Zaza (1938)
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A poor 22 years old Hungarian man who's recently arrived in Paris meets a seemingly wealthy 17 years old Parisian girl. They fall in love, but tragedy ensues when the truth behind the girl is revealed.
His wife having recently died, Thomas Jefferson accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, though he finds it difficult to adjust to life in a country where the aristocracy subjugates an increasingly restless peasantry. In Paris, he becomes smitten with cultured artist Maria Cosway, but, when his daughter visits from Virginia accompanied by her attractive slave, Sally Hemings, Jefferson's attentions are diverted.
Zaza (Swanson) is an actress and the favorite at an open-air theater in a small French town. When diplomat Bernard Dufresne (H.B. Warner) comes to the village, he stays away for fear he will fall for her. But during one performance, while Zaza is singing on a swing, her rival (Mary Thurmon) cuts the rope and she falls. Zaza is badly injured and she makes Dufresne's acquaintance. A romance quickly springs up and he installs her in a villa. Their happiness is marred, however, when his wife appears and begs him to give Zaza up so he can take a high diplomatic assignment. Zaza thinks Dufresne has left her for another woman, and only after she travels to Paris does she realize he was already married and had a family. Broken-hearted, she turns her back on the affair. The years pass, World War I comes and goes, and the former lovers meet up once again. Dufresne's wife has died, so they are able to reunite.
Ram Bowen and Eddie Cook are two expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris where, unlike America at the time, Jazz musicians are celebrated and racism is a non-issue. When they meet and fall in love with two young American girls, Lillian and Connie, who are vacationing in France, Ram and Eddie must decide whether they should move back to America with them, or stay in Paris for the freedom it allows them. Ram, who wants to be a serious composer, finds Paris more exciting than America and is reluctant to give up his music for a relationship, and Eddie wants to stay for the city's more tolerant racial atmosphere.
Based on the true story of Melbourne Johns, an aircraft factory foreman sent to France to prevent the Nazis getting hold of some vital equipment.
The 1920's and 30's career of singer Helen Morgan is followed from her early days singing outdoors in a carnival, through her speak-easy and chorus-girl days, to her stardom on Broadway in Ziegfeld's "Show Boat". Her involvement with Larry Maddux, a gin-runner and con-man, and Russell Wade, a prominent, married New York lawyer, and her decline thanks to these failed romances and alcohol are punctuated by performances of many of the songs she made famous.
War in Abkhazia 1990. An Estonian man Ivo has stayed behind to harvest his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict at his door, a wounded man is left behind, and Ivo is forced to take him in.
Frenchwoman Michele de la Becque, an opponent of the Nazis in German-occupied Paris, hides a downed American flyer, Pat Talbot, and attempts to get him safely out of the country.
The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.
When she can't support her illegitimate child, an abandoned young woman puts her up for adoption and pursues a career as a torch singer.
When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters--an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire--to rescue him.
An aspiring singer, Denise Waverly/Edna Buxton, sacrifices her own singing career to write hit songs that launch the careers of other singers. The film follows her life from her first break, through the pain of rejection from the recording industry and a bad marriage, to her final triumph in realizing her dream to record her own hit album.
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Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment. When Elise, his sister with three kids and no husband, moves in to his place to care for him, Pierre does not change his new habits. And instead of dan
French village doctor becomes target of poison-pen letters sent to village leaders, accusing him of affairs and practicing abortion.
Farinelli is a 1994 biopic film about the life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.
Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam (Oscar Levant) is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary). A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
The Jolson Story is a 1946 musical biography which purports to tell the life story of singer Al Jolson. It stars Larry Parks as Jolson, Evelyn Keyes as "Julie Benson" (approximating Jolson's wife, Ruby Keeler), William Demarest as his manager, Ludwig Donath and Tamara Shayne as his parents, and Scotty Beckett as the young Jolson.
Sent to Paris to visit their grandfather, the twins fall in love with France, not to mention two French boys.
Based on one of the most popular historical plays by Shakespeare and made in order to boost the morale of British troops during WW2, this movie is about English King Henry V and his military campaign in France in 1415.
A young Parisian woman begins a sordid affair with a middle-aged American businessman whom lays out ground rules that their clandestine relationship will be based only on sex.
Eager to find a better life abroad, a Senegalese woman becomes a mere governess to a family in southern France, suffering from discrimination and marginalization.
The story of a group of Rembetes, singers and musicians of the Greek equivalent to the blues, in the early decades of the 20th century, seen through the eyes of a young female singer.
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.
Film depicts the events on board a luxury liner filled with the friends of a deceased opera singer who have gathered to mourn her.
The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette (Norma Shearer) is arranged to marry Louis XVI (Robert Morley), future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations, including Count Axel (Tyrone Power). When Louis XV (John Barrymore) passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
The next mayor of Seoul candidate's wife becomes a dance singer in this movie as Hwang Jeong-min takes on the role of poor lawyer turned politician and Uhm Jung-hwa as the wife who makes an attempt at singing without her husband knowing at first.
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Charles returns to Paris to reminisce about the life he led in Paris after it was liberated. He worked on "Stars and Stripes" when he met Marion and Helen. He would marry and be happy staying in Paris after his discharge and working for a news organization. He would try to write his great novel and that would come between Charlie, his wife and his daughter
A high school choir is fading in popularity, as it continues to lose most of its' members one by one. A wannabe rock singer is convinced to join the choir, in hopes of winning the upcoming competition and cash prize.
The virus came so fast no one had time to prepare. Before the day was over, entire towns were decimated, and large cities became monumental tombs. Left with nothing but fading hope and the will to live, reclusive software consultant Michael (Dexter Fletcher) and temperamental mechanic Carl (Dickon Tolson) lead a small group of survivors into the country in hopes of riding out the coming winter. But now the decaying victims of the plague are reanimating, growing more smart and vicious with each passing day. Now, the only hope for the survival of the human race is Phillip (Carradine), a man who refused to leave the city, and has somehow avoided becoming food for the flesh-eating masses.
Various experiences of childhood are seen in several sequences that take place in the small town of Thiers, France. Vignettes include a boy's awakening interest in girls, couples double-dating at the movies, brothers giving their friend a haircut, a boy dealing with an abusive home life, a baby and a cat sitting by an open window, a child telling a dirty joke, and a boy who develops a crush on his friend's mother.
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While working undercover as a bodyguard to arms dealer Harry, former-soldier-turned-secret-service-agent Ewan survives a bloody shootout with balaclava-clad Ash, a member of an Islamic terrorist cell who steals Harry's briefcase full of Semtex explosives and escapes with a minor injury. Ewan's spymasters, Charlotte McQueen and her boss, Scott Catesby, inform Ewan that he must hunt down the cell members and retrieve the briefcase.
Director André Téchiné brings his usual obsessions -- including a preoccupation with the fortunes of the bourgeoisie -- to this episodic drama, which serves as a thinly-veiled portrait of France's economic peaks and valleys from the 1930s through the 1970s. Jeanne Moreau stars as Berthe Pedret, a simple laundry woman who marries Hector (Michael Auclair), son of a wealthy, upper class, Spanish immigrant family that owns a successful farm machinery factory. Through a series of vignettes, Techine depicts the passage of years, during which the ambitious working class woman blooms through several bold moves, such as negotiating a workers' strike settlement and using her alliance with the war-time French Resistance movement to increase the enterprise's prestige.
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Based on the true story of two chambermaids (the Papin sisters) of 1930s France who murdered their employer and her daughter. Christine Papin (Sylvie Testud), and Léa Papin (Julie-Marie Parmentier) are sisters with an already troubled past. Madame Lancelin takes them into her home and employs the girls as maids. Christine sees in Madame Lancelin an ideal mother figure â in spite of her severity. But their wretched background â an indifferent mother and drunken abusive father â casts a shadow over the girls and over time their ill-fated situation darkens. The sisters withdraw into themselves and finish by committing the worst â killing Madame Lancelin and her daughter after six years of service, on the 2 February 1933 in Le Mans.
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Eka and Natia leave their childhood behind and ignore societal customs to escape from their turbulent family lives.
Set in 1940's France, a new teacher at a school for disruptive boys gives hope and inspiration.
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Dheepan is the story of a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker outside Paris.
In the south of France, in a vast plain region called the Camargue, lives White Mane, a magnificent stallion and the leader of a herd of wild horses too proud to let themselves be broken by humans. Only Folco, a young fisherman, manages to tame him. A strong friendship grows between the boy and the horse, as the two go looking for the freedom that the world of men wonât allow them.
A nightclub singer seeks refuge with gay nuns on dope in a Madrid convent.
La leggenda del santo bevitore (literally "The legend of the holy drinker") is a 1988 Italian film directed by Ermanno Olmi. It tells the story of a drunken homeless man (played by Rutger Hauer) in Paris who is lent 200 francs by a stranger as long as he promises to repay it to a local church when he can afford to; the film depicts the man's constant frustrations as he attempts to do so. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It is based on the 1939 novella by the Austrian novelist, Joseph Roth.
In 1941 America Kay and her husband are happy enough until he enlists after Pearl Harbor. Against his wishes, his wife takes a job at the local aircraft plant where she meets Hazel, the singer from across the way the two soon become firm friends and with the other girls become increasingly expert workers. As the war drags on Kay finally dates her trumpet playing foreman and life gets complicated
A cop is looking for the killer of his friend.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
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A young girl suffering from amnesia after surviving a house fire that takes her childhood friend's life, begins a tormented road to recovery.
A young American studying in Paris in 1968 strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister. Set against the background of the '68 Paris student riots.
Control is the biography of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, taking his story from schoolboy days of 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.
A story, which takes place in 2013, describes the world overflowing with "dangerous" criminals due to the official termination of death penalty. The UN "blue helmets" under the directive from the central authority (i.e., One World Government) decided to conduct a social "experiment" by forcibly dumping the outlaws on the deserted island...
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
The life of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) as related by followers who gather after his death to tell stories so that Leone can record them: a privileged and virile youth, a prisoner of war, an heir who turns away from his father and gives all to the poor, a beggar for others, and an inspiration to friends who accept the Gospels' life of poverty. He seeks the Pope's blessing, and he endures persecution at the hands of the family of Chiara Offreduccio (1194-1253), who becomes St. Clare. Many join the order he has established and then rebel at his expectations. In near despair - and ill - he writes a Rule to take to the Pope; then, the Lord sends him a message. He dies smiling.
Soon after the rising young singer-songwriter Beau Williams gets involved with a fallen, emotionally unstable country star Kelly Canter, the pair embark on a career resurrection tour helmed by her husband/manager James and featuring a beauty queen-turned-singer Chiles Stanton. Between concerts, romantic entanglements and old demons threaten to derail them all.
The story is set in Baku. A famous photographer has to choose between accepting a valuable job offer in Africa or marrying his fiancee - a young , talented sculptor inspired by images of ritual dances. The photographer decides to accept the job offer and - once again - postpones his wedding. During the ensuing quarrel, the photographer and his fiancee have a car accident along the road which leads to the ancient cave city. They later find themselves in a police precinct, where the photographer has to come to terms with his dread of women or he will not leave the precinct alive.
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