Le français

At the end of the nineteenth century, little Marcel lives with his parents in the Provence countryside. During his holiday, Marcel meets Lili, a local boy who knows all the secrets of the hills, and the two become fast friends.

Every holiday Marcel and his family go to their cottage near Marseilles. During one of these holidays he meets Isabelle, a pretty but conceited girl... Adapted from the cult classic novel from Marcel Pagnol.

En route to Paris, a group gets lost during a storm and seeks refuge in a castle owned by a ruined nobleman, who wants to join the group's trek to Paris.

The 'philosopher' (modernist intellectual of the French 18th-century Enlightenment) Denis Diderot is part of an aristocratic circle which practices the libertarian principles on the rural castle estate of the baron of Holbach, and prints their forbidden publication, the Encyclopédie, drowning the noise of the presses in Jewish assistant Abraham's organ playing. Then arrives Madame Therbouche, a flirtatious painter, from the Prussian metropolis Berlin, and convinces Diderot to pose for her more daring then his idol fellow-philosopher Voltaire in Berlin: in the nude, leading to an animated row with his wife Antoinette, still naked except for a very unsteady sheet, all over the estate's park. Worse, the saucy scene is witnessed by a feared visitor, Holbach's brother the Cardinal, who is hunting for the illegal Encyclopaedia printers; to divert him, the baroness confesses her real and imagined sins since years and next sends in every female to do the same, later joined spontaneously by chevalier (marquis in the end credits) de Jerfeuil, who got a livelier show the he bargained for when accepting to be shown two inseparable marquis's 'sabre collection' which proves not of the military variety. The baroness also treats her guests to (then) most exotic foods and naughty pictures, yet even for her the freedman Turkish hamam eunuch Mohamed takes hospitality for female guests too far into intimate massage to their taste. His personal experience keeps changing Diderot's ideas, and therefore the article he is writing on 'morale' (morality). Secrets end up getting out, both the portraitist's true agenda and what goes on in the chapel, which the Cardinal finally gets into to 'recollect himself' after hearing so many unsettling lustful sins...

In mid-nineteenth-century northern France, a coal mining town's workers are exploited by the mine's owner. One day, they decide to go on strike, and the authorities repress them.

A beautiful but shy shepherdess plots vengeance on the men whose greedy conspiracy to acquire her father's land caused his death years earlier.

A greedy landowner and his backward nephew conspire to block the only water source for an adjoining property in order to bankrupt the owner and force him to sell.

Upon returning home after a ten year absence, a Colonel in Napoleon's army discovers that his wife has remarried and has used his pension to amass great wealth.

The life story of the titular Beaumarchais, playwright and adventurer, who gets himself into numerous different scrapes and romantic encounters in 18th Century France.

The Comte de Gonzague schemes against his cousin, the Duc de Nevers, even though he is the Duke's heir and will inherit his estates. The Count has kept secret the existence of the Duke's bastard, recently born. When the Duke learns of his child, he journeys to wed the mother, a baron's daughter, in her father's isolated chateau. The occupants of the castle are surprised and murdered by the Count and his men. The only ones to escape are the Duke's friend, the skilled swordsman Lagardère, and the infant, a girl, now the rightful heiress to the Duke's vast fortune. The Count believes the pair to have drowned, when in fact they have been concealed by a travelling troupe of Italian players. Twenty years pass. The Count has discovered that the two survive and seeks to have them slain. But Lagardère gains the confidence of the Count, and employment as his bookkeeper, through his clever disguise as a hunch-back...

In the sixteenth century, Spain occupies Flanders, an Inquisition enforces the faith. Aging writer and philosopher, Zénon Ligre, comes to Bruges using a false name and papers to serve as a physician to the poor, establishing a clinic and steam bath. His methods and opinions are outside the mainstream, but he has the protection and friendship of the local Prior. Zénon, an aristocrat with a degree in canon law, lives humbly. He learns of bacchanals under Masonic signs involving monks and women, and he warns those involved. The Prior is dying, and he urges Zénon to flee to England. Zénon burns his writing. Will he leave or will he face ecclesiastical accusers and, perhaps, the stake?

To satisfy his creditors, a witty actor reinvents himself as a satirical playwright, with uproarious, yet bittersweet, results.

The story of Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, fierce and somber man, grand master of the viola da gamba and professor of Marin Marais, prestigious musician in the court of Louis XIV.

Corbiau repeats the Farinelli formula, artistic rivalry and social private drama expressed in dazzling, sometimes excessively lavish baroque scenery, music and costume, but this time in its ultimate setting: Versailles. There are two protagonists - first the title character, Louis XIV, the French sun-king who has two passions, establishing absolute rule over the realm -after decades of religious/civil wars- by divine right and artistic brilliancy as a dancer (like Nero wrote and performed musical poetry), and starts asserting himself against the entourage of his Medici mother, the regent during his minority, by building his palace complex and launching a 'fitting' new, mainly musical display of baroque show. Secondly the musical genius Gianbattista Lulli ('Jean-Baptiste') Lully, a Florentine upstart of unbridled ambition, quickly gains the king's absolute trust, despite the nationalist and aristocratic opposition to a low-born Italian, and thus turns the normally socially humble post of court composer into a 'ministerial portfolio of culture' of Cabinet rank, complete with a monopoly which kills of his artistic rivals in operatic theater. The script also weaves a complex web of court scheming for individual power and social interests, and even a sadistic but accidental murder on a young valet, producing a sensuous and sumptuous drama too complex for this format, ending in a freakish but fatal accident. Louis XIV's mother was Ana de Austria (in French, Anne d' Autriche), the daughter of one of the Hapsburgh Kings of Spain. Maria di Medici (in French, Marie de Médicis) was his grandmother, his father's mother. She was dead before Louis XIV reached the throne. Please correct the reference to "his Medici mother"

Famed swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his cousin Roxane. He has never expressed his love for her as he his large nose undermines his self-confidence. Then he finds a way to express his love to her, indirectly.

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.

Young Queen Margot finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage amidst a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. She hopes to escape with her new lover, but finds herself imprisoned by her powerful and ruthless family.

In medieval France, some villagers challenge a man's claim of identity when he (as he says) returns home from some time in the army.

The rise and fall of a beauteous actress. She rises from an impoverished background to become a favorite of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

Knight Godefroy de Montmirail and squire Jacquouille are stranded in 1793. Using trickery to break free from their shackles, both perilously partake in the Montmirail family's run away in the quest for an exiting time-shift.

A medieval knight and his servant ask a familiar wizard to move them back in time to prevent father-in-law's accidentally killing. Instead, they fly away to the 20th century.

Knight Godefroy has to return to our time from 1023 to get back the sacred jewels that Jacquouille has taken to the 20th century.

In 1930s southern France, a father is torn between his sense of honor and his deep love for his daughter when she gets in trouble with the wealthy son of a shopkeeper.

The socialist mayor of Saint-Juire has set his heart on building a cultural and sports complex in the village meadow. He's a well liked by the local people and has managed to raise the loans needed for the complex thanks to his contacts.

In 1793, as the Terror begins in France, Georges Danton, a champion-of-the-people, returns to clash against Maximilien Robespierre and his extremist party.