"Actor: Anne Jacques"

• Va Savoir | Blu Ray | (28/04/2025) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Returning home with her travelling theatre troupe, actress Camille (Jeanne Balibar, Les misérables) finds the affections of her director lover Ugo (Sergio Castellitto, Conclave) have waned after he takes an interest in Dominique (Hélène de Fougerolles, Innocence), a vivacious student helping him search for an infamous missing play. In a bid to make him jealous, Camille reunites with her former lover Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffé, Prénom Carmen), now happily married to Sonia (Marianne Basler, Midnight in Paris), and a farce-like series of love triangles ensue. Theatrically exploring attraction, jealousy, and every emotion in between, Jacques Rivette's quick-witted and zesty romantic drama turns a satirical lens on the city's intelligentsia - for whom Paris will always be their home - to ask whether even they know what love is all about.

• Nikita | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £6.49   |  Saving you £6.50 (100.15%)   |  RRP £12.99

  French director Luc Besson broke the commercial taboo against female-driven action movies with Nikita, his seminal, seductively slick film about a violent street punk (Anne Parillaud) trained to become a smooth, stylish assassin. Though it amounts, in the end, to little more than disposable pop, the film has a cohesiveness in style and tone--akin to the early James Bond films--that gives it a sense of integrity. Parillaud is compelling both as a wild child and chic-but-lethal pro (trained in good manners by none other than Jeanne Moreau). Tchéky Karyo is also good as the cop mentor who develops feelings for her. --Tom Keogh

• Intimate Strangers | DVD | (14/02/2005) from £14.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (33.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  She confused him for a therapist and told him her deepest secrets. Now two people who never should have met are discovering there's nothing more seductive than the truth. When a French woman tells her marital troubles to a man she mistakes for a psychiatrist they soon form an unusual relationship... Nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival.

• The Train | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £15.28   |  Saving you £-2.29 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Inspired by a true incident during World War II in 'The Train' Burt Lancaster plays a French Resistance fighter doggedly attempting to stop a train used by the Nazis (led by Paul Scofield as Colonel Von Waldheim) to steal precious French art treasures in the summer of 1944. Featuring spectacular action sequences expertly directed by John Frankenheimer 'The Train' is a truly thrilling war film. The Oscar-nominated screenplay by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis superbly recreates the te

• Delicatessen | DVD | (15/04/2002) from £7.97   |  Saving you £15.01 (301.41%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Delicatessen presents a post-apocalyptic scenario set entirely in a dank and gloomy building where the landlord operates a delicatessen on the ground floor. But this is an altogether meatless world, so the butcher-landlord keeps his customers happy by chopping unsuspecting victims into cutlets, and he's sharpening his knife for the new tenant (French comic actor Dominque Pinon) who's got the hots for the butcher's near-sighted daughter. Delicatessen is a feast (if you will) of hilarious vignettes, slapstick gags, and sweetly eccentric characters, including a man in a swampy room full of frogs, a woman doggedly determined to commit suicide (she never gets it right) and a pair of brothers who make toy sound boxes that "moo" like cows. It doesn't amount to much as a story, but that hardly matters; this is the kind of comedy that leaps from a unique wellspring of imagination and inspiration, and it's handled with such visual virtuosity that you can't help but be mesmerised. French co-directors of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro have wildly inventive imaginations that gravitate to the darker absurdities of human behaviour, and their visual extravagance is matched by impressive technical skill. There's some priceless comedy here, some of which is so inventive that you may feel the urge to stand up and cheer. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com On the DVD: the special features are pretty standard, with a trailer, "making of" featurette and footage of the rehearsal process. The audio commentary is supplied by Jeunet, which, although interesting, is in French and thus necessitates the use of subtitles which then obliterate the movie's own subtitles. Once the commentary is on it is virtually impossible to turn this option off without reloading the disc. However, the Dolby stereo works wonders for this film, which is rich in sound, and surprisingly the 1.85:1 letterbox ratio is perfect for a film that is grainy by design. --Nikki Disney

• Cyrano de Bergerac (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (24/02/2020) from £15.45   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Cyrano (Gerard Depardieu), a swashbuckling hero with a gift for verse and a prominent proboscis - is madly in love with the most beautiful woman in Paris. Deterred though by his feelings of physical inadequacy he instead uses poetic skills to support another hapless suitor. But will the object of their affection realise who she's really falling for? Humorous and touching in equal measure, Cyrano de Bergerac is a spectacular and vibrant adaptation of Edmond Rostand's classic novel. Depardieu has never been better than as the swaggering scribe, his performance enriched by the vigorous direction of Jean-Paul Rappeneau and lavish period design. Now celebrating its 30th anniversary, this acclaimed world cinema classic is now available on Blu-ray in the UK for the very first time. Special Features: Presented in High Definition **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Fully illustrated booklet featuring new writing on the film Other extras TBC

• Girl on a Motorcycle | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Caught midway between 1970s soft-porn clunker The Story of O and Bunuel's sado-masochistic fantasy Belle de Jour, the 1968 erotic curio Girl on a Motorcycle is one of Marianne Faithfull's chief claims to notoriety. She stars as Rebecca, a leather-clad, former bookstore clerk in search of sexual fulfilment who flees her dependable schoolteacher husband for a dangerous liaison with Daniel (Alain Delon), a dashing Professor addicted to speed. The story is told entirely in flashbacks as Rebecca rockets along the road, having donned her leathers and walked out on her sleeping husband at the crack of dawn. It all must have seemed fairly daring and provocative in 1968, providing viewers with ample opportunities to view a naked Faithfull at the height of her allure. But today the existential musings of the lead character seem achingly pretentious, the erotic symbolism merely gawky and unintentionally amusing: the sight of Alain Delon with a phallic pipe dangling from his mouth is like something out of a Rene Magritte painting. The sex scenes between Delon and Faithfull are all swamped in a polarised visual effect that, while garish and psychedelic, is dated and distinctly unerotic. Director Jack Cardiff is better known as a cinematographer on classics such as The African Queen and Black Narcissus. Among Cardiff's other directorial credits is a worthy adaptation of DH Lawrence's Sons & Lovers, but Girl on a Motorcycle is a saucy road movie with no final destination. On the DVD: This DVD version is misleadingly presented as being the fully restored and uncut version of the film. Yet it was the US version not the European one that was heavily cut (and titillatingly re-titled "Naked Under Leather"). The restoration certainly does not refer to the print quality: although the colours are vivid and bright, the print used to master the DVD (in 16:9 anamorphic format) is extremely grainy and, at times, speckled with dirt and scratches. Included as one of the special features, a theatrical trailer loaded with innuendo shows just how much the film was marketed to a prurient audience. Director Jack Cardiff provides an audio commentary but has few revelatory things to say about his film beyond technical considerations, and even makes several clunking errors (recalling his casting decisions concerning a scene that takes place in a provincial German café, he raves about how he strove to find authentic French locals!). He does reveal that the film's use of a voice-over was inspired by the internal monologue that forms the basis of James Joyce's Ulysses. Given Cardiff's age and experience one feels that he must have more interesting anecdotes and insights, making this commentary feel like a wasted opportunity. --Chris Campion

• The Train | Blu Ray | (26/09/2023) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Love God | DVD | (02/01/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  So many women... Not enough man. Abner Peacock's (Knotts) beloved bird-watcher's magazine 'The Peacock' is in a financial crisis. Desperate to stay afloat Abner takes on new partners who have an agenda of their own: ito publish a sexy gentlemen's magazine. Before he can stop them the first issue sells over 40 million copies and Abner becomes the unwilling spokesperson for First Amendment rights. Swept up in the adulation the unwitting playboy quickly begins settling int

• Ocean's Twelve | DVD | (02/01/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £18.99

  Daniel Ocean recruits one more team member so he can pull off three major European heists in this sequel to Ocean's 11

• Brotherhood Of The Wolf | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In 18th century France, the Chevalier de Fronsac and his native American friend Mani are sent by the King to the Gevaudan province to investigate the killings of hundreds by a mysterious beast.

• Jesus Of Montreal | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jesus of Montreal is a surprising and dazzling tragi-comic satire on modern life based around a group of actors who gather together to perform a new interpretation of the Passion Play. Awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1989 Denys Arcand's film has been a major success throughout the world combining wild comedy with the absurd dramas of life around us.

• Jesus Of Montreal | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jesus of Montreal' is a surprising and dazzling tragi-comic satire on modern life based around a group of actors who gather together to perform a new interpretation of the Passion Play. Awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1989 Denys Arcand's film has been a major succes throughout the world combining wild comedy with the absurd dramas of life around us.

• Edward And Caroline | Blu Ray | (21/08/2017) from £12.50   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Becker's dark, offbeat comedy about a failing marriage stars Daniel Gélin as Édouard, a poor pianist married to Caroline (Anne Vernon), a beautiful girl from a middle-class family. Caroline's uncle Claude (Jean Galland), a complete snob who looks down on Édouard like the rest of his family, invites the couple to a party at which he is expected to play for his supper in front of Claude's important friends. Add the fact that Claude's son Alain (Jacques Francois) is in love with Caroline and this evening is destined for disaster.

• LA POISON | Blu Ray | (25/02/2013) from £18.88   |  Saving you £1.11 (5.88%)   |  RRP £19.99

  One of the great late period films by Sacha Guitry - the total auteur who delighted (and scandalised) the French public and inspired the French New Wave as a model for authorship as director-writer-star of screen and stage alike. In every one of his pictures (and almost every one served as a rueful examination of the war between the sexes), Guitry sculpted by way of a rapier wit - one might say by way of the Guitry touch - some of the most sophisticated black comedies ever conceived... and La Poison [Poison] is one of his blackest. Michel Simon plays Paul Braconnier, a man with designs on murdering his wife Blandine (Germaine Reuver) - a woman with similar designs on her husband. When Braconnier visits Paris to consult with a lawyer about the perfect way of killing a spouse - that is, the way in which he can get away with it - an acid comedy unfolds that reaches its peak in a courtroom scene for the ages. From the moment of Guitry's trademark introduction of his principals in the opening credits, and on through the brilliant performance by national treasure Michel Simon (of Renoir's Boudu sauve des eaux and Vigo's L'Atalante, to mention only two high-water marks), here is fitting indication of why Guitry is considered by many the Gallic equal of Ernst Lubitsch. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to introduce Sacha Guitry into the catalogue with La Poison for the first time on video in the UK in a dazzling new Gaumont restoration. Special Features: New HD restoration of the film, presented in 1080p on the Blu-ray Newly translated optional subtitles Substantial booklet containing writing on the film, vintage excerpts, and rare archival imagery

• Nous Ne Vieillirons Pas Ensemble | DVD | (24/08/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Rare is the film in movie-history that can announce the entire movement of it's 'plot' with its title alone. But Pialat's second feature Nous Ne Viellirons Pas Ensemble does exactly that encapsulating all the turmoil and the final end-point of a couple who among themselves once made a commitment - and living together will come to make another one yet. Jean (Jeane Yanne of Godard's Weekend) and Catherine (Marlene Jobert of Godard's Masculin Feminin) are the couple whose every move charts an advancement deeper into an emotional warzone. Theirs is the classic and the tragic case of an emotional abuse centered around a perplexing but powerful interdependency. At last the point arrives that determines the relationship with all its weekend holidays its apologies and submissions can go no further - and in a final shot of genius Pialat discloses all the ways in which the future might be at once liberated and enslaved by the past. Based on a novel by Pialat himself and on the trauma of his own personal life in the years leading up to the film Nous Ne Viellirons Pas Ensemble was a smash-hit at the time of its release - and yet is arguably one of the most upsetting films ever made.

• Agnes of God | DVD | (09/10/2003) from £15.57   |  Saving you £-9.58 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This Broadway hit gets a solid film treatment by director Norman Jewison but that can't make up for the weaknesses of the script (which were as true onstage as they are here). Jane Fonda plays a chain-smoking shrink sent to a convent to do a psychological evaluation of a novice (Meg Tilly) who gave birth to a baby and then killed it in her little room. Was it a virgin birth? A miracle? And what of the bloody stigmata that seem to spontaneously appear on her hands? Fonda also finds herself clashing with the Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft) over the line between faith and science. But writer John Pielmeier can't flesh this out beyond an idea; in the end, the solution is a disappointingly earthbound one that even the strong acting in this film can't elevate. --Marshall Fine

• Agnes Of God | DVD | (15/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This Broadway hit gets a solid film treatment by director Norman Jewison but that can't make up for the weaknesses of the script (which were as true onstage as they are here). Jane Fonda plays a chain-smoking shrink sent to a convent to do a psychological evaluation of a novice (Meg Tilly) who gave birth to a baby and then killed it in her little room. Was it a virgin birth? A miracle? And what of the bloody stigmata that seem to spontaneously appear on her hands? Fonda also finds herself clashing with the Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft) over the line between faith and science. But writer John Pielmeier can't flesh this out beyond an idea; in the end, the solution is a disappointingly earthbound one that even the strong acting in this film can't elevate. --Marshall Fine

• Cyrano De Bergerac | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £16.93   |  Saving you £6.05 (43.40%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau and cowriter Jean-Claude Carriere had the brilliant idea of casting France's most lovably vulnerable hunk, the massive Gerard Depardieu, in one of French literature's meatiest roles: the sword-wielding poet Cyrano. Equipped with a massive nose and a heart to match, Depardieu soars as the heart-broken soldier who must lendhis words of love to another man to woo the woman he yearns for. Rappeneau spared no expense in taking this Edmond Rostand play into realistic locations for the battle scenes in the second act, making the film as exciting as it is romantic and funny. Depardieu attacks the role in great gulps, consuming all the oxygen in any room he enters. Macho but sensitive, he creates a larger-than-life Cyrano, whose wrenching sadness at the lack of interest from his lady love will have you reaching for the tissues. --Marshall Fine

• Va Savoir | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In matters of the heart it's anyone's guess. Va Savoir is an elegant and utterly charming comedy about the romantic misadventures of Camille and Ugo - a theater director and his leading lady - whose already complicated relationship becomes exponentially more difficult when they become entangled in the lives of four other people. As funny as it is touching as smart as it is silly Va Savoir is an endearing and delightful comedy of the heart and soul.