Louis Arbessier

Mesrine (1984)

Mesrine was the foremost criminal, public enemy N°1, the man most wanted in France, guilty of 39 crimes. "In the police or newspaper history, Mesrine broke all records". The film begins with his escape on May 8, 1978. Mesrine was the only man to escape fr ...

La Dame de chez Maxim (1981)

Les Femmes savantes (1978)

La Poudre aux yeux (1976)

Created in 1861, this comedy by Eugène Labiche depicts two bourgeois families obsessed with appearances who intend to marry off their children. Labiche exposes the social rivalry between the two families through tyrannical female characters and submissive ...

Les Rosenberg ne doivent pas mourir (1975)

A French film about a famous American trial - that of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who became the first people in American history to receive the death penalty for espionage. ...

Charlotte (1974)

Starting as an investigation, the film begins with the discovery of a murdered young woman. Gradually we go back in time to realize that this crime is altogether the logical continuation of a philosophy of life where neither sex nor death are taboo, and wh ...

The End of the Tether (1973)

An experienced but aging captain in command of the Sofala must hide the fact that he is becoming blind. ...

La Station Champbaudet (1972)

The widow Champbaudet believes herself loved by an architect. But the young man actually has views on the neighbor upstairs. Cunning, he multiplies his visits to the widow with the sole aim of getting closer to the beautiful Aglaé. It was without counting ...

The Lion's Share (1971)

A writer is reunited with an old childhood friend, who gives him the opportunity to devise a heist. ...

La visite de la vieille dame (1971)

Adaptation for TV of the play by Friedrich Durrenmatt. A very rich old lady arrives in her nearly bankrupt native village. She is ready to come to the rescue but only if her old lover who had once abandoned her pregnant is killed. ...

Under the Sign of the Bull (1969)

Albert is an eccentric inventor of missiles who comes under fire from his investors when his first prototype explodes. Even his sympathetic mistress has her doubts, as Albert lashes out in a verbal tirade condemning those of little faith in his genius. ...

Pasha (1968)

Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris... ...

To Skin a Spy (1966)

A French secret agent gets a license to kill when he is sent to Vienna to plug a security leak in this routine spy saga. He is caught in the crossfire of international enemy agents trying to eliminate the French. ...

God's Thunder (1965)

Veterinarian Léandre Brassac lives with his wife Marie on a remote estate. One day, he decides to shelter a young woman with no bearings. ...

Rope Around the Neck (1965)

Arthur can no longer stand married life. He wants to get rid of his wife and live with his mistress. In doing so, he makes a mistake and kills his mistress Clara. But did he really commit the crime? His wife is accused. Who killed Clara? ...

The Dirty Game (1965)

A U.S. intelligence general recalls three Cold War cases of Soviet, French and Italian spies. ...

The Great Spy Chase (1964)

A cold-war spy parody. After the death of an armaments manufacturer, an international group of spies is drawn into a high-stakes battle of wits to obtain the valuable military patents which have been inherited by the lovely widow. ...

Blood on His Sword (1961)

Charles le Temeraire asks in marriage Jeanne de Beauvais, daughter of King Louis XI, wishing to get her valuable lands in dowry. The King is wise to this, and since his daughter does not feel inclined to accept, he refuses. Charles sets up a plan to abduct ...

The President (1961)

At 73, a former President of the French Council reflects on his political career while writing his memoirs, delving into his relationships with key figures, including the one set to become the next President. ...

The Truth (1960)

As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a picture of the kind of relationship the two used to share. ...

Liberty Bar (1960)

Superintendent Maigret is sent to Antibes to elucidate the murder of William Brown, a rich Australian who regularly disappeared to indulge in formidable drinking binges. In his footsteps, Maigret makes the rounds of bars until discovering the Liberty Bar, ...

The Crab Basket (1960)

Charles is a student in Strasbourg. Abandoned by Liliane, his fiancée, who has inexplicably given up on marriage, he moves to Paris, where he decides to pursue a career in cinema. He founded a film club and became a journalist, then assistant to a famous ...

Tonight We Kill (1959)

In Antwerp, Belgium, in 1959, a succession of Interpol agents are gunned down without obtaining what they're looking for: a list of all the influential crooks. Only one remains, Larry Laine, who is about to show them what he's made of. ...

The Coin (1959)

Bob recruits Jacques, a desperate blacksmith, to "recover" smuggled diamonds from de Belar. The heist goes badly wrong. The crooks kill each other for the money, but the diamonds are gone and Jacques returns to his life as an honest man. ...

End of Desire (1958)

Normandy, second half of the nineteenth century. Jeanne Dandieu lives in a manor house with her parents and their servant Rosalie. She gets to know Julien, a handsome man, whom she soon marries. Her happiness is short-lived as she finds out that not only h ...

Women's Prison (1958)

Alice Rémon, a pharmacist, is a prostitute who managed to leave the streets by getting married. Her husband dies one day, poisoned. Her mother-in-law, who hates her, accuses her of murder. ...

Les Misérables (1958)

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France. ...

Not Delivered (1958)

After resolving to start a new life with his girlfriend Jacqueline, Bastien Sassey decides to give up working as a courier for drugs traffickers. So that he and Jacqueline can make a fresh start he agrees to take on one more job for a large sum of cash, bu ...

Les Violents (1958)

Pierre Tercelin who used to be a prosperous industrialist is now ruined and embittered, having become a mere lock keeper. A widower, he lives with his daughter Evelyne, a music-hall dancer. Claiming he is being persecuted by his cousin Edgar he gets in tou ...

Demoniac (1957)

Gervais escapes from a German concentration camp and assumes the identity of a recently deceased fellow prisoner. Knowing that the dead man has been carrying on a romance by correspondence with Hélène, whom he has never seen, Gervais makes the acquaintan ...

To Catch a Spy (1957)

The blueprints of an aeroplane built from an ultra-secret metal are stolen from national security. French secret service agent Walder believes that the documents are now in Switzerland, in the hands of a man named Lindbaum. The latter agrees to hand over t ...

Michael Strogoff (1956)

When Emir Feofar Khan, leader of the Tartar hordes, takes up arms and invades the steppes of Eastern Siberia, Czar Alexander II of Russia entrusts the brave officer Michael Strogoff with a dangerous mission. ...

Mémoires d'un flic (1956)

In Marseille, crime squad captain Dominique fights against racketeers and tries to put a young man back on the right track. ...

Série noire (1955)

Léo Fardier is a police inspector who goes to prison undercover as a convict. He shares a cell with Mariani, a Corsican mafioso, whose trust he earns. The day Léo leaves prison, the criminal entrusts him with a letter to deliver to his estranged wife. He ...

Queen Margot (1954)

Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Catherine de Médicis, celebrates her wedding with Henri de Navarre. Officially, it's a rapprochement between the League and the Huguenots. In fact, it was an opportunity to bring all the Huguenots to Paris and kill them a ...

The Beautiful Otero (1954)

An Italo-French biopic about one of the most famous women of Belle Époque, Spanish-born dancer and actress, star of Folies-Bèrgere: Carolina Otero. ...

Royal Affairs in Versailles (1953)

Witty narration follows the history of Versailles Palace; founded by Louis XIII, enlarged by autocratic Louis XIV, whose personal affairs and amours, and those of his two successors, are pursued in more detail to the start of the Revolution, after which th ...

The Three Musketeers (1953)

The umpteenth adaptation of Dumas' novel finds d'Artagnan and his friends promoting the love affairs of Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham, incurring the wrath of the Cardinal and exposing themselves to the cold cruelty of Milady de Winter. Also fe ...

Mandat d'amener (1953)

Appointed public prosecutor in a small provincial town, Gérard Latour befriends Delanglade, whose young wife becomes his mistress. Shortly afterwards, a fire ravages Delanglade's factory. During the ensuing investigation, the Public Prosecutor discovers t ...

Imperial Violets (1952)

Violeta, an Andalusian gypsy, foretells a lady she will become empress. The lady is Eugenia de Montijo, and when she marries emperor Luis Napoleón of France she takes the young girl with her. The empress'cousin readily makes her his focus of attention, th ...

The Happiest of Men (1952)

An industrialist who prefers painting to business is cheated on by his wife with a painter who prefers business to painting. ...

We Are All Murderers (1952)

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Moulo ...

Thirst of Men (1950)

During the colonial period in Algeria, Sergeant Bouvard helps Broussole and his two daughters, Alise and Julie, settle in Hassi Ben Okba. Demobilized, he plants vines with them. Seduced by Julie's charms, he nevertheless marries Alise because she owns the ...

Suzanne and Her Brigands (1949)

Suzanne is a lawyer, she's just got her degree and she is married to a cop. We follow her through three investigations. ...

Paysans Noirs (1949)

In Ivory Coast, an administrator is appointed to replace a colleague who has just been assassinated. The newly appointed administrator, Guillon, clashes with a powerful elite that extorts money from farmers who refuse to cultivate the land. A peanut proces ...

Télévision, œil de demain (1947)

Télévision, oeil de demain predicted smartphones and video calling. The film was based on a premise from the science fiction author René Barjavel, called Cinema Total, 1944. ...

Little Nothings (1941)

Following a broadcast on the radio, each of the listeners remembers these "little nothings" (the title is borrowed from a play by Mozart), which have often changed their lives. Each of these stories told will prove that a tiny detail in life can change an ...