Cinema becomes a global pop hit. New waves, big names, and stories from every corner of the world take the spotlight.

Normal

An American in (bohemian) 1950s Paris. Temptation, morality and life as a game of luck. Éric Rohmer’s debut is a Nouvelle Vague film beloved by cinephiles, produced by Chabrol and featuring a cameo by Godard.

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Expecting to inherit his wealthy, recently deceased aunt, an American in Paris – born a leo and therefore certain luck will always be by his side – squanders his money and accrues debt, only to find himself trapped when he finds out his aunt has disowned him and there is no inheritance money coming to his rescue. But, all of a sudden, everything changes because of a shocking accident.

Sign of the Lion

Delve deeper into David Lynch's labyrinthine, surreal, nightmarish universe with these eerie, hallucinatory shorts that reflect both the origins and evolution of his unique style.

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A short continuously looping animation of six grotesque human figures vomiting.

Six Men Getting Sick

In this comedy that artfully balances between farce and social satire, Ray criticises religious charlatanism and comments cheekily on India's identity struggle between tradition and modernity.

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Birinci Baba claims that for many years, he has been closely related to Jesus Christ and the Buddha, and that it was he who taught Einstein the equation E=mc2. His aim is to attract older people who are blinded by religious faith, such as the lawyer Mitra, who is in deep mourning after the death of his wife. His daughter Mitra, who is disappointed in her lover, decides to take revenge on him by telling him that she will become Baba's follower.

The Holy Man

Bohemian Paris in the '50s, conspiracies, Cold War paranoia. In the beginnings of Nouvelle vague, the great Jacques Rivette with his first feature film, puts post-war Europe under the microscope through a mystery film about a group of twenty-year-old intellectuals who may be hiding many secrets.

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Jacques Rivette's provocative directorial debut follows a young literature student who becomes friendly with a group of twenty-year-old intellectuals in Paris, when they are brought together by the suicide of a common acquaintance. The mystery film depicts the bohemian Parisian life of the late '50s, framed within the collective social disillusionment of post-war Europe.

Paris Belongs to Us

Awarded the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1963 for having an extraordinary moment in the history of cinema, a technicolor musical with Michel Legrand’s wonderful compositions, as magical as cinema and as bittersweet as life.

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A young girl lives with her widowed mother, the owner of an umbrella shop in Cherbourg. She is in love with a twenty-year-old car mechanic with whom she plans to secretly get married. However, after announcing it to her mother, she forbids her to do so. When the young man decides to present himself in the army and departs for Algeria, the girl discovers that she is pregnant. After her mother’s insistence, she is forced to accept a precious stone dealer’s marriage proposal.

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Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 1965
Nominated for Best Original Song | Oscars | 1966
Palme d'Or | Cannes Film Festival | 1964
OCIC Award | Cannes Film Festival | 1964

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Two Oscar nominations and the most beautiful black and white cinematography for the film that made Éric Rohmer famous and crystallized in the best way his special, dialogic cinema.

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A devout catholic and a professor of philosophy spend the night at the house of an empowered woman where they spend the whole night talking, leading to revelations and unspoken truths.

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Nominated for Best Foreign Film | Oscars | 1970
Nominated for Best Original Screenplay | Oscars | 1970
Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 1969

My Night at Maud's

Satyajit Ray explores the agony of unrequited desire and lost love in an emotionally layered chamber drama that is both affecting and uniquely ephemeral because of its short duration. A little firework of memory and emotion.

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A writer travels to a small village for the purpose of his new screenplay. When his car breaks down, a tea farmer offers to put him up in his house for one night. There, much to his surprise, he meets the farmer's wife, with whom he had an affair many years ago. Their unexpected meeting keeps him awake at night and his thoughts travel back to the day of their separation, rekindling his desire to be with her again.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 1965

The Coward

With the city of Kolkata as his protagonist, Ray builds a sensitive human drama paying special attention to the details of everyday life of the working class. A story full of hope but also a resounding commentary on the identity of the modern woman in India.

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A humble bank employee in Kolkata, struggles to support his family. Breaking tradition, his wife decides to seek employment and this is opposed by her husband's conservative family as they believe it undermines the traditional role of the man as the main provider and breadwinner of the household. She will be quickly promoted, while her husband will lose his job, leaving her to provide financial support for the family.

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Best Director Award | Berlin Film Festival | 1964

The Big City

Summer, sex and dangerous love games make up Jacques Deray's seductive, sun-drenched psychological thriller with an irresistible Alain Delon in one of the most iconic moments of his incomparable career and Romy Schneider and Jane Birkin rounding out the gorgeous cast.

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In a lovely villa near sunny St Tropez, lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne spend a happy, relaxing summer holiday. Their only concern is to satisfy their mutual passion - until the day Marianne invites her ex-lover and his beautiful teenage daughter to spend a few days with them, and tensions between the four holidaymakers escalate with unforeseen consequences.

The Swimming Pool

Constantly and rightfully on the lists of the greatest films of all time, Jacques Tati's masterpiece is an impeccably orchestrated and choreographed audiovisual composition that redefines the cinematic frame to map the chaos of the modern age.

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In a futuristic and hyper-consumer Paris, Monsieur Hulot must contact an American official, but he gets lost in the labyrinths of the modern metropolis. Trapped in the tourist invasion, he wanders through Paris with a group of American tourists, causing mayhem in his usual fashion.

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Best Director | Moscow Film Festival | 1969

Playtime

After “The 400 Blows”, Truffaut continues the story of Antoine Doinel, with Jean-Pierre Léaud reprising the defining role of his career. This short film was shot as part of a 1962 anthology, yet it was but a small step in Antoine’s cinematic epic before he returned in three more Truffaut classics.

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During a Berlioz concert, 17-year-old Antoine observes Colette, whose heart he wishes to conquer. The girl’s parents welcome him, but Colette sees him as nothing more but a good friend.

Antoine and Colette

In the casino world of Nice, Jacques Demy sets the action of one of his most realistic, dark and emotionally penetrating works. With Jeanne Moreau in one of her greatest roles and an enchanting score by the legendary Michel Legrand.

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Jean is a young bank employee who is pushed into gambling by his colleague, Caron. He gives up everything and devotes himself to the game, until in the casinos he meets and falls in love with Jackie, a divorced mother who rarely visits her child. She warns him that her passion for gambling can only get worse.

Bay of Angels

Nikos Papatakis' explosive directorial debut made it to Cannes in 1963, was likened to Bunuel's best works, never won an award for fear of nationalist organizations and remains to this day an unparalleled cinematic poem.

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Two sisters work as maids in an isolated farmhouse unpaid, due to their bosses' financial difficulties. The announcement of the sale of the house brings them to the brink of insanity and they end up slaughtering their employers.

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Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 1963

Les Abysses

Can happiness be shared by three? FrancoisTruffault uninhibitedly recounts the anarchist, unconventional relationship of one of the most emblematic love triangles in cinema history, in an archetypal Nouvelle Vague creation starring the magnificent Jeanne Moreau.

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Paris, 1914. Two friends, Jules, a shy Austrian writer and French intellectual Jim meet Catherine, a passionate and beautiful woman, the textbook definition of a "free spirit". In the midst of World War I, a love triangle blossoms between them, simultaneously wonderful and tragic. The triangle will break up and Jules and Catherine will marry and have a daughter. For a while, they will all remain friends; but balance seems unattainable.

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Best Director | Mar del Plata Film Festival | 1962

Jules and Jim

Is happiness cumulative? Shortly before the May ‘68 riots, Agnes Varda -in a masterpiece replete with colors, movement, glances and the looming presence of death- explores the possibilities of romantic threesomes.

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A young carpenter lives a comfortable, tranquil life, married to a lovely wife with whom he shares two wonderful children. Although their marriage is a happy one, he initiates an extramarital affair with a woman he meets on a business trip. When his wife observes that he is unusually joyful, he, unable to lie to her, reveals his infidelity, but says that nothing has changed between them.

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Special Prize of the Jury | Berlin International Film Festival | 1965

Le Bonheur

One of the greatest moments in Ray's filmography, based on a novel by the acclaimed thinker and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, The Lonely Wife is like a miniature. The fragile narrative of a marriage in peril and a woman tentatively asserting her own voice.

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At the end of the 19th century, Charulata spends many hours alone while her husband, Bupati, devotes all his time to his newly founded newspaper. Bupati asks his writer cousin to keep Charulata company every day and motivate her to write a story to unleash her writing talent. The two spend many hours together and inevitably a strong feeling is born between them.

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Best Director Award | Berlin Film Festival | 1965

The Lonely Wife

Valuable both cinematically and culturally, the Film Foundation's restored print of this landmark African cinema film is a must-watch, a haunting yet liberatingly decolonized look at the oppression of black people.

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Diouana is a young Senegalese woman living in a poor village near Dakar hoping to find a job. Soon, she starts working for a French family who suggests she join them in Antibes to look after their children. But Diouana soon realizes that her boss has brought her only to serve them, without any respite.

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Best French Film | Jean Vigo Prize | 1966

Black Girl

Jacques Demy's first film hasn’t earned the accolades it deserves. And yet, the black-and-white "Lola" was a telltale sign that Demy, amidst a sweeping French New Wave, had his own distinct, brilliant voice. Here, he employs it to talk about the ephemeral nature of love.

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In Nantes, France, a young man goes through life without purpose until he chances upon Lola, a cabaret dancer he knew a long time ago. He falls in love with her, but Lola still muses over her former lover who abandoned her 7 years ago. The man gets involved in diamond smuggling in an attempt to get rich, but eventually Lola’s previous partner shows up, against all odds.

Lola

A directorial triumph, each scene carefully thought out and crafted with Hitchcockian meticulousness. Truffaut proves (yet again) his artistic inventiveness in this strong erotic drama.

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A well-known writer and literary magazine contributor is on a plane to Portugal, where he encounters a beautiful air hostess. When they coincidentally meet again at the hotel they are staying at, an amorous relationship begins, even though he is married. The couple meets secretly as often as possible, but the author's wife suspects something is amiss.

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Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 1964

The Soft Skin

A fan of American film noir, but also of French policiers, Jean-Pierre Melville wrote his own history with gangster films immersed in the shadows of the underworld. "Le Doulos", in which Jean-Paul Belmondo gives one of his first great performances, is one of them.

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Maurice is released from prison and prepares a new hit, a bank robbery along with his accomplice Remy. At the same time, he asks for Silien’s help. Silien is nicknamed "Le Doulos" as everyone is afraid of him because they think he is a police informer. Who will betray whom in the end?

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Grand Jury Prize | Faro Island Film Festival | 1962

Le Doulos

"Like opening a door to another dimension". This is how Sergei Parajanov's legendary film was described by Martin Scorsese, whose Film Foundation oversaw the restoration of this unique cinematic treasure, which almost magically transforms the poetry of words into a poetry of images.

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The life of the Armenian poet Sayat-Nova, from childhood to death. His spiritual journey, artistic endeavors, and inner conflicts within the cultural and historical context of 18th century Armenia.

The Color of Pomegranates

On the border of Nouvelle Vague and neorealism, with a war out of sight and the anarchic ecstasy of youth as a showcase, Jacques Rozier's film takes us on a journey to Corsica and claims its place as an overlooked masterpiece of the time.

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Michel is a young man who is going to do his military service in two months during the war in Algeria. Juliette and Liliane are inseparable best friends and aspiring actresses, hanging out outside the TV studio. Michel invites them to watch, flirts with both of them, and starts dating them – separately. When Michel goes on holiday to Corsica, just before he is drafted, the girls follow him.

Adieu Philippine

Jacques Demy's tribute to the classic American Musical, three years after his triumphus "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg", is an audiovisual rainbow, full of color, beauty and the enchanting presence of brothers Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac.

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Two twin sisters who teach dance and music in the coastal town of Rochefort dream of romance and love in Paris. What they don’t know is that the upcoming summer festival taking place in their hometown will make their dreams come true.

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Nominated for Best Music Score | Oscars | 1969

The Young Girls of Rochefort

Delve deeper into David Lynch's labyrinthine, surreal, nightmarish universe with these eerie, hallucinatory shorts that reflect both the origins and evolution of his unique style.

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A woman's dark and absurdist nightmare comprising a continuous recitation of the alphabet and bizarre living representations of each letter.

The Alphabet

Yorgos Lanthimos' favourite film, shot just before the rise of the dictatorship, spoke through its history and frames about exactly how Greece at the time was a society that favoured the rise of dictatorship. A unique film for Greek cinema of the era, unmissable to this day.

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A poor shepherd, Thanos, falls in love with a beautiful noblewoman, Despina, who is the daughter of Vlachopoulos, the lord of the region. Her father, naturally, categorically refuses to give his daughter to a side-child and tries to marry her off to Yago, the son of a big landowner. Thanos and Despina elope and flee to the mountains, pursued by a detachment of gendarmes and by Yago who, deeply offended, seeks revenge.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 1967

1960s