Movies by Michel Auclair

The Day of the Jackal

The Day of the Jackal

An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated gendarme on the assassin’s trail.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

The story of a gentle-hearted beast in love with a simple and beautiful girl. She is drawn to the repellent but strangely fascinating Beast, who tests her fidelity by giving her a key, telling her that if she doesn't return it to him by a specific time, he will die of grief. She is unable to return the key on time, but it is revealed that the Beast is the genuinely handsome one. A simple tale of tragic love that turns into a surreal vision of death, desire, and beauty.

The Married Couple of the Year Two

The Married Couple of the Year Two

Nicolas Philibert goes to America after killing a French aristocrat. On his return he tries to divorce his wife, Charlotte, but when he sees others trying to woo her his own interest is rekindled.

Des Hommes Dans Le Ciel

Des Hommes Dans Le Ciel

Manon

Manon

Port of Marseille, France, recently liberated from the German yoke. Caught as stowaways aboard a ship, Manon, a young woman who was accused of collaborating with the Nazis, and Robert, a freedom fighter who saved her from reprisals, tell the captain about the many challenges they have had to face in order to survive.

Sophie's Misfortune

Sophie's Misfortune

Sophie de Réan, an unruly mischievous little girl grows up under the thumb of Mademoiselle, her strict governess. Following her mother's death, she is entrusted to Mme de Fleurville, her aunt, who at the same time hires Mademoiselle to further Sophie's education. A few years later, the little girl has blossomed into a lovely young lady. She is now in love with Paul, her cousin, who, unlike her, used to be a model child. Unfortunately Mademoiselle will not hear of a union between them. Instead she wants Sophie to marry Armand, the conceited s...

Royal Affairs in Versailles

Royal Affairs in Versailles

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 followed in more detail to the start of the Revolution, after which the story is brought rapidly up to date. A huge cast plays mainly historical persons who appear briefly.

Black Thursday

Black Thursday

In Paris, in 1942, on a Thursday, the Parisian police herded together some 13,000 Jews for deportation to German territory. In this story, Paul (Christian Rist) is a teenager who tries to prevent this from happening. At first he attempts to save two elderly Jews, but they are resigned to their fate and comply with the order to assemble. For a short while, he is able to keep Jeanne (Christine Pascal) from joining them, but, after a long and strenuous day, she finally escapes from him he is too tired to chase after her.

Sous le signe de Monte-Cristo

Sous le signe de Monte-Cristo

Edmond Dantès, who was active in the resistance against the Nazis, is accused for being a Nazi collaborator and is imprisoned in the fortress of Sisteron.

A Thousand Billion Dollars

A Thousand Billion Dollars

A young journalist uncovers an assassination disguised as a suicide, linked to an American multinational seeking to dominate French industries. Determined to expose the truth, he races against time to gather evidence before more lives—and his own—are at stake.

Mr. President

Mr. President

Adaptation of the famous novel, impassioned denunciation of the Guatemalan dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera.

Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case

Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case

Police Commissioner Jules Maigret returns to the small village where he spent his childhood at the request of the Countess of Saint-Fiacre, who has received a disturbing anonymous letter.

Les Avocats du Diable

Les Avocats du Diable

In 1958 in Paris, during the Algerian War, a young trainee lawyer, Maître Chabrier, was assigned to defend an Algerian garbage collector against paratroopers who had beaten him. Stay out of Algerian affairs, his peers advise him because the trial is taking a political turn. Chabrier acquired the reputation of the Fellaghas' lawyer.

December

December

In Algiers, during the Algerian War of Independence, one of the leaders of the FLN was arrested by the French colonial army, which used the most violent methods to make the prisoners speak. The use of torture poses a conscience problem for a French officer. Playing shot-reverse-shot, between the tortured and his torturer, in a suffocating camera, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina approaches torture by drawing inspiration from the story of his father, who died of abuse.

Lise and Laura

Lise and Laura

Laura lives in a Hotel in Britanny and meets there an old man. Laura looks like his wife Lise, who's killed by the Gestapo...

Salomé

Salomé

Salome was the daughter of Herod II and Herodias. According to the New Testament, the daughter of Herodias demanded and received the head of John the Baptist. This is a choreographed version of the play by Oscar Wilde.