Directed by Roman Polanski • 1959 • Poland

Director Roman Polanski got the idea for his senior thesis from an article about a lavatory attendant who claimed to have had a mystical vision. “A lavatory attendant’s life seemed to epitomize vacuity, drudgery, monotony,” he recalled in his autobiography. “Nobody would ever . . . conceive of her having had a life imbued with passion and drama.”