyrinth also enters wide release.

Here’s everything you need to know about Severin’s February 2024 lineup…

Hot Spur

Having struck gold with shockumentaries like Ecco and Mondo Bizarro, producer Bob Cresse and writer/director Lee Frost applied their distinctive sleaze aesthetic to a revenge western they advertised as “91 minutes of Freudian fury!

Sébastian Marnier’s psychological thriller Origin of Evil, starring Call My Agent! actress Laure Calamy as a factory worker who discovers the father she never knew is a wealthy businessman, opens Venice’s Horizons Extra sidebar on Thursday.

Embarrassed by her humble background when she meets her father and stepmother and sister in their luxury Mediterranean mansion, Calamy’s character pretends she is an entrepreneur on the verge of success. But nothing is as it seems and the lies begin to pile up.

Calamy was in Venice last year in Horizons title A Plein Temps for which she won the best actress award for her performance as a single mother trying to get to a job interview during a transport strike. Marnier was previously at Venice with the chilling drama School’s Out, starring Laurent Lafitte as a teacher in charge of a class of disturbed teenagers who witnessed his predecessor commit suicide.

Hello, everyone! We’re back with the final round of horror and sci-fi home media releases for the month of August, and we’ve got quite a few killer titles headed home today. Scream Factory is giving Paul Schrader’s Cat People remake a 4K overhaul in a brand-new Collector’s Edition release, and Severin Films is keeping busy with several titles today as well, including All About Evil and Fearless, and if you haven’t had a chance to check it out for yourself yet, Jane Schoenbrun’s extremely unsettling We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is headed to Blu-ray this week as well.

Other titles being released on August 30th include Arrow Video’s Giallo Essentials: 3-Disc Limited Edition Collection, Lux Aeterna, Satan’s Children, Jack Be Nimble featuring Alexis Arquette, The Oregonian, Raw Nerve, and Shriek of the Mutilated.

All About Evil: 2-Disc Special Edition

It's...

Celebrated actor was married three times, loved motor racing.

Jean-Louis Trintignant, a leading light of the French New Wave who broke out in Claude Lelouch’s A Man And A Woman and later in life starred in Michael Haneke’s Amour, has died. He was 91.

According to Agence France-Presse Trintignant died on Friday (June 17) at his home in the southern region of Gard. His wife Marianne Hoepfner was with him.

Trintignant was born on December 11 1930 in the southern Vaucluse region to businessman Raoul and Claire. As a shy man in his 20s – his personality would inform a personal aversion to...

To mark the release of the restoration of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie on 20th June, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on Blu-ray.

This virtually plotless tale of six middle-class guests and their interrupted attempts to have a meal together stars Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur (The Phantom Of Liberty), Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier (L’Amour Fou), Stéphane Audran and Jean-Pierre Cassel (Murder On The Orient Express) and was the recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar as well as two BAFTA awards on its release in 1972.

Buñuel’s humorous satire depicts a group of friends – the Thévenots, the Sénéchals, Madame Thévenot’s younger sister Florence and Latin American ambassador Don Rafael Acosta – make repeated attempts to dine together, but are constantly frustrated by bizarre interruptions, including a series of dreams.

Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only

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"I don't think I belong here." The Film Forum in NYC has revealed an official 4K restoration trailer for the iconic, surrealist masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of the great Luis Buñuel's final films. It originally premiered in 1972, which means it's celebrating its 50th anniversary this year in 2022. It's highly regarded as a cerebral classic dealing with time travel and the bourgeoisie and their never-ending appetite. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie follows a group of dinner guests attempting to dine together, despite continual interruptions involving dreams and repeating scenes. The film is described as Bunuel's "most frivolously witty movie, directed (at the age of 72) with exhilarating ease." The French film stars Fernando Rey, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier, Julien Bertheau, and Milena Vukotic. It's one of the most confusing films you'll ever see, but that's also part of the "discreet charm" of figuring it out,...

Claude Chabrol was the most prolific of the New Wave directors. He didn’t only do murder thrillers; this fine selection of Chabrols from the ten year period 1985-1994 begins with a pair of detective tales but moves on to a masterful adaptation of a great book and two engrossing experiments, one of them picking up where an earlier French master left off. The players are terrific as well: Jean Poiret, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Claude Brialy, Bernadette Lafont, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-François Balmer, Christophe Malavoy, Jean Yanne, Marie Trintignant, Jean-François Garreaud, Emmanuelle Béart, François Cluzet.

Lies and Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol

Blu-ray

Cop au Vin (Poulet au vinaigre), Inspector Lavardin (Inspecteur Lavardin), Madame Bovary, Betty, Torment (L’enfer)

Arrow Video

1985-1994 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 9 hours and 17 minutes / Street Date February 22, 2022 / Available from Arrow Video (UK website) / Available from Amazon U.S. / 99.95

Common Credits:

Cinematography: Jean Rabier (3), Bernard Ziterman (2)

Production Designer:...

Claude Chabrol’s ‘minor’ wartime drama is one of the best movies of its kind I’ve seen. A French town under German rule lies on a river straddling occupied and Vichy territories, and becomes a hotbed of intrigues. Yes, there’s resistance activity, but we also see that most people avoid involvement — and some find ways to profit from the desperation of refugees fleeing the Nazis. It’s a case of small town, everyday terror. The stellar cast is subordinated to the powerful, non-exploitative drama: Jean Seberg, Maurice Ronet, Daniel Gélin, Jacques Perrin & Stéphane Audran. Samm Deighan’s informative commentary is a big +Plus.

Line of Demarcation

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1966 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La ligne de démarcation / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean Seberg, Maurice Ronet, Daniel Gélin, Jacques Perrin, Stéphane Audran, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Claude Léveillée, Roger Dumas, Jean Yanne, Jean-Louis Maury, Pierre Gualdi,...

All hail the cinematic delights of Luis Buñuel, a world-class directing genius whose work ranges from insightfully impish to point-blank outrageous. Driven from Spain by Fascists and from New York by commie hunters, he found a cinematic haven in Mexico, adapting his surreal mindset to popular film forms. These final three French features embrace the surrealist ethos, where a coherent narrative is optional. We definitely recognize our ‘rational’ world; Buñuel’s high art simply tells the truth.

Three Films by Luis Buñuel

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object of Desire

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 102. 290, 143

1972-1977 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 5, 2021 / 99.95

Cinematography: Edmond Richard

Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy

Film Editor: Hélène Plemiannikov

Written by Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière

Produced by Serge Silberman

Directed by Luis Buñuel

Tracking down the films of Luis Buñuel has been an ongoing effort.

The Criterion Collection will be heralding in 2021 with a mix of new and old. First up, Bing Liu’s stellar documentary Minding the Gap will be joining the collection, as will another documentary, Martin Scorsese’s playful Rolling Thunder Revue. Also arriving is a three-film Luis Buñuel box set focusing on his late career, featuring The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire. Larisa Shepitko’s final, harrowing feature The Ascent will also be getting a release.

Check out the cover art and special features below, and see more on Criterion’s website.

New high-definition digital master, approved by director Bing Liu, with 5.1 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-rayNew audio commentary featuring Liu and documentary subjects Keire Johnson and Zack MulliganNew follow-up conversation between Liu and documentary subject Nina BowgrenNew programs featuring interviews with professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and with Liu,...

Sideways and Downsizing director Alexander Payne has found his next project in directing a remake of the 1987 European drama Babette's Feast. It's been two years since Payne's last feature, Downsizing, was on the big screen back in 2017. Now, the award-nominated director is seemingly looking to break new ground in tackling this late '80s classic. [caption id="attachment_853668" align="alignright" width="360"] Image via Orion Classics/caption] As reported by Indiewire (via Deadline), Payne will be directing "a reimagining" of Babette's Feast, which originally starred French actor Stéphane Audran as Babette, a French …...

Christian Petzold: "Transit is the first movie in 20 years where the main character is a male." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Christian Petzold joined me for a conversation at the Film Society of Lincoln Center when he was in New York for Carte Blanche: Christian Petzold Selects and a sneak preview screening of Transit. He brought up Claude Chabrol's work with Stéphane Audran and Isabelle Huppert. Julia Hummer and Nina Hoss, George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, Alex Brendemühl, a Franz Kafka-like "hell construction" in Anna Seghers' novel and the books of William Burroughs also emerged.

Marie (Paula Beer) with Georg (Franz Rogowski) in Transit

Shot by his longtime cinematographer Hans Fromm, Transit is Christian Petzold's "first movie in 20 years where the main character is a male" and he found himself "very...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Anna-Lisa (1933-2018) - Norwegian Actress. She was best known for TV's Black Saddle but she also appears in the sci-fi comedy films 12 to the Moon and Have Rocket -- Will Travel. She died on March 21. (Dagbladet) Stéphane Audran (1932-2018) - French Actress. She won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for her performance in Luis Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and received nominations for her work as the title character...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThis year the Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des réalisateurs) in Cannes is celebrating its 50th anniversery. The poster for this year's festival uses a photo by William Klein, whose film The Pan-African Festival of Algiers was in the 1971 edition.Recommended VIEWINGThe trailer for Paul Schrader's fabulous new film First Reformed. Our critics raved about it (here and here) last year from the Toronto International Film Festival.Recommended READINGThe last interview Hollywood filmmaker Nicolas Ray (Johnny Guitar) recorded was in 1979 with Sarah Fatima Parsons and Kathryn Bigelow. The Italian film magazine La Furia Umana has the full text in English.With last week's release of Ready Player One getting all fans of Steven Spielberg in a tizzy, the A.V. Club has run a compendium of the best set pieces of the director's career.The Courtisane...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe great French actor Stéphane Audran has died at the age of 85. David Hudson provides a thoughtful remembrance and career overview for The Daily.Following their producer-director collaboration on Amazon's underrated Red Oaks series, 90s contemporaries Gregg Araki and Steven Soderbergh are re-teaming for a most promising new Starz series entitled Now Apocalypse. Recommended VIEWINGFilm critic and Museum of Modern Art curator Dave Kehr investigates the many aspects that compose a western, and more largely, the genre's influence, origins, legacy, and future, in this wonderful video essay:The first trailer for Under the Silver Lake, David Robert Mitchell's long anticipated (and Thomas Pynchon inspired?) follow up to It Follows:Kino Lorber is re-releasing Personal Problems, a forgotten masterwork by Bill Gunn (Ganja & Hess) and an early and essential experiment in video filmmaking. Here's...

Star of Babette’s Feast who shone in the films of her husband Claude Chabrol

Of all the director-and-star couples in the history of cinema, there was none more prolific than Claude Chabrol and Stéphane Audran, who made 23 films together. Chabrol also directed Audran as Lady Macbeth at a theatre in Versailles, near Paris, in 1964, the year of their marriage. In her husband’s films, Audran, who has died aged 85, perfected her portrayal of the bourgeois Frenchwoman – graceful, aloof, intelligent, reserved and yet passionate. She dominated Chabrol’s films for more than two decades from 1960, often playing adulterous and/or betrayed wives called Hélène.

The “Hélène cycle” – variations on the theme of marital infidelity leading to murder – in which Audran played a wife caught between two characters, usually called Charles and Paul, began with La Femme Infidèle (The Unfaithful Wife, 1969). Chabrol seemed to draw mischievous pleasure from directing his wife in such roles.

Stephane Audran, an icon of French New Wave cinema who starred in movies by auteurs Eric Rohmer, Luis Bunuel and Claude Chabrol, has died at 85.

Her son, actor Thomas Chabrol, told the AFP news agency that Audran, who was the second wife of Claude Chabrol for 16 years to 1980, had died early Tuesday, following a long illness. "She (Audran) had been in hospital for 10 days and she had returned home. She died peacefully at around 2 a.m.," he said.

Audran's more memorable film roles include Chabrol's 1970 film Le Boucher, Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of......

One of Stéphane Audran’s best-known roles as the cook in Babette’s Feast Photo: UniFrance

Veteran French actress Stéphane Audran, who was a favoured collaborator with the late Claude Chabrol, has died at the age of 85.

Audran, whose son Thomas announced the news of his mother’s death after a long illness today (27 March 2018), married Chabrol (his second wife) and they were together from 1964 to 1980.

Her golden years were in the 1960s and 1970s when she appeared in such titles as Les Biches, a huge success for Chabrol in which Audran won the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Stéphane Audran has died at the age of 85 - after a long illness. Photo: UniFrance

Although she worked frequently with Chabrol she also appeared under the direction of Claude Sautet in Vincent, François, Paul et les autres and with Michel Audiard in Comment Réussir Quand On Est Con Et Pleurnichard.

She was well-known for her long creative partnership with husband Claude Chabrol.

French actress Stéphane Audran, who starred in The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie and Babette’s Feast, has died aged 85.

Their son, actor Thomas Chabrol, told Afp: “She had been ill for some time. She had been in hospital for 10 days and she had returned home. She died peacefully at around 2 am [on Tuesday 27 March]”.

The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie and Babette’s Feast both won best foreign film at the Oscars. She won best actress at the Baftas for the former and was nominated again for the latter.

French actress and BAFTA winner Stéphane Audran, who starred in films by Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Bertrand Tavernier and Luis Bunuel, has died. Her son, the actor Thomas Chabrol, told Afp she passed away overnight following an illness. She was 85. Audran, whose real name was Colette Dacheville, is known for her long collaboration with Claude Chabrol to whom she was married from 1964-1980. She also starred in Bunuel’s 1972 comedy The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie…...

Michel Serrault, like his co-star here, Isabelle Adjani, used to be in everything. As ubiquitous as Depardieu. La cage aux folles might be his best-known film. Despite his omnipresence, he seems surprising casting as a private eye known only as "the Eye," but then he does have inverted Vs for eyebrows, just like Hammett's description of Sam Spade.The Eye has a class photograph of a group of schoolgirls. He's talking to his ex-wife on the phone. She won't tell him which one is his daughter. He guesses wrong. He'll be allowed another guess in a year. There are about thirty kids to choose from.What a brilliant opening scene! We'll forgive the strutting eighties music and neo-noir Venetian blind shadows. This is a film besotted with movie-ness and wallowing in plot contrivance, but it's also perverse, haunted and romantic. The Eye is warned against letting his new case get too complicated.

Being called the French Hitchcock does Claude Chabrol a disservice, as his dark thrillers approach mystery and suspense almost completely through character, not cinematics. These three very good 1990s productions are completely different in tone and approach, and each showcases a stunning French actress.

Betty, Torment (L’enfer), The Swindle (Rien ne vas plus)

Blu-ray

3 Classic Films by Claude Chabrol

Cohen Film Collection

1992,1994,1997 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 103, 102, 105 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / 49.99

Starring Marie Trintignant, Stéphane Audran, Jean-François Garreaud, Yves Lambrecht; Emmanuelle Béart, François Cluzet, Nathalie Cardone, Dora Doll; Isabelle Huppert, Michel Serrault, François Cluzet, Jean-François Balmer.

Cinematography: Bernard Zitermann; Bernard Zitermann, Eduardo Serra

Film Editor: Monique Fardoulis (x3)

Original Music: Matthieu Chabrol (x3)

Written by Claude Chabrol from a novel by Georges Simenon; Claude Chabrol from a script by Henri-Georges Clouzot; Claude Chabrol

Produced by Marin Karmitz (x3)

Directed by Claude Chabrol (x3)

Not all Claude Chabrol films are equal, but...

Ten strangers. One hotel. One item on the agenda: murder. Tensions escalate as the body count rises in Peter Collinson's And Then There Were None, a 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians that's coming out on Blu-ray with a new HD master from Scorpion Releasing, Variety Films, and Kino Video in 2017.

From Scorpion Releasing: "Scorpion Releasing, in conjunction with Variety Films, coming in 2017, from a brand new 2016 HD master, Peter Collinson's Ten Little Indians (aka And There Were None) starring Oliver Reed, Richard Attenborough, Herbert Lom, Elke Sommers, Maria Rohm, Stephane Audran, Charles Aznavour, Gert Frobe, Adolfo Celi and Orson Welles. It will be released on DVD and BluRay, and sold at retailers via Kino."

Synopsis (via Blu-ray.com): "A group is invited, under false pretenses, to an isolated hotel in the Iranian desert. After dinner, a cassette tape accuses them all of crimes that they have gotten away with.

The irrepressible Sam Fuller fashions a crime thriller for German TV with his expected eccentricity: old-fashioned hardboiled scripting, freeform direction and bits of graffiti from the French New Wave. Christa Lang is the femme fatale and Glenn Corbett is the twofisted American hero, whose name is Not Griff. And yes, a pigeon does bite the pavement on Beethoven Street, and I tell you, that's one dead pigeon. Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street Blu-ray Olive Films 1974 / Color / 1:33 flat full frame (for German TV / 127 min. / Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße / Street Date April 19, 2016 / / available through the Olive Films website / 29.95 Starring Glenn Corbett, Christa Lang, Sieghardt Rupp, Anton Diffring, Stéphane Audran, Alexander D'Arcy, Anthony Chinn. Cinematography Jerzy Lipman Film Editor Liesgret Schmitt-Klink Original Music The Can German dialogue by Manfred R. Köhler Produced by Joachim von Mengershausen Written and Directed by Samuel Fuller

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Not that it helped Sam Fuller's career much,...

'And Then There Were None' movie with Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, June Duprez, Louis Hayward and Roland Young. 'And Then There Were None' movie remake to be directed by Oscar nominee Morten Tyldum One of the best-known Agatha Christie novels, And Then There Were None will be getting another big-screen transfer. 20th Century Fox has acquired the movie rights to the literary suspense thriller first published in the U.K. (as Ten Little Niggers) in 1939. Morten Tyldum, this year's Best Director Academy Award nominee for The Imitation Game, is reportedly set to direct. The source for this story is Deadline.com, which adds that Tyldum himself “helped hone the pitch” for the acquisition while Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010, The Thing 2011) will handle the screenplay adaptation. And Then There Were None is supposed to have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, thus holding the...

Luis Buñuel movies on TCM tonight (photo: Catherine Deneuve in 'Belle de Jour') The city of Paris and iconoclastic writer-director Luis Buñuel are Turner Classic Movies' themes today and later this evening. TCM's focus on Luis Buñuel is particularly welcome, as he remains one of the most daring and most challenging filmmakers since the invention of film. Luis Buñuel is so remarkable, in fact, that you won't find any Hollywood hipster paying homage to him in his/her movies. Nor will you hear his name mentioned at the Academy Awards – no matter the Academy in question. And rest assured that most film critics working today have never even heard of him, let alone seen any of his movies. So, nowadays Luis Buñuel is un-hip, un-cool, and unfashionable. He's also unquestionably brilliant. These days everyone is worried about freedom of expression. The clash of civilizations. The West vs. The Other.

Marie Dubois, actress in French New Wave films, dead at 77 (image: Marie Dubois in the mammoth blockbuster 'La Grande Vadrouille') Actress Marie Dubois, a popular French New Wave personality of the '60s and the leading lady in one of France's biggest box-office hits in history, died Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at a nursing home in Lescar, a suburb of the southwestern French town of Pau, not far from the Spanish border. Dubois, who had been living in the Pau area since 2010, was 77. For decades she had been battling multiple sclerosis, which later in life had her confined to a wheelchair. Born Claudine Huzé (Claudine Lucie Pauline Huzé according to some online sources) on January 12, 1937, in Paris, the blue-eyed, blonde Marie Dubois began her show business career on stage, being featured in plays such as Molière's The Misanthrope and Arthur Miller's The Crucible. François Truffaut discovery: 'Shoot the...

Coming to Blu-ray for the first time from the Cohen Media Group, Claude Chabrol’s late career thriller, Nightcap (better known by its French title, Merci Pour Le Chocolat) is often lumped into conversation as merely one of the seven films the director made with actress Isabelle Huppert. While it is certainly outshined by some of their finer achievements together (particularly The Story of Women and La Ceremonie), it stands firmly on its own as an odd exercise that’s more character study than murder mystery. Chabrol seems amused at the convention and convenience of the narrative, supplied by Charlotte Armstrong’s nonsensically titled 1948 novel The Chocolate Cobweb. Armstrong was in high regard in the 1950’s (her novel Don’t Bother to Knock was turned into a very strange Marilyn Monroe vehicle in 1952), and Chabrol seems keen on retaining the rather deliberate ambience from a tradition of genre gone by.

Even after nearly two decades of short films, documentaries and the success of his 1968 feature debut, L’enfance Nue, director Maurice Pialat’s celebrated sophomore feature, We Won’t Grow Old Together never received a theatrical release stateside, despite also winning a Best Actor award for Jean Yanne at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Remastered for an exciting Blu-ray release from Kino Classics, it’s a title ripe for reconsideration in the cinematic canon. Pialat’s filmography has proven to be a major influence on countless emerging artists, with the likes of Ira Sachs, Alex Ross Perry and a slew of others directly citing the filmmaker as inspiration for their own output.

We Won’t Grow Old Together basically features a string of interactions between an aging film director, Jean (Jean Yanne), and his much younger mistress, Catherine (Marlene Jobart). We assume they met when she had vague aspirations to become...

Taking home the Queer Palm and the Un Certain Regard Directing Award after its 2013 Cannes premiere, (not to mention a Cesar for Pierre Deladonchamps for Most Promising Actor), the scintillating Stranger By the Lake makes its way to Blu-ray, where it will hopefully continue to transcend the norm of settling quietly into the niche of the gay ghetto. A scandalous outburst in conservative Versailles concerning a small detail in the background of the original French poster art notwithstanding, it’s enjoyed a delightful amount of critical acclaim.

Idiosyncratic filmmaker Alain Guiraudie took the art house by storm with his bold, unsettling, and provocative new film, Stranger By the Lake. Already infamous after its Cannes premiere for its graphic and blatantly nonchalant depictions of gay sex, Guiraudie may be one of the few voices to tread bravely in the footsteps of Derek Jarman with this latest film, transcending polite labels like homoeroticism for an honest,...

We move into the top 20 now, where the films become incredibly spiritual. One major component seen in many of these religious films: the overtones meant to instill a sense of mystery and wonder. You see it in films set in both sweeping landscapes and intimate settings. Whether or not any of the films on this list are condoning the acceptance or rejection of faith and religion is almost beside the point. The real point is that it is so influential on our culture that movies will always be made about it.

courtesy of lassothemovies.com

20. Babette’s Feast (1987)

Directed by Gabriel Axel

The 1987 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner (beating Au Revoir Les Enfants), Babette’s Feast is the story of two devout Christian sisters whose father – the leader of a small Christian sect in Denmark – has died. Unfortunately, Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodjil Kjer) find they have no way to gain new members,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 22, 2014

Price: DVD $39.98, Blu-ray $49.98

Studio: Cohen Media

Lean Poiret (l.) is on the case as Inspector Lavardin in Chicken with Vinegar.

The Inspector Lavardin Collection offers two mystery-suspense films from French filmmaker Claude Chabrol (Les Cousins) — Chicken With Vinegar (1985) and its sequel, Inspector Lavardin (1986), as well as two Lavardin television films by Chabrol.

In Chicken With Vinegar, based on the novel Une mort en trop by Dominique Roulet, a cruel invalid (Stéphane Audran, Babette’s Feast) who consistently terrorizes her teen son into abject obedience, is threatened with the loss of her home by a conniving trio who want her property as part of a deal for a lucrative development project. After several of the principal figures suffer grisly deaths, Lavardin (Jean Poiret, La Cage aux Folles) arrives to get to the bottom of it all.

The two additional Lavardin mysteries—The Black Snail (1988) and Danger...

Screwball comedy movies, rare screenings of epic box office disaster: Library of Congress’ Packard Theater in April 2014 (photo: Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in ‘The Awful Truth’) In April 2014, the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theater in Culpeper, Virginia, will celebrate Hollywood screwball comedy movies, from the Marx Brothers’ antics to Peter Bogdanovich’s early ’70s homage What’s Up, Doc?, a box office blockbuster starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. Additionally, the Packard Theater will present a couple of rarities, including an epoch-making box office disaster that led to the demise of a major studio. Among Packard’s April 2014 screwball comedies are the following: Leo McCarey’s Duck Soup (Saturday, April 5) — actually more zany, wacky, and totally insane than merely "screwball" — in which Groucho Marx stars as the recently (un)elected dictator of Freedonia, abetted by siblings Harpo Marx and Chico Marx, in addition to Groucho’s perennial foil,...

Oscar-winning Danish director of Babette's Feast

In April 1988, a week before his 70th birthday, the film director Gabriel Axel, who has died aged 95, walked up on stage at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles to receive the best foreign language film Oscar for Babette's Feast (1987), the first Danish movie to achieve that honour. In a mixture of Danish and French, the slim, grey-bearded, bespectacled Axel quoted a line from the character of the General in the film: "Because of this evening, I have learned, my dear, that in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible."

It was the pinnacle of Axel's long career and marked the beginning of a resurgence of Danish cinema. (Another Danish film, Bille August's Pelle the Conqueror, won the foreign language Oscar the following year.) Despite several fine films, there was previously little in Axel's oeuvre to predict the perfection of Babette's Feast.

Gabriel Axel, director of the film Babette’s Feast which made him the first Dane to win an Oscar for best foreign film, has died. He was 95.

His daughter, Karin Moerch, said in a statement that he died on Sunday. She did not say where he died or the cause of death.

Axel divided his time between France and Denmark, where he directed television series and movies. He also acted in several films.

Axel had his big international breakthrough in 1987 with Babette's Feast, based on the novel of the same name by Danish author Karen Blixen. It starred French actress Stephane Audran.

Wet Hot French Summer: Guiraudie’s Bold, Scintillating New Film

Idiosyncratic filmmaker Alain Guiraudie is set to take the art house by storm with his bold, unsettling, and provocative new film, Stranger By the Lake. Already infamous after its Cannes premiere for its graphic and blatantly nonchalant depictions of gay sex, Guiraudie may be one of the few voices to tread bravely in the footsteps of Derek Jarman with this latest film, transcending polite labels like homoeroticism for an honest, introspective, and even morbid portrait of normative tendencies in the sexual lives of gay men. Perhaps most astoundingly, he manages to create a non-judgmental, even moving portrayal of the search for acceptance, love, and creature comfort over the course of one sun baked summer on the gay side of the beach—albeit it one darkly foreboding one.

We first see a handful of cars parked lazily within a secluded wooded area,...

‘Bad Hair’ day at San Sebastian Film Festival: Venezuelan film wins Golden Shell (photo: Samuel Lange Zambrano in ‘Bad Hair’) Mariana Rondón’s Bad Hair / Pelo malo won the Golden Shell at the 2013 San Sebastian Film Festival, which wrapped up today, September 28, in northern Spain’s coastal city also known as Donostia (in Basque). The Venezuelan / Peruvian / German co-production tells the story of a nine-year-old boy (Samuel Lange Zambrano) with "bad hair," who decides to have his unruly curls molded pop-singer style (Justin Bieber’s?) for his yearbook picture. His mother (Samantha Castillo), however, is against it — the boy’s new hairdo is just not manly enough. Family conflicts ensue. The San Sebastian Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize went to newcomer Fernando Franco’s Wounded / La herida, a Spanish drama about a 30-year-old ambulance driver whose life falls to pieces as a consequence of her undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder.

European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award: Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Judi Dench are the only three female recipients to date (photo: European movies’ Lifetime Achievement Award-less actress Danielle Darrieux) (See previous post: "Catherine Deneuve: Only the Third Woman to Receive European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.") As mentioned in the previous post, French film icon Catherine Deneuve is only the third woman to receive the European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award since the organization’s first awards ceremony in 1988. Deneuve’s predecessors are The Lovers‘ Jeanne Moreau (1997) and Notes on a Scandal‘s Judi Dench (2008). In that regard, the European Film Academy is as male-oriented as the Beverly Hills-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. More on that below. Male recipients of the European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award are the following: Ingmar Bergman, Marcello Mastroianni, Federico Fellini, Andrzej Wajda, Alexandre Trauner, Billy Wilder,...

The title Babette's Feast doesn't immediately jump out at me as a film I need to see immediately, but to know this Danish film bested Au Revoir Les Enfants (read my Blu-ray review here) at the 1988 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film certainly causes me to change my mind. While I wouldn't say director Gabriel Axel's film is better than Malle's Enfants, which is a personal all-timer of mine, but it is a multi-layered story with drama in corners you can't expect heading in. Adapted from the 1950 short story of the same name (read it here) by Karen Blixen (writing as Isak Denisen who also wrote the story that inspired Out of Africa), the film takes place in a small village in 19th century Denmark, a town Denisen described as a "child's toy-town of little wooden pieces". The story centers on two sisters who grew up here under the watchful eye of their father,...

The Belgian-born Georges Simenon (1903-1989) wrote over 200 novels (by Wikipedia's count) plus many shorter works. The New York Times estimates that number (including his memoirs and nonfiction works) as being between 400 and 500. Simenon's creation, Inspector Jules Maigret, who appeared in about 75 works, "ranks only after Sherlock Holmes as the world's best known fictional detective." (I'm not sure how Poirot feels about that.) Of course, such popularity could not be overlooked by the entertainment industry, and imdb.com has compiled a list of 132 movies and TV shows based on his oeuvre. And now the Anthology Archives, with Kathy Geritz and the Pacific Film Archive, is presenting 14 of these celluloid joys within the series appropriately entitled Cine-Simenon: George Simenon on Film, which runs until August 21st.

Before viewing the celluloid Simenon, I decided to nestle down with the textural Simenon, and within a week, I had plowed through five of his works,...

Babette’s Feast won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1987 and was the first Danish production to ever take the prestigious award. It started a hot streak of sorts, when the following year Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror pretty much ran the table, claiming the Oscar, the Palme d’Or and the Golden Globe, further confirming to the world that the Danish film industry had arrived. While the Danes would not win another Oscar until 2010, for Susanne Bier’s In a Better World, this tiny nation of just under six million souls has become a capital of cinematic creativity, boasting such talented filmmakers as Lars van Trier, Per Fly, Anders Thomas Jensen and Nicolas Winding Refn, to name a few. If the grand moralist dirges of Carl Th. Dreyer define Danish cinema of the WWII generation, then Babette’s Feast must be considered the nation’s inspirational...

Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week

"Ginger & Rosa"

What's It About? Sally Potter's ("Orlando") film follows two inseparable teenage girls, Ginger (Elle Fanning) and Rosa (Alice Englert) during the onset of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1960s London. While Ginger's interests lie in protests and poetry, Rosa's are different, including Ginger's father (Alessandro Nivola).

Why We're In: While Fanning steals the film with a strong and powerful performance, "Ginger & Rosa" also has a largely talented cast including Annette Bening, Oliver Platt, Christina Hendricks, and Timothy Spall. Potter's film is both a moving, coming-of-age story as well as a detailed look at the politics and tension of the era.

Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week

"Pieta"

What's It About? From South Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, ("Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring"), "Pieta" is both a brutal and heartfelt story of an isolated, merciless loan shark who violently threatens his borrowers for payback money.

Cinema is a kind of uber-art form that’s made up of a multitude of other forms of art including writing, directing, acting, drawing, design, photography and fashion. As such, film is, as all cinema aficionados know, a highly collaborative venture.

One of the most consistently fascinating collaborations in cinema is that of the director and actor.

This article will examine some of the great director & actor teams. It’s important to note that this piece is not intended as a film history survey detailing all the generally revered collaborations.

There is a wealth of information and study available on such duos as John Ford & John Wayne, Howard Hawks & John Wayne, Elia Kazan & Marlon Brando, Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart, Ingmar Bergman & Max Von Sydow, Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina/Marcello Mastroianni, Billy Wilder & Jack Lemmon, Francis Ford Coppola & Al Pacino, Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Martin Scorsese & Robert DeNiro...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 23, 2013

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

The 1987 Danish film drama Babette’s Feast, an Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Language Film, is at once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food.

Directed by Gabriel Axel and adapted from a story by Isak Dinesen, the movie relates the layered tale of a French housekeeper (Stephane Audran) with a mysterious past who brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late 19th Century Denmark.

Babette’s Feast combines earthiness and reverence in its mouth-watering depiction of fooooooooood! It’s quite a pleasure to digest…!

Presented in Danish with English subtitles, the Criterion Blu-ray and DVD editions of Babette’s Feast contain the following features:

• New 2K digital film restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray...

In 19th Century Denmark, two sisters live in a quiet and isolated village with their aging father, a local pastor who leads a faithful congregation of believers. A couple of gentleman suitors pass through, but they are rebuffed as the father insists his daughters are essential to his work. Several decades later, their father has passed and the two sisters live out an unassuming existence of kindness and simplicity, continuing their father’s ministry.

One day a French lady arrives on their doorstep, having fled danger in Paris and asking if she might find shelter and work as their housekeeper. Many years later, as a thank you for their kindness, the housekeeper offers to cook a sumptuous banquet for the sisters and their now slightly disgruntled congregation. All concerned are alarmed by the possibility of strange food, decadent wine and all manner of departures from their hitherto austere simplicity. But...

Spanish director dies following a stroke: Best known for his nearly two hundred underground, "exploitation" films "I think I was born because my father and my mother had sex ... ." Nope, that has nothing to do with the anti-censorship lectured delivered by Oz the Great and Powerful and Interior. Leather Bar's James Franco online. The words above were uttered by another Franco, a Spaniard. No, not the foaming-at-the-mouth right-wing military ruler Francisco Franco, but multitasking filmmaker Jesús Franco, aka Jess Franco aka dozens of other aliases, including those in honor of jazz performers Clifford Brown and James P. Johnson. His oeuvre included about 200 films, among them The White Slave, The Sexual History of O, Macumba Sexual, , Emmanuelle Exposed, Vampyros Lesbos, The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, and White Cannibal Queen. The director died today in Malaga, a city in southern Spain, after suffering a stroke. According to reports, he had never truly...

Odd List Aliya Whiteley Feb 19, 2013

Covering 85 years of cinema, Aliya provides her pick of 25 stylish, must-see French movies...

I’m going to kick this off in best New-Wave style by pointing out that we should be praising each great director’s body of work rather than showcasing favourite movies in a list format; after all, France came up with the concept of the auteur filmmaker, stamping their personality on a film, using the camera to portray their version of the world.

Yeah, well, personality is everything. So here’s a highly personal choice, arranged in chronological order, of 25 of the most individualistic French films. They may be long or short, old or new, but they all have one thing in common – they’ve got directorial style. And by that I don’t mean their shoes match their handbags.

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928)

There are no stirring battle scenes,...

Gabriel Axel was 70 when, in 1987, he rose above accomplished run-of-the-mill movies to make this cinematic, gastronomic treat starring Stéphane Audran, Claude Chabrol's former wife, as a great French cook fleeing from the confusions of the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris commune in 1870, and settling in a remote corner of Scandinavia. Her kindly hosts run an austere community for the elderly that rejects all worldly pleasures, and Babette proves a devoted servant. But after winning a lottery she decides to tickle their palates with the meal of a lifetime, a blowout that makes most TV gourmet programmes look like a Bowery soup kitchen. It's a flawless adaptation of the story Isak Dinesen (pseudonym of Karen Blixen) wrote for a bet that she could be published in the popular middlebrow Saturday Evening Post. She lost, but the story was accepted by the more discerning Ladies' Home Journal. The film version, re-released here for the 25th anniversary,...