This film is currently unavailable
Le Doulos
The first in Jean-Pierre Melville’s great series of thrillers is a dazzlingly intricate tale of deadly suspicion and betrayal.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Overview
Though Silien (Belmondo) is believed by some in the Parisian crime community to be a police informer, Maurice (Reggiani), a burglar just out of prison, trusts his friend enough to have let on about a job he’s lined up. But when a cop turns up mid-robbery, Maurice, wounded in his escape, has second thoughts and swears revenge... Establishing an atmosphere of unease, distrust and deception with a beautifully staged opening scene, Melville combines ingenious plot twists with a near-mythic evocation of underworld customs and fashions.
Belmondo’s youthful charm and Reggiani’s hangdog decency both prove enormously effective, while Nicolas Hayer’s camerawork is simply terrific. Finally, however, it’s the shadowy tangle of ambiguities, enigmas and cruel ironies that make this film so special.
Related
Drunken Angel Drunken Angel
Film noir 1948 98 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Part gangster film, part melodrama and part social critique, Akira Kurosawa's first critical success follows the troubled friendship between a disillusioned doctor and a young yakuza.
La Ronde La Ronde
Drama 1950 89 mins Director: Max Ophuls
Ophuls’ exquisite, imaginative adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s play about a carousel of erotic encounters involving characters of different social status.
Les Enfants Terribles Les Enfants Terribles
Drama 1949 106 mins Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Jean-Pierre Melville’s film of Jean Cocteau's controversial novel about a teenage brother and sister and their intense, closeted relationship.
Air Doll Air Doll
Drama 2009 116 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
A life-size blow-up doll comes to life and falls in love with a video store clerk in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s haunting, melancholy meditation on urban alienation.
Floating Skyscrapers Floating Skyscrapers
Drama 2013 89 mins Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Hailed as ‘Poland’s first LGBT film’, Tomasz Wasilewski’s striking drama follows a champion swimmer whose gay relationship causes ripples.
Sweet Sue Sweet Sue
Comedy 2022 100 mins Director: Leo Leigh
A shameless woman finds her new lover’s son wants to divide them in this cringe comic drama starring Maggie O’Neill.
Bande à part Bande à part
Crime 1964 95 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the 1940s, executed with typically Gallic cool.
El Sur El Sur
Drama 1983 94 mins Director: Víctor Erice
Victor Erice’s second masterpiece, following The Spirit of the Beehive, is a rarely seen meditation on memory, deception and Spain’s 20th-century history.
Of Time and the City Of Time and the City
Documentary 2008 74 mins Director: Terence Davies
Brilliantly mixing archive film and music, Liverpool-born director Terence Davies reflects with wit and wisdom on a times of change, for good or ill