The best Jean-Pierre Kalfon’s drama movies

A young American studying in Paris in 1968 strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister.

The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.

A criminal shows up at a farmhouse with the law on his heels and several million dollars in his possession.

A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.

Viviane, a French Consul's wife, is in New Guinea to find exotic feathers for export to Paris. She encounters four European travelers who are en route to "La Vallée": The Valley, high in the Guinean mountains, is shown on maps as 'obscured by clouds' and is beyond their previous experiences. Viviane joins their trek to find rare feathers and soon becomes entwined in their journey. Their extended stay with the Mapuga tribe brings a denouement between western and indigenous values before their final quest toward the 'Valley of the Gods'.

Told in four vignettes, this existential comedy relates the exploits of four aspiring criminals who hope to improve their lot, but find that they might not have what it takes for a life of crime.

A young Parisian advertising executive becomes so captivated by the unsettling charm of his mysterious new employer that he eventually abandons his family and friends, viewing it a privilege to let the ubiquitous employer take over his home, his life, his desire. Only his wife remains suspicious, recognizing both the pathos and the evil in the man’s soul-stealing power.

Sasha, a thirty-year-old French woman, dies suddenly in Berlin. Her Fiancé, Lawrence, and her sister Zoé, must come to terms as the consequences of this shock set in.

Nathalie and Louise are friends from childhood. While studying drama at University Louise becomes hopelessly obsessed with her friend. Jealous of the male friends she has she breaks up the friendship, followed by a suicide attempt. Later, Louise marries, but finds time to see the, by now quite accomplished actress, Nathalie. They fight through the years, La Repetition following them as their friendship comes together and breaks up frequently, while never actually reaching anything that can be called a climax.

Set amid the European community in an unspecified North African country, a colony on the verge of nationalism just before the war. And colonized is what happens to a French diplomat, Julien Rochelle, when he meets the mysterious beauty Clothilde de Watteville. Schmid 's favorite axiom, that love is projection, never had such a thorough airing. Is Clothilde really the wife of a French official now holed up in Siberia? Or is she Hecate, goddess of black magic and devourer of the Arab boys she meets far from the European quarter? Only our projections know for sure; for the rest, she is a "woman looking out into the night." Drawn from a novel by Paul Morand, who based the main character on his wife Helene, Schmid's film achieves an atmosphere of magic in which psychological credibility is not so much absent as irrelevant-a film that distances itself from the drama it invokes, perhaps as the elusive Clothilde turns her back on the madness she provokes.

Sexy, gritty and as provocative as a lap dance, The Bathers takes an insider's look at the lives of six women working as dancers at a seedy Parisian peep show. Governed by their overprotective boss, the girls' routine of glittery neon lights and lecherous customers is soon disrupted when an enigmatic stranger enters the scene. Now, drugs, sex and bickering all take a back seat as the girls unite to save this man haunted by a mysterious past and unforgiving demons. A fascinating glimpse into a world of back alleys and primal instincts, The Bathers transports us to a netherworld where the show always goes on.

Late 17th Century: Anne de Grandcamp and Lucie de Fontenelle, two little girls from Normandy, arrive at the Saint-Cyr school founded by Madame de Maintenon for educating the daughters of impoverished nobles ruined in wars and making them into free women. Madame de Maintenon is the secret wife of Louis XIV, and empowered by his support, she offers "her" two hundred fifty girls a playful and avant-garde education. Anne and Lucie, two inseparable friends, allow themselves to be carried away by the promise of a bright future. But Maintenon has arrived at the pinnacle of power through scheming and debasing herself and she now fears the fires of hell. She is counting on her model school to atone for her past sins.

Robert is an architect and artist, in Vichy after separating from his Parisian wife. Robert finds it calms him to stand in the shadows of the home of Juliette and Patrick and watch her cook. She thinks he's a prowler and confronts him, then invites him in...