Truffaut's first feature, the melancholy and revealing portrait (semi-autobiographical) of an adolescent boy growing up in Paris. We see the intense, destructive family background followed by an escape from reform school. Beautifully perceptive performances make this one of Truffaut's finest works. find out more...

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece. find out more...