Charles Dullin

The lives of numerous people over the course of 20 years in 19th century France, weaved together by the story of an ex-convict named Jean Valjean on the run from an obsessive police inspector, who pursues him for only a minor offense. (imdb)

Two people learn to love each other in the afterlife and get a second chance. (imdb)

An extraordinary work, Maldone manages to presage so many of the dominant themes in French cinema of the following decade. The cinematography, which includes a great deal of location work, is predominantly neo-realist in style, whilst the narrative has strong elements of poetic realism. As in many of Grémillon's later films, Maldone alternates between moments of great dramatic intensity and moments of calm, poignant reflection.

Volpone, an elderly Venetian, connives with his money-crazed servant to convince his greedy friends that he is dying, knowing that each will try to curry favor with him in order to be named his heir. He is inundated with valuable gifts, and soon finds himself entangled deeper and deeper in a web of lies. (imdb)

Based on the real life of German spy Anne Marie Lesser during World War I.

King Louis XI tries to unify France by all means fair or foul, which does not please his powerful rival Charles the Bold. It is against this troubled backdrop that the loves of the daughter of a wealthy bourgeois and the king's god-daughter Jeanne Fouquet and knight Robert Cottereau unfurl in spite of all the obstacles in their way. One of these being a pack of hungry wolves trying to stop Jeanne from carrying out an important mission assigned to her by the king himself. (imdb)

Cagliostro, an Italian adventurer played by the almost unnaturally handsome Hans Stüwe, rises through the French aristocracy on account of his magical tricks, medical knowledge and ability to foretell the future. When he falls from favour after a divination that predicts a dire future for Marie Antoinette, he sets in motion a plan that will result in revenge, but at a great price.

In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress. (imdb)

A 14-episode silent adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. (imdb)