Yves Montand

Michael Lonsdale

Jacques Perrin

Costa-Gavras

Special Section

Special Section (1975)

Robert Downey Sr.

The feature documentary Searching for Mr. Rugoff is the story of Donald Rugoff, who was the crazy genius behind Cinema 5, the mid-century theater chain and film distribution company. Rugoff was a difficult (some would say impossible) person but was also the man who kicked art films into the mainstream with outrageous marketing schemes and pure bluster. Rugoff's impact on cinema culture in the United States is inestimable, and his influence on the art film business-from the studio classics divisions to the independent film movement to the rise of the Weinsteins-is undeniable. Yet, mysteriously, Rugoff has become a virtually forgotten figure. The story is told through the eyes of former employee Ira Deutchman, who sets out to find the truth about the man who had such a major impact on his life, and to understand how such an important figure could have disappeared so completely.

Searching for Mr. Rugoff

Searching for Mr. Rugoff (2019)

Lino Ventura

Jean-Paul Belmondo

Henri-Georges Clouzot's unfinished masterpiece, L'enfer (1964), is reconstructed in this film which is part drama and part documentary.

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (2009)

Simone Signoret

Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act. —

A Life Ahead

A Life Ahead (1977)

Michel Gondry

Son of a shoe manufacturer, Georges Méliès decided to devote himself to magic. In 1888, he used his share of the inheritance to buy the Robert-Houdin Theater, Boulevard des Italiens, where his fairy-tale shows drew crowds. Seven years later, dazzled by the animated image of the Lumière brothers, he launches into a new art form, cinema. His thirst for enchantment led him to invent special effects. But the evolution of the public's taste and the passage of the cinema to the industrial era put away his dream machine. Forgotten, he ends up running a toy store in the Montparnasse train station. In 1923, in a fit of despair, he destroyed the negatives of his films. Since then, film buffs all over the world have found and restored reels.

Le Mystère Méliès

Le Mystère Méliès (2021)

7.6 / 10

Drama
History

7.6 / 10

Documentary

7.5 / 10

Documentary

7.2 / 10

Drama

7.3 / 10

Action
Biography