Secret Defense

Following the May 1968 civil unrest in France, two theater groups rehearse plays by Aeschylus while two solitary individuals wander the Parisian streets hustling the populace for cash.

The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.

A librarian, a gangster's ex-lover, and a woman who has recovered from a coma spend an eye-opening summer in Paris.

In eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire.

Jeanne has succeeded in lifting the siege of Orléans and Charles has been crowned King of France. However, she is injured in an attempt to take Paris, weakening her position at court. Captured by the enemy and put on trial, she finds both her life and the sanctity of her body at stake.

In 1930s south of France, young orphan Roch is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Lindon, a man of means who befits her stature. Roch vows to win her back.

Convinced only she can lead France to victory against the invading English, Jeanne leaves her childhood home to plead with Charles, heir to the French throne, to allow her to guide his troops on the battlefield.

The film features five actors, two women and three men. According to Rivette, “It ran 40 minutes and nothing happens. It’s just four people sitting around a table, looking at each other. After ten minutes, people started to leave, and at the end, the only ones who stayed were Jean-Luc and a girl.”

Two enigmatic women, both with a hidden but shared motive, separately arrive in Paris. As they navigate the city and their search progresses, various characters become entangled within their conflict, one which increasingly comes to take a fantastical turn. These characters too, driven by their own desires, strive for their own goals in the fight. From a Paris, drenched in an otherworldly ambiance, a tale of desire and power emerges through mystery.

Julie, a daydreaming librarian, meets Céline, an enigmatic magician, and together they become the heroines of a time-warping adventure involving a haunted house, psychotropic candy, and a murder-mystery melodrama.

Anna, Joyce, Claude, and Cécile are four young actresses sharing a Paris apartment while attending intense acting workshops led by their demanding teacher Constance. As they rehearse scenes and navigate the tensions of living together, their personal lives begin to grow complicated when Joyce becomes involved with a mysterious older man whose presence slowly pulls the others into a web of secrets and suspicions, blurring the boundary between the roles they perform and the lives they're actually living.

A young woman joins a theatrical troupe where she slowly believes that the director is involved with a secret group and that he is in grave danger.

Claire is a chic young Parisian woman married to a somewhat older husband, Jean. Claire meets her lover, Claude, at his apartment, where he gifts her a fur coat. Now Claire needs to figure out how to return home with this expensive gift without the affair being found out.

A troubled marriage is tested by the couple's involvement in a theatrical production of Racine’s Andromaque.

Julien is a clockmaker with destructive impulses who decides to blackmail Madame X, a rich, attractive woman who traffics in stolen antiques. What he doesn’t know is that she has an even more dangerous secret that leads him to Marie, with whom he had fallen in love a year earlier.