In Jean Renoir’s masterpiece of ruthless grace, made between the Munich Agreement and the outbreak of World War II, history plays as both tragedy and farce. This self-declared “dramatic fantasy” à la Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais and Alfred de Musset etches, in the director’s words, “a rich, complex society . . . dancing on a volcano.” It uses the construct of a country-house gathering, with its shooting party and masquerade, its shifting romantic allegiances and upstairs-downstairs micro-melodramas, to frame a portrait of respectable civilization that is both seductive and monstrous. The Rules of the Game is considered one of the greatest films ever made.