The Great War 1959
Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.
Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.
Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.
An anthology of four comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy: frothy young love and office politics in the big city; milk advertisements that begin to haunt an aging prude; a trophy wife enduring her husband's very public affairs; a lucky ticket-holder at a small town fair.
An Eskimo who has had little contact with white men goes to a trading post where he accidentally kills a missionary and finds himself being pursued by the police.
On the outskirts of Parisian council housing estates lies a vast wasteland that still retains its mysteries in this day and age, and serves as a refuge for people who, in their spare time, escape or are often ejected from their overcrowded dwellings. They form small, rather harmless bands, share their first secrets, build up their "treasures" and submit to strict rituals. The sanctity of their rebellions is underscored by initiation through blindfolded jumping and a blood test. An impossible love story is born between two members of the same clan, Dan, a beautiful, tomboyish girl, and Lucky, a sweet but feisty boy.
A middle-aged stock actor goes to London to try the big time. After much frustration, he lands a job doing TV commercials, gaining wealth and recognition. He eventually gives it all up to return to stage work and keep his pride.
For his final film, Jacques Tati takes his camera to the circus, where the director himself serves as master of ceremonies. Though it features many spectacles, including clowns, jugglers, acrobats, contortionists, and more, Parade also focuses on the spectators, making this stripped-down work a testament to the communion between audience and entertainment.
Handsome and rich Spanish gentleman abandons his wife and riches for his love of a young girl of poor stock who taunts and degrades him.
A young officer in the army of Empress Catherine of Russia is on his way to his new duty station at a remote outpost. During a blinding snowstorm he comes upon a stranger who was caught in the storm and is near death from freezing. He rescues the man and eventually brings him back to health. When the man is well enough to travel, the two part company and the man vows to repay the officer for saving his life. Soon after he arrives at his new post, a revolt by the local Cossacks breaks out and the fort is besieged by the rebels. The young officer is astonished to find out that the leader of the rebellious Cossacks is none other than the stranger whose life he had saved during the storm.
Esterina, a young war orphan, joins two truck drivers, Gino and Piero, on their trips along Northern Italy. She wants to find her luck in the big city, but her dreams turn into disappointing experiences. She falls in love with Gino but he is not interested in her, until she disappears...
A doctor, leading an agreed life of the provincial petty bourgeoisie, falls in love with a young woman. As their relationship deepens, he becomes violently jealous and blames her for her dating and friendships.
Dr Antonio Mazzuolo obsessively fights against what he perceives as immorality in Rome, only to be driven mad by a seductive billboard of Anita Ekberg that haunts him with hallucinations.
Given up for dead three years ago in a plane crash in the Amazon rainforest, a young woman arrives in Paris to find her eminent ethnologist husband. She learns of his death in obscure circumstances, having remarried in the meantime. She sets out to unravel the mystery surrounding her husband's death.
A lawyer heads out on the road in an attempt to find his daughter who has been missing for quite some time. To help him navigate the secret world his daughter lived within that he knows nothing about, he recruits the help of Irene a close friend of his daughter's. But Irene has plans of her own.
Burgundy 1728. Old count Antoine d'Eon is overjoyed. His daughter-in-law has finally given birth to a boy and he will at long last be able to transmit his inheritance to his son Pascal. At least this is what he thinks, for Pascal has concealed from his father the fact that his son was ... a daughter, his eighth daughter! Well, enough is enough and Geneviève has no other choice but become a boy first, then a soldier and even the special envoy of Louis XV, King of France, to Catherine II, the Czarina of Russia.
Barnabé, an occasional flutist, goes to Mme Petit-Durand to organize her daughter's 20 years. But he is confused with the Count of Marengo whom Mme Petit-Durand wants to give as husband to her daughter, who has already made her choice.
In her small village in Vendée, Ludvine, an orphan, is in love with Jean-Pierre, but he is jealously guarded by her woman employer. On the day of the "Fair of Women", a traditional event where young men can choose the girl they fancy, Jean-Pierre picks out Ludvine.
To inherit from his late uncle, Narcisse Pigeon is obliged to pass his pilot's license.
Ignace Boitaclou, although sympathetic, is not very intelligent. Upon his arrival at the barracks to perform his military service, he was appointed colonel and had to take care of the latter's terrible wife.
Pépito runs a gang of thugs with authority. He has a natural son, Gaston, a professor of literature in Aix-en-Provence, whom he has hardly ever seen. Gaston announces himself for Christmas, and Pépito decides to make him look good by moving into his headquarters: a château where the crooks will be able to exercise their talents as composers.