The best Christophe Odent’s movies

From the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York's most famous concert halls, Edith Piaf's life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in her grandmother's brothel, Piaf was discovered in 1935 by nightclub owner Louis Leplee, who persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Piaf became one of France's immortal icons, her voice one of the indelible signatures of the 20th century.

The story of Jean Valjean, a Frenchman convicted of minor crimes, who is hounded for years by an unforgiving and unrelenting police inspector, Javert.

In Paris, the international police force and the Russian mafia are chasing Anthony Zimmer, an intelligent man responsible for laundry of dirty money in France. Zimmer had extensive plastic surgery, and his new face and voice are completely unknown. The only means to reach Zimmer is through his beloved mistress Chiara, who is under surveillance of the police and the mobsters. While traveling by train to the country nearby Nice, the common man François Taillandier, who has the same body shape of Zimmer, is select by Chiara as if he were Zimmer and used as a bait to lure those that are pursuing her. When Taillandier is chased by the professional Russian killers, he runs the French police when the real situation begins to be disclosed to him. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Benjamin is meant to be a great doctor, he’s certain of it. But his first experience as a junior doctor in the hospital ward where his father works doesn’t turn out the way he hoped it would. Responsibility is overwhelming, his father is all but present, and his co-junior partner, a foreign doctor, is far more experimented than he is. This internship will force Benjamin to confront his limits… and start his way to adulthood.

In a time of war and disease, a young officer gallantly tries to help a young woman find her husband.

The protagonist is Carmen X, a female member of a terrorist gang. She asks her uncle Jean, a washed-up film director if she can borrow his beachside house to make a film with some friends, but they are in fact planning to rob a bank. During the robbery she falls in love with a security guard. The film intercuts between Carmen's escape with the guard, her uncle's attempt to make a comeback film, and a string quartet attempting to perform Beethoven.

All the people in this countryside area, can count on Jean-Pierre, the doctor who auscultates them, heals and reassures them day and night, 7 days a week. Now Jean-Pierre is sick, so he sees Natalie, a young doctor, coming from the hospital to assist him. But will she adapt to this new life and be able to replace the man that believed to be irreplaceable?

A portrait of youth in bloom; a tale of one family's dissolution; a reflection upon the danger and the mystery in living. Sandrine Bonnaire plays Suzanne, a free spirit and the vessel for an almost Brontëan choler. She's 16, and men exist — diverse lovers, an overbearing brother, and the father portrayed by director Maurice Pialat himself in an unforgettable turn that displays the full magnitude of the cinema giant's tenderness, force-of-will, and presence of being.

Into the solitary life of middle-aged hitman, Victor Meynard, come two people: Antoine, a youth who becomes Victor's apprentice, and Renée, a bold thief Victor's been hired to kill because she cheated a mobster. When circumstances prevent Victor from killing her, the gangster sends two more teams to do it (and to dispatch Victor and Antoine). Victor decides to help Renée, and the unlikely trio ends up at his house with his temperamental mother; there, as they hide out, Victor's attraction to Renée grows, she discovers his vocation and fears he's going to kill her, and an ultimate showdown with their hunters is inevitable.

Vincent and Nefeli just moved in together. They're best friends and swore to never fall in love again. That is until Vincent meets Julie.

January, 1920. 350,000 French soldiers remain missing in action. Major Dellaplane tirelessly matches the dead and the wounded with families' descriptions. Honor and ethics drive him; he hates the idea of "the unknown soldier." Into his sector, looking for her husband, comes a haughty, politically connected Parisian, Madame Irène de Courtil. Brusquely, Dellaplane offers her 1/350,000th of his time, but as their paths cross and she sees his courage and resolve, feelings change. After he finds a surprising connection between her missing husband and a local teacher, Irène makes Dellaplane an offer. This man of action hesitates: has he missed his only chance?

Composed entirely of literary quotations from many different sources and from several historical periods, the loose narrative concerns a drifter found by a rich woman who soon falls in love with him. A drowning accident takes place and the drifter dies, but some time later he reappears in the woman’s life looking for a job. Or could it be the man’s twin brother?

The film is about the French film industry from 1942 to 1944 during the Nazi occupation. The film focuses on assistant director and resistance fighter Jean Devaivre and screenwriter Jean Aurenche. Aurenche is on the move so that he doesn't have to write anything collaborationist. Devaivre is in dangerous political activity. Devaivre also works for the German production company Continental where he is respected. On the other hand, Aurenche's scriptwriting doesn't help how he lives and he is a womanizer which causes him to procrastinate.

20-year-old Margaux makes the acquaintance of 45-year-old Margaux: they have a lot in common – so much so that it turns out they are one and the same person, at two different ages and stages of their life…

Drawing some intriguing parallels between the work of the prostitute and that of the psychiatrist-both have clients, both charge for sessions, both take on roles that serve the needs, psychological or otherwise, of those they serve, Jeanne Labrune's drama stars Isabelle Huppert and Bouli Lanners as, respectively, Alice, a disaffected call girl and Xavier, a shrink with a crumbling domestic situation.