Films

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109 films

Country: France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, SwitzerlandClear filters
A man sits with his back to us at a wooden counter, facing a turquoise sea beside an empty glass.
Marius
1931 · Alexander Korda130 min · Romantic drama

A young man working in his father’s Marseille bar loves Fanny but cannot silence his longing to leave by sea.

RomanticGentleEasy
Rough black title lettering fills yellow paper crossed by torn pink strips.
The Threepenny Opera
1931 · Georg Wilhelm Pabst110 min · Musical drama

Criminal celebrity Mackie Messer marries Polly Peachum and provokes her father into mobilising London’s thieves, beggars, and police against him.

FunnyBleakModerate
Wet hands rest over a fish-covered work surface, with the title on a pale apron.
Fanny
1932 · Marc Allégret140 min · Romantic drama

Fanny faces pregnancy and an uncertain future after Marius leaves Marseille for the sea, while the people around the harbour debate love, duty, and security.

RomanticGentleModerate
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse — Perspective lettering, scattered manuscript pages and red rings surround an empty chair.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
1933 · Fritz Lang121 min · Crime thriller

A criminal mastermind confined to an asylum appears to direct a new empire of terror through written instructions.

MysteryTensePatient
Original illustration: A cloud of paper pillow feathers and playful figures disrupt a rigid school building beneath Zero for Conduct lettering.
Zero for Conduct
1933 · Jean VigoComedy-drama

Four boys return to a boarding school whose petty rules soon invite an uprising.

FunnyStrangeModerate
L'Atalante — Momo wears a narrow red neck strap while leaning on a boat beside a white cat in a glowing river sunset.
L'Atalante
1934 · Jean Vigo89 min · Drama

A newly married couple drifts between a cramped barge and the promise of Paris.

RomanticStrangeModerate
La Grande Illusion: Two metal cups and a flower sit behind prison bars overlooking distant mountains.
La Grande Illusion
1937 · Jean Renoir113 min · War

Prisoners and captors discover that class, nationality, and friendship do not divide along the same lines.

GentleBleakModerate
Original illustration for The Rules of the Game: An ornate country-house interior sliced into overlapping paper doorways and a miniature theatre stage, chandelier and empty chairs at mismatched social scales.
The Rules of the Game
1939 · Jean Renoir106 min · Comedy-drama

A country-house farce that quietly indicts everyone.

FunnyStrangePatient
A woman leans towards a man; their closely framed faces look in different directions.
Ossessione
1943 · Luchino Visconti139 min · Crime drama

A drifter begins an affair with an innkeeper’s wife, and their desire turns escape into a crime neither can leave behind.

TenseBleakModerate
Original illustration for Children of Paradise: A deep 19th-century Paris theatre of layered crimson curtains and ivory balconies, a small anonymous mime silhouette with a white sleeve framed against a crowded boulevard made of tiny paper cutouts.
Children of Paradise
1945 · Marcel Carné190 min · Drama

On a crowded theatrical boulevard, love becomes performance and performance becomes fate.

RomanticBleakPatient
Les dames du Bois de Boulogne 1945
Les dames du Bois de Boulogne
1945 · Robert Bresson84 min

A society woman turns her former lover's next romance into an instrument of revenge.

RomanticTenseModerate
ROME, OPEN CITY lettering on a paper poster beside a Roman street and bicycle wheel, with Momo carrying a folded blank sheet through a doorway.
Rome, Open City
1945 · Roberto Rossellini103 min · Drama

Resistance, family life, and occupation collide across streets that feel dangerously close to the present.

TenseBleakModerate
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST lettering above an invented moonlit corridor with candle-bearing stone arms and a red rose. Original illustration.
Beauty and the Beast
1946 · Jean Cocteau93 min · Fantasy

A familiar fairy tale enters a castle where arms hold candles and statues breathe.

RomanticStrangeEasy
Umberto D. lettering on a golden umbrella over Momo and a small dog in a layered paper Roman street.
Umberto D.
1952 · Vittorio De Sica88 min · Drama

An elderly pensioner facing eviction tries to preserve his dignity and his bond with his small dog in postwar Rome.

GentleBleakEasy
Original illustration for Mr. Hulot's Holiday: A sunlit seaside hotel composed of playful paper balconies overlooks striped bathing huts and a tiny sailboat.
Mr. Hulot's Holiday
1953 · Jacques Tati87 min · Comedy

Monsieur Hulot arrives at a seaside hotel and gently disrupts the routines by which everyone else is trying to enjoy a proper holiday.

FunnyGentleEasy
Original illustration: Oversized paper earrings, ballroom cards, red ribbon and mirror fragments beneath The Earrings of Madame de lettering.
The Earrings of Madame de . . .
1953 · Max Ophuls100 min

A pair of earrings passes through sale, gift, concealment, and return as an aristocratic marriage gives way to forbidden love.

RomanticBleakEasy
THE WAGES OF FEAR lettering on a timber crate below a mountain bridge and two cargo trucks, with Momo crouching to check a bridge plank.
The Wages of Fear
1953 · Henri-Georges Clouzot152 min · Thriller

Four men, two trucks, and a road where every bump can end the film.

TenseBleakModerate
Original illustration for La Strada: An old circus drum and small trumpet rest on a roadside wagon below an enormous open dawn sky, a winding road reaches modest hills and a single string of pennants.
La Strada
1954 · Federico Fellini108 min · Drama

A travelling strongman buys the service of a poor young woman whose openness meets his cruelty on the road.

GentleBleakEasy
A bicycle wheel and its long shadow fill the foreground, with two human shadows farther along the road.
Death of a Cyclist
1955 · Juan Antonio Bardem88 min · Drama

An adulterous couple leave a cyclist dying after a collision, then discover that guilt and class privilege produce different kinds of fear.

TenseBleakEasy
Diabolique: An empty engraved swimming pool, a key and a long doorway shadow create a quiet green interior.
Diabolique
1955 · Henri-Georges Clouzot117 min · Thriller

A carefully planned murder leaves behind one impossible problem: the body will not stay where it belongs.

TenseMysteryModerate
Rififi: Giant black lettering is pierced by a rope descending from a ceiling into an open umbrella.
Rififi
1955 · Jules Dassin118 min · Crime

Four thieves prepare a silent heist whose precision cannot protect what follows.

TenseBleakModerate
A Man Escaped: Engraved hands braid fabric into rope beneath a small prison window.
A Man Escaped
1956 · Robert Bresson101 min · Drama

A prisoner prepares an escape one sound, tool, and repeated gesture at a time.

TenseModerate
The Lovers 1958
The Lovers
1958 · Louis Malle90 min

A restless married woman finds a new attraction that unsettles both her domestic life and an existing affair.

RomanticStrangeModerate
Hiroshima mon amour: An anonymous embracing couple fades into a softly painted river and Hiroshima skyline.
Hiroshima mon amour
1959 · Alain Resnais90 min · Drama

A brief affair in Hiroshima opens a difficult passage between public catastrophe and private memory.

RomanticBleakPatient
Original illustration: An engraved wallet and gloved hands on a station bench, with rails receding beneath Pickpocket lettering.
Pickpocket
1959 · Robert BressonCrime drama

A solitary young man treats theft as proof that ordinary rules do not apply to him.

StrangeBleakPatient
Original illustration for Eyes Without a Face: An empty luminous white theatrical face mask, realistic thin smooth ceramic, hangs within a narrow ivy-covered window over a soft foggy garden.
Eyes Without a Face
1960 · Georges FranjuHorror

A surgeon hides his injured daughter while pursuing a series of experiments intended to restore her face.

StrangeBeautifulModerate
L'Avventura: A white paper dress lies on dark rocks beside layered blue sea and an orange sun.
L'Avventura
1960 · Michelangelo Antonioni143 min · Drama

A woman disappears from a rocky island, and the search slowly exposes a different kind of absence.

MysteryBeautifulPatient
Original illustration for La Dolce Vita: A silver camera flash and elegant stemmed glass seen close up; the glass reflection contains an abstract Roman dome and a flowing nocturnal boulevard.
La Dolce Vita
1960 · Federico Fellini174 min · Drama

Rome, glamour, emptiness — beautiful and exhausting.

StrangeBeautifulPatient
Rocco and His Brothers — Five coats and boxing gloves hang near a Milan window.
Rocco and His Brothers
1960 · Luchino Visconti179 min · Drama

A mother and her five sons move from southern Italy to Milan, where work, boxing, ambition, and desire pull the family into competing futures.

BleakBeautifulPatient
Original illustration: Layered paper formal gardens, clipped hedges, colonnades, steps and empty chairs beneath the title.
Last Year at Marienbad
1961 · Alain Resnais94 min · Drama

In a vast hotel, a man insists that a woman promised to leave with him last year—or perhaps in another version of the past.

StrangeMysteryPatient
Original illustration for Cléo from 5 to 7: Paris late-afternoon street unfolds from an elegant oval cafe mirror into layered pavement arcs, plane-tree leaves and a giant clock dial whose only numerals are 5 and 7.
Cléo from 5 to 7
1962 · Agnès Varda89 min · Drama

Ninety anxious minutes in Paris, measured by mirrors, streets, and attention.

GentleBeautifulModerate
Original illustration: Three overlapping paper bicycle wheels, river scenes and postcards beneath Jules and Jim lettering.
Jules and Jim
1962 · François Truffaut105 min · Romantic drama

Two friends love the same mercurial woman across years of art, war, marriage, travel, and changing agreements.

RomanticBeautifulEasy
L’eclisse 1962
L’eclisse
1962 · Michelangelo Antonioni126 min

After ending one relationship, a woman drifts into another amid the spaces and distances of modern Rome.

RomanticStrangePatient
A dense spiral of desks and papers dwarfs one small central human figure.
The Trial
1962 · Orson WellesDrama

A man is arrested without being detained and drawn through a legal system that never states the charge against him.

StrangeMysteryPatient
8½: A sculptural paper 8 and fraction become a stairway and circus stage with a director's chair.
8½
1963 · Federico Fellini138 min · Drama

A director unable to make his next film retreats into memories, fantasies, and an ever-growing production circus.

FunnyStrangePatient
The Fire Within — An empty cafe table with a notebook and water overlooks a soft Paris evening.
The Fire Within
1963 · Louis MalleDrama

A man leaving treatment spends a day revisiting Paris, old friends, and the life he cannot persuade himself to re-enter.

BleakGentlePatient
The Soft Skin 1964
The Soft Skin
1964 · François Truffaut117 min

A married literary scholar begins an affair, and a romance gradually takes on the pressure of a suspense story.

RomanticTenseModerate
Chimes at Midnight — A helmet and goblet occupy a warm tavern against a distant cold palace.
Chimes at Midnight
1965 · Orson Welles115 min · Historical drama

Falstaff’s warmth, vanity, and appetite fill the space between a prince’s youth and a king’s responsibilities.

FunnyBleakModerate
Original illustration for Au hasard Balthazar: A small grey donkey stands quietly beside an orchard gate, seen slightly from above; a worn harness hangs on weathered wood, scattered pale blossoms and long early-morning shadows.
Au hasard Balthazar
1966 · Robert BressonDrama

A donkey passes from owner to owner, carrying the weight of human tenderness, use, and cruelty.

BleakGentlePatient
Original illustration for The Battle of Algiers: Dense Casbah stairways and flat-roofed buildings stack into a labyrinth from low viewpoint, laundry cords, one empty checkpoint barrier small at a street corner.
The Battle of Algiers
1966 · Gillo Pontecorvo121 min · Political drama

Insurgency and counter-insurgency unfold through streets, checkpoints, apartments, and the systems that connect them.

TenseBleakPatient
A row of tiny figures and one separate figure stand inside a broad, pale walled enclosure.
The Round-Up
1966 · Miklós Jancsó90 min · Historical drama

After a failed uprising, prisoners are isolated inside a detention camp where authorities use uncertainty and betrayal to identify remaining rebels.

TenseBleakPatient
Original illustration for Wings of Desire: A Berlin cityscape emerges from a giant opened book, a small suspended trapeze arcs through the sky above rooftops and a single copper feather drifts close to foreground.
Wings of Desire
1987 · Wim WendersFantasy drama

An angel listening to Berlin’s private thoughts begins to long for weight, colour, touch, and one mortal life.

GentleRomanticModerate
Three small coated figures cross a broad muddy field beside an arc of looping footprints.
Sátántangó
1994 · Béla Tarr439 min · Drama

In a collapsing rural settlement, the return of a persuasive man reorganises hope, money, and betrayal.

BleakBeautifulPatient
Original illustration: An engraved cedar forest with a distant steam train, accounting ledger and travelling hat beneath Dead Man lettering.
Dead Man
1995 · Jim Jarmusch121 min · Acid western

A timid accountant travels west, becomes an outlaw by accident, and drifts toward a death he barely understands.

StrangeBleakModerate
A massive dark whale-like body curve dwarfs a circular group of small coated figures on pale blue-grey ground.
Werckmeister Harmonies
2000 · Béla Tarr, Ágnes HranitzkyDrama

A travelling whale and a mysterious speaker arrive in a cold town already close to collective rupture.

BleakBeautifulPatient
The White Ribbon — A white ribbon is tied around a dark chair facing a winter village.
The White Ribbon
2009 · Michael Haneke144 min · Drama

A series of cruel incidents disturbs a German village where discipline already governs family, school, church, and work.

MysteryBleakPatient
The Turin Horse — A tired horse stands outside a stone farmhouse beneath a windswept sky.
The Turin Horse
2011 · Béla Tarr, Ágnes HranitzkyDrama

A father, a daughter, and a horse repeat the work of survival as wind and light begin to withdraw from their world.

BleakBeautifulPatient
Original illustration: A sparse grey view through a convent opening toward snow and two empty chairs, with a suitcase beneath Ida lettering.
Ida
2013 · Paweł PawlikowskiDrama

A young novice meets her aunt and learns that the life awaiting her rests beside a family history she never knew.

BleakBeautifulModerate
Original illustration: A diagonal paper piano keyboard, folk embroidery, a map fragment and a small stage microphone beneath Cold War lettering.
Cold War
2018 · Paweł PawlikowskiRomantic drama

Two musicians repeatedly find and lose one another as borders, politics, and temperament change the terms of their love.

RomanticBleakModerate

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