1987 film by Claude Guillemot

Harry is a married writer who has an affair with a woman whose husband knows that she is unfaithful. As a result of his work, Harry has trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality leaving us to wonder whether the affair is real or just a figment of Harry's imagination.

Beaujolais Nouveau Is Arrived, directed by Jean-Luc Voulfow in 1978, is a comedy inspired by the novel by René Fallet that depicts an incredible adventure set against a backdrop of French rurality and popular friendship. The film tells the story of Camadule, an enigmatic and endearing character, respected in his small café "Chez Gaston", where he shares anecdotes and mysteries. One day, his friends entrust him with the sacred mission of fetching several barrels of Beaujolais Nouveau, supposedly belonging to an old countess with whom he is favored. To accomplish this quest, he is joined by the Captain, a former soldier disillusioned by life and its failures, and Kamel, an immigrant worker, all driven by the hope of the new wine and the dream of a collective adventure.

After five years in the army, Valentin Brû marry a haberdasher. They move to Paris, where Valentin sells frames, while his wife becomes fortune teller. One day, Valentin replaces her, and predict a terrible event which will happen.

The story of boys who were condemned to the severe reformatory regime in a French penal ‘colony’. It’s run by a former prison warden, based on ‘rehabilitattion’ trough manual labor and strict discipline. Young Reynard, a novice to crime and juvenile detention, meets horrible hardened villains and sadistic staff as well as people with some heart among fellow inmates and their supposed educators.

Omar, un jeune franco-algérien de La Garenne-Colombes, a décidé de passer ses vacances dans le pays de ses ancêtres, l'Algérie. Au retour, il embarque à bord du ferry « Le Tassili » et au cours de la traversée, il rencontre des personnages qui partagent ses doubles attaches, dans une bonne humeur qui cache mal leurs déchirements.

A manufacturer of furniture sees his business go down and decides to rob banks to pay his staff. Het gets romantically involved with one of his victims.

1968 film by Robert Enrico

In August 1952, a family of British tourists is found by the roadside in Haute Provence, brutally murdered. In the ensuing, very public, investigation a local landowner, 75 year old Gaston Dominici, is arrested for the murders, having been denounced by his sons. Under police interrogation, Dominici confesses to have killed the family and it looks certain that he will be charged, tried and sentenced to death. But then the case begins to collapse. The old man retracts his confession and the lack of evidence against him becomes apparent…

The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.

A mysterious phantom appears in the Musée du Louvre in Paris at night. The guards are unable to catch it. A student, André Bellegarde obstinately tries to find out more about the strange creature by himself. He seems to be more effective in doing so than the local police led by commissaire Menardier. Bellegarde does cooperate with the police, too, but he mostly goes his own way investigating Belphégor's activity. A secret society is in the background. Bellegarde, in the meantime, is involved in two romances and cannot decide which woman to dedicate himself as the case gets more and more serious and criminal and threads meet.

This film starts out like a lot of espionage thrillers: an innocent man witnesses a murder and finds himself mixed up in a deadly intrigue of spies and counter-spies. A movie of this sort can easily become infuriatingly complicated or just plain silly. At worst it can be both, as for example Jacques Deray's earlier spy thriller "Avec la peau des autres", which also starred Lino Ventura. "Un papillon sur l'épaule" works better because it never fully gives up its mystery. We know that something sinister is afoot and we can make some intelligent guesses, but the thing is never spelled out for us. Lino Ventura is like Alice (a paunchy, middle-aged Alice) who tumbles down a rabbit-hole and wakes up in a world that's not quite the same as before, where no-one believes him or can explain what's happening and where innocuous-looking strangers suddenly take on a menacing significance. The white rabbit of this particular looking-glass world is played by Claudine Auger, a slinky spy who keeps whizzing up in a battered car to dispense gnomic advice and warnings. Paul Crauchet, who acted with Ventura nine years earlier in Melville's "L'Armée des ombres", plays a lunatic in pyjamas with an imaginary talking butterfly on his shoulder and a scarecrow in his bed. It sounds bizarre and it is, but I liked it. Ventura, who starred in plenty of espionage thrillers in his career, is believable and sympathetic; the Spanish locations are used to great effect; and Jacques Deray's assured direction feeds the suspense and paranoia, his camera peering around corners and through doorways and windows (one murder is witnessed through revolving doors). An enjoyable thriller and a must-see for Ventura fans. (kinsayder - IMDB).

For generations, two rival French villages, Longueverne and Velrans, have been at war. But this is no ordinary conflict, for the on-going hostilities are between two armies of young schoolboys. When he is beaten by his father for having lost his buttons, the leader of the Longueverne army, Lebrac, has an idea which will give his side the advantage: next time, he and his brave soldiers will go in battle without their clothes...

tv show aired since 1997

French mini-series

This film is one of director Claude Faraldo's explorations of assaults on conformity, which he explored more adventurously in his later film Themroc. In this film, a sensual young man begins his working life as a delivery boy. Later, as a married man, his father moves into the household. Everyone seems content when the father asks to occasionally have sex with his son's wife. Their contentment only increases when the father brings home a young street criminal, and they are able to add to the variety of their joinings. The son has become a truck driver by this time. One day after an accident, he abandons his truck on the street and he and his whole menage head south.

To his chagrin, young Marcel Pagnol and his family move back to their home in Marseilles, France, far from their pastoral holiday cottage in the hills. Determined, Marcel makes the long voyage back to the cottage on foot and lands himself in trouble. One day Marcel's father discovers a shortcut to the cottage, but it requires trespassing. Despite their trepidations, Marcel and his family begin using the secret trail to reach their cottage.

1969 film by Jacques Deray

1972 film by Jean-Pierre Melville