Resnais's controversial attempt at collaboration with avant garde author Alain Robbe-Grillet. The film sets up a puzzle that is never resolved, a man meets a woman in a rambling hotel and believes he may have had an affair with her the previous year at Marienbad - or did he? Or was it somewhere else? Deliberately scrambling chronology to the point where past, present and future become meaningless, Resnais creates a vaguely unsettling mood by means of stylish composition, long, smooth tracking sh find out more...

Originally reviled, Renoir's bleak masterpiece has endured to become a true classic of French cinema. Black and funny, it is the story of a lavish weekend party given by the local Marquis. Renoir manages to capture in intricate detail the antics and drama of a society and class on the brink of extinction. 'We are dancing on the rim of a volcano' said Jean at the time. The Danse Macabre scene is breathtaking and dark. Superb. find out more...

This masterpiece is understandably on many people's all time favourite list. The lives of six Parisians are intertwined against the backdrop of the early-19th Century popular theatre and underworld, with the film a multi-layered meditation on the nature of performance. Flawlessly executed and cast. find out more...

One of the great cinema love stories as a one-night stand leads to a life of yearning for the beautiful Lisa but was just another **** for handsome Stefan. Years later a chance encounter leads to his receiving a letter from Lisa telling her tale. A piercing fable of doomed love. Tear-jerker. find out more...

After Renoir's reluctant addition of a couple of titles to satisfy the producers desire to expand to feature length, this masterpiece was finally released in 1946. On an idyllic country picnic, a young girl briefly leaves her family and fiance and succumbs to an all-too-brief romance. The careful reconstruction of period (around 1860) is enhanced by a typically touching generosity towards the characters and an aching, poignant sense of love lost, but never forgotten. And, as always in Renoir, find out more...