A leading member of the French New Wave, who came to be regarded as the 'French Hitchcock', for many years Claude Chabrol's classic thrillers have been missing from UK screens. A mid-career masterpiece within Chabrol's remarkable run of bourgeois psychological thrillers, La Femme infidèle traces the fallout following a husband’s discovery of his wife’s affair and his quiet, unnerving and devastating act of revenge. In French with English subtitles.

La Femme infidèle is part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Alongside classics like The Big Sleep and All the President's Men the season brings together three of Chabrol’s most disturbing works, from La Femme infidèle, 1970's impeccable Le Boucher and 1995's La Cérémonie (based on Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone), these are thrillers which explore moral, rather than political, corruption and where polite society and dark secrets entwine to murderous effect.

The latest adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel, which follows reformed ex-convict Jean Valjean amidst the social unrest of Paris, all the while relentlessly hunted by his obsessed nemesis, Inspector Javert. 

Director Fred Cavayé delivers a robust new non-musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s timeless classic. After enduring 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, Jean Valjean (Vincent Lindon) emerges a hardened man. He seeks redemption by reinventing himself as a respected dignitary under a new identity. He promises Fantine (Noémie Merlant), a dying factory worker, to rescue and protect her daughter Cosette (Megan Northam), who is being exploited and mistreated by the deceitful Thénardier family (Camille Cottin and Benjamin Lavernhe). 

 As Valjean raises Cosette as his own, he is relentlessly pursued by Inspector Javert (Tahar Rahim). Amidst the social unrest shaking France, the fates of Valjean, Cosette, her lover Marius, and Javert become intertwined in a turbulent, revolutionary Paris. Through struggles, sacrifices, and a deep yearning for justice, Valjean strives to complete his own journey of redemption and offer Cosette a future of love and freedom. In French with English Subtitles

A vanished wife. A borrowed name. A house in the Portuguese countryside. Grieving and aimless, quiet geography teacher Fernando slips into another man's identity as a gardener — and finds, in the friendship that follows, a life that isn't his own. A tender and hopeful story about connection and purpose. In Spanish and Portuguese with English subtitles.

“Gently but determinedly pulls the rug from beneath you at every turn… one of the most delicately observed relationships in recent cinema… a small, enigmatic marvel of a film, and a worthy swansong for Solo, an actor possessed of the most soulful gaze in Spanish cinema” - 8/10 UNCUT

Commissioner Jules Maigret investigates the murder of a former ambassador, navigating uncooperative high-society families and a tight-lipped housekeeper to uncover a long-hidden secret.

Writer/director Pascal Bonitzer brings his unique perspective and panache to Simenon’s cherished Parisian detective – a French counterpart to Agatha Christie’s Poirot – as he attempts to solve the murder of a diplomat with a long-held secret.

Inspector Maigret (four-time César nominee Denis Podalydès) is urgently summoned to the Quai d’Orsay: a former ambassador has been found shot dead by his long-serving housekeeper (Anne Alvaro, The Taste of Others). But rather than contact the police, she has followed diplomatic protocols by first informing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Forewarned that he will find a series of salacious letters – and cautioned to be discreet – Maigret heads to the victim’s opulent apartment. He finds no forensic evidence at the crime scene, but certainly, the letters prove startling – secret, decades-spanning correspondence between the ambassador and the Princess of Vuynes, whose own husband, by strange coincidence, has also just died… In French with English Subtitles

"Bonitzer presents a masterful contemporary update of one of the great sleuths while capturing the character’s essence." - New York Lincoln Centre

A leading member of the French New Wave, who came to be regarded as the 'French Hitchcock', for many years Claude Chabrol's classic thrillers have been missing from UK screens. Chabrol’s most celebrated and sinister film sees a tender friendship between a schoolteacher and local butcher darken as a series of murders unsettles life in their village. In French with English subtitles.

Le Boucher is part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Alongside classics like The Big Sleep and All the President's Men the season brings together three of Chabrol’s most disturbing works, from 1969's La Femme infidèle and 1995's La Cérémonie (based on Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone), these are thrillers which explore moral, rather than political, corruption and where polite society and dark secrets entwine to murderous effect.

Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor: We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israelis to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible. While filming over the past three years, we found ourselves asking the very questions that were asked by our grandparents’ generation and throughout the 20th century:

how does one group of people allow the total dehumanisation of another? What do the inner workings of such a system look like? Many of the revelations in the film were published almost immediately as we learned of them, in the months following the October 7th attacks, by The Guardian (one of NAZA's producers), in collaboration with reporting partners +972 Magazine and Local Call. The film lets us explore something deeper than we could in our investigative journalism alone: not only the words being said but also those that are not said, the silence. It is up to all of us to break that silence.

Please note - there will be a post-film discussion following the screening on Saturday 21 November.

War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it into minus.

Two years have passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery and finally reclaim its daily life. Just as humanity managed to cling to a hard-won peace, a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant.

There is no third time. Everything ends here.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

“Taking everything that made Godzilla Minus One work and giving us more, both in terms of spectacle and emotion, Godzilla Minus Zero is a perfect sequel.“ 10/10 COLLIDER

Cemetery caretaker Violette's routine of offering comfort to visitors is upended when a police officer's arrival forces her to confront her own tragic and mysterious past.

Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has adapted Valérie Perrin’s international best-seller with a stellar cast among them Leila Bekhti, Melvil Poupaud and Anouk Grinberg.

Co-written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, Bekhti plays Violette Toussaint, a beloved cemetery caretaker whose peaceful life – filled by conversations with quirky workers and the many visitors who share their stories of love, loss, and life – is thrown off course when a mysterious stranger shows up on her doorstep compelling her to confront her troubled past filled with hidden truths. Violette comes to understand that the truth behind long-buried mysteries in her past must be uncovered if she wants to take another chance on life and, against all odds, love. The film marks Jeunet’s return to cinema after a gap of 13 years since The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet. In French with English subtitles.

"The film stays true to the book’s emotional core, blending present-day storytelling with flashbacks." - Sortir à Paris

In 1960, sixteen newly independent African countries enter the United Nations, a political earthquake that shifts the majority vote from the colonial powers to the global south. Congo becomes the arena in which the battle over the UN is fought. As Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe at the UN-top in reaction to the neo-colonial grab of the resources of newly independent Congo, UN delegates from African Countries are blackmailed. In an incredulous twist Patrice Lumumba’s assassination unites the Afro-Asian block, demanding the UN General Assembly to vote for immediate worldwide decolonization.

Jazz and decolonisation fuse in this upbeat historical rollercoaster, set through a quartet of voices from an activist, a diplomat, a writer and a world leader. Starring Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Malcolm X and Nikita Khrushchev, and many more. In Dutch, English, Russia, French and Arabic with English subtitles.

Part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat exposes how political power is exercised behind the scenes, and how governments, corporations and international institutions manipulate events for their own interests.

A righteous Vichy civil servant and a humanitarian priest exploit bureaucratic loopholes to rescue over 100 Jewish children from a deportation camp in 1942 Lyon.

Actor and director Daniel Auteuil tells the story of a relatively unknown chapter in the German Occupation of France: the rescue of Jewish children from Vénissieux in August 1942.The narrative follows Gilbert Lesage, a young civil servant at the Service Social des Étrangers, played by Antoine Reinartz, who is appointed to chair a committee tasked with deciding which Jews will be permitted to leave the internment camp in Vénissieux. A directive from the Vichy regime changes everything. It stipulates that non-accompanied children must not be deported. Certain committee members including Father Glasberg, played by Auteuil, then attempt to save as many children as possible before their deportation. 

While other French films this year concentrated on such celebrated figures as De Gaulle or Jean Moulin, Auteuil (on his sixth directorial outing) chooses to tell the story of the unsung heroes. These men and women took incredibly brave action, with no weapons and no desire for glory, simply because they refused to accept the unacceptable. At a time when the last remaining Holocaust victims are disappearing, the film serves as an important reminder of our duty to remember. In French with English subtitles.

"Robust moral thriller, both intellectually chewy and emotionally finely calibrated." - ScreenDaily

In 1972 France, a fearless lawyer takes on the landmark Bobigny trial to defend a teenage girl prosecuted for having an illegal abortion.

A landmark trial shakes France in 1972 as young Marie-Claire is prosecuted for having an illegal abortion with the help of her mother and two other defendants. In a courtroom governed by men, the verdict seems inevitable: prison for the women, while the rapist goes unpunished. 

Their last hope lies with Gisèle Halimi (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg), a fearless lawyer known for openly challenging patriarchy and confronting the system that condemns victims and lets perpetrators walk free. Alongside the accused, Gisèle will not only change their fate, but, against all odds, transform the condition of women forever. Three years later, it led to the Veil Act of 1975, which officially decriminalised abortion in France. In French with English subtitles.

"Powerful testament to the resilience of women through the generations." - Cineuropa