Directed by Jean Vigo • 1934 • France
In Jean Vigo's hands, an unassuming tale of conjugal love becomes an achingly romantic reverie of desire and hope. Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain, marries Juliette (Dita Parlo), an innocent country girl, and the two climb aboard Jean's boat, the L'Atalante, otherwise populated by an earthy first mate (Michel Simon) and a multitude of mangy cats, and embark on their new life together. Both a surprisingly erotic idyll and a clear-eyed meditation on love, L'ATALANTE, Vigo's only feature-length work, is a film like no other.
Up Next in Sight and Sound Directors’ Poll: Greatest Films of All Time
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La notte
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni • 1961 • Italy
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica VittiThis psychologically acute, visually striking modernist work was director Michelangelo Antonioni’s follow-up to the epochal L’AVVENTURA. Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau star as a n...
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Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1974 • West Germany
Starring Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara ValentinThe wildly prolific German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder paid homage to his cinematic hero Douglas Sirk with this update of that filmmaker’s 1955 ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. A ...
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Viridiana
Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1961 • Spain
Starring Silvia Pinal, Fernando Rey, Francisco RabalBanned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican, Luis Buñuel’s irreverent vision of life as a beggar’s banquet is regarded by many as his masterpiece. In it, novice nun Viridiana does her utmost to maintain ...
