The best Jean-Claude Jay’s movies

In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet mole within his former colleagues at the heart of MI6.

The film's plot is based on the Kennedy assassination and subsequent investigation. The film begins with the assassination of President Marc Jarry, who is about to be inaugurated for a second six-year term of office. Henri Volney, state attorney and member of the commission charged with investigating the assassination (based on the Warren Commission) refuses to agree to the commission's final findings. The film portrays the initial controversy about this, as well as Volney and his staff's reopening of the investigation.

Paris, in the early 1960s. Jean-Louis Joubert is a serious but uptight stockbroker, married to Suzanne, a starchy class-conscious woman and father of two arrogant teenage boys, currently in a boarding school. The affluent man lives a steady yet boring life. At least until, due to fortuitous circumstances, Maria, the charming new maid at the service of Jean-Louis' family, makes him discover the servants' quarter on the sixth floor of the luxury building he owns and lives in. There live a crowd of lively Spanish maids who will help Jean-Louis to open to a new civilization and a new approach of life. In their company - and more precisely in the company of beautiful Maria - Jean-Louis will gradually become another man, a better man.

A girl, Marie is led into prostitution by her pimp boyfriend, Gerard. She must not only give money to him but to the gangsters that explore him as well. Marie, together with a friend, Maloup, will try to become independent. They start to work the streets on their own but they will meet physical and sexual violence. They return to the brothels, and Marie goes back to her pimp, but Gerard has his caprices and wants more and more – he's in a spiral downwards and he's leading Marie with him. There's seems to be no escape.

The wealthy Tombsthays hire a guitar tutor, David Aurphet, for their daughter Vivian. The wife, Julia, begins a passionate affair with David. Edwige, Julia's new neighbour, also takes an interest in David. David is attacked one night on returning home but saved by a mysterious stranger Daniel who reveals himself to be a hired killer. David begins to suspect that his affair is no longer secret.

A part of Joan of Arc's life. At the beginning, Jeanne (Joan) has already left Domremy, she is trying to convince a captain to escort her to the Dauphin. It ends during Jeanne's first battle, at Orleans. Meanwhile, Jeanne is depicted more as a warrior than a saint (all cliches are avoided), with only her faith for strength.