The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.
We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.
Jeanne d'Arc has succeeded in lifting the siege on Orléans and Charles VII has been ordained King of France. However, she is injured in her failed attempt to take Paris, weakening her position at court. When she is finally captured and put on trial, she finds both her life and the sanctity of her body at stake.
The film will tell what happens to a group of characters, precisely between July 14 and August 15, 1994 in Paris. It will tell the story of three young ladies, Louise, Ninon, Ida, in the summer of 1994, their adventures in the big city. On the streets, in the gardens, in ballrooms and in libraries and lofts, deserted at the time of holidays and summer heat, Louis, Ninon and Ida proceed on mysterious paths.
Julien is a clockmaker with destructive impulses who decides to blackmail Madame X, a rich, attractive woman who traffics in stolen antiques. What he doesn’t know is that she has an even more dangerous secret that leads him to Marie, with whom he had fallen in love a year earlier.
A fearless Antigone, refusing to allow the dishonored body of her murdered brother Polynices to be devoured by vultures and dogs, defies the Thebian tyrant Creon by burying him.
A man returns to visit his native Sicily after living in New York for a long time. He learns about the Sicilian way of life from stylized conversations with an orange picker, his fellow train passengers, his mother, and a knife-sharpener.
After biologist Sylvie discovers her brother Paul trying to steal a gun from her lab, he explains that he wishes to avenge the death of their father whom he suspects died at the hands of his business partner.
An ice-cream seller lusts after the female employees in his shop.
Nicholas is the eldest son of a wealthy suburban family, whose businesswoman mother makes deals from a helicopter and has an affair with her business partner. His cheerful, alcoholic father, on the other hand, is reduced to a prisoner in his room with his devoted dog and electric train set. Unbeknownst to his parents, Nicholas works as a window cleaner and dish washer in a Parisian cafe. He is also in love with the daughter of another cafe's owner, who, however, has an abusive boyfriend. One night, Nicholas sneaks a few drunken drifters into his family wine cellar and his father unexpectedly takes a liking to the stranger.
A couple goes on a hike in the woods, and the woman refuses to return.
General Montriveau, having returned from the Napoleonic Wars in despair, quickly becomes enamored with Duchess Langeais. Across a series of nocturnal visitations, the Duchess mercilessly toys with her hot-tempered suitor, as the machinations of a shadowy conspiracy unfold in the background.
Vittorio stops to help Kate when her car breaks down on a mountain road. When they meet again, Vittorio discovers that Kate has rejoined a circus after a long time away. He begins to learn about the troupe's buried past and Kate's connection to it, while experiencing the magic of the circus.
More than just an abbreviated form of "La Belle Noiseuse", Rivette re-cut his footage with some important differences in point of view - this one being more from Marianne's point of view
A young man enters a brothel and sees a staged narration of a Chinese folk tale concerning a female pirate.
Convinced that only she can lead France to victory against the invading English, Jeanne d'Arc leaves her childhood home to plead Charles, heir to the French throne, to allow her to guide his troops on the battlefield.
A brief, fictionalized time period in the life of Professor Kant. The story is set in Kant's hometown, Konigsberg; it chronicles his last few years prior to his death in 1804 at the age of 80.
When he loses his position as a powerful government minister, Vincent is dropped by his pretty mistress and must begin life anew, without the privileges of power. As he gradually becomes acquainted with milieus which he d either forgotten or never known and a host of sometimes eccentric, often remarkable everyday people, Vincent really begins to start living again.
The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin’s family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site’s empty halls and ballrooms.
Anna, Joyce, Claude and Lucia are all students under the tutelage of Constance Dumas, a renowned film instructor. Lucia moves in with the other girls. Soon after, she is attacked on the street outside her home and saved by a mysterious stranger.
