Lino Ventura

With his customary restraint and ruthless attention to detail, director Jean-Pierre Melville follows the parallel tracks of French underworld criminal Gu (the inimitable Lino Ventura), escaped from prison and roped into one last robbery, and the suave inspector, Blot (Paul Meurisse), relentlessly seeking him. The implosive "Le Deuxième Souffle" captures the pathos, loneliness, and excitement of a life in the shadows with methodical suspense and harrowing authenticity, and contains one of the most thrilling heist sequences Melville ever shot.

A hired killer has come to Montpellier to fulfill a “contract” that a powerful crime organization has placed on a man about to testify against the mob at an upcoming trial. From director Édouard Molinaro comes this action-comedy starring screen greats Lino Ventura, Jacques Brel, and Caroline Cellier.

Long underappreciated and unseen, this tragic masterpiece—Jean-Pierre Melville’s most personal film, based on a novel by Joseph Kessel—recounts the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought in the French Resistance. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and Simone Signoret star as intrepid underground fighters in an unsparing tale of defiance in the face of insurmountable odds.

An English dubbed adaptation of the French classic about an early 19th-century peasant released after a 17-year prison sentence for stealing bread.

Directed by Édouard Molinaro, this pulse-pounding film noir, based on a novel by Thomas Narcejac, is a dark tale of vengeance starring the great Lino Ventura in an early leading role. When an industrialist kills his mistress by throwing her off a train, her husband (Ventura) takes to the streets of Paris to avenge his wife’s murderer.

A man is unknowingly involved in the robbery and murder of an underworld courier.

A former agent is forced to go under cover by his government to expose a criminal ring endangering the country.

Sentenced to 15 years in prison, a former mobster turns into an informant when he learns a mafia capo has put a $100,000 contract out on his life.

A French detective in London tries to unravel the mystery of a hospital patient with telekinetic powers, whose anxieties manifest in actual disasters.

After a spell in the U.S., a master criminal known as ‘Le Nantais’ (Jean Gabin) returns to Paris and is recruited by a major narcotics ring.

From acclaimed crime writer Auguste Le Breton comes this gripping noir thriller starring cinema icon Jean Gabin. Louis Bertain’s (Gabin) garage serves as a front for a gang of thieves. He and his accomplices keep up a civic veneer by day and commit crimes in Paris by night. This status quo is upset when one of the gang members becomes convinced that Louis’ younger brother is a police informer.