French Noir: From the Shadows into the Light
French Noir: From the Shadows into the Light
June 4–August 28, 2026
A selection of some of the greatest noir films from France, where the expression film noir was originally coined. Featured guest speakers include film historian David Thomson and Berkeley-based Laura Truffaut, the eldest daughter of François Truffaut.
Read full description-
Jean-Pierre Melville: Bob le flambeur, 1956
-
Louis Malle: Elevator to the Gallows, 1958
-
Julien Duvivier: Panique, 1946
-
Jean-Luc Godard: Breathless, 1960
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Bob le flambeur
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 19564K Digital Restoration
Thursday, June 4 7 PMView Details“The cinematic birth of the cool, Jean-Pierre Melville’s drollest, most likable gangster movie. . . . Exceedingly light on its feet” (J. Hoberman, Village Voice).
Elevator to the Gallows
Louis Malle
France, 1958Digital Restoration
Saturday, June 6 6:30 PMView DetailsLouis Malle’s first feature is an elegant thriller featuring an iconic performance by Jeanne Moreau and a celebrated Miles Davis jazz score. This is a consistently engaging, atmospheric noir.
Breathless
Jean-Luc Godard
France, 19604K Digital Restoration
Sunday, June 7 5 PMView DetailsJean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo star in the jazzy genre pastiche that launched Jean-Luc Godard’s career and embodied the breathless bravado of the French New Wave.
The Rules of the Game
Jean Renoir
France, 19394K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, June 10 7 PMIntroduction and Post-Screening Discussion by David ThomsonView DetailsMade just before the outbreak of World War II, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece turns a country-house gathering into a tragicomic study of polite society on the brink of collapse.
Le doulos
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, Italy, 19624K Digital Restoration
Saturday, June 13 4:30 PMView DetailsSerge Reggiani suspects Jean-Paul Belmondo of being a stool pigeon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s most influential film, a roundabout of ambiguity and betrayal.
Le samouraï
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 19674K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, June 17 7 PMIntroduction and Post-Screening Discussion by David ThomsonView Details“An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville, Le samouraï is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology” (Janus Films).
Le cercle rouge
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 19704K Digital Restoration
Saturday, June 20 7 PMView DetailsAlain Delon and Yves Montand star in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “dazzling epic of love, guns, gangsters, and cigarettes” (Los Angeles Times), shown here in the uncut European version.
Rififi
Jules Dassin
France, 1955Digital Restoration
Saturday, June 27 4 PMView DetailsFour burglars pull off an ingenious robbery of a Parisian jewelry store, only to have their professionalism undone by their desires and personal ties, in this definitive heist movie. “The best film noir I’ve ever seen” (François Truffaut).
Le jour se lève
Marcel Carné
France, 19394K Digital Restoration
Friday, July 3 7 PMView DetailsJean Gabin gives one of his greatest performances in this Marcel Carné/Jacques Prévert collaboration, “perhaps the finest of the French poetic melodramas” (Pauline Kael).
Book Launch with David Thomson + Pierrot le fou
Jean-Luc Godard
France, 1965Digital Restoration
Sunday, July 12 3 PMIntroduction and Post-Screening Book Signing by David ThomsonView DetailsDavid Thomson discusses his latest publication, A Sudden Flicker of Light, and presents Jean-Luc Godard’s audacious take on the lovers-on-the-run genre, Pierrot le fou, featuring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina.
Port of Shadows
Marcel Carné
France, 19384K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, July 15 7 PMView DetailsThis is a melancholy poem of life and death in the lower depths of Le Havre. “Epochal . . . the definitive example of the style known as poetic realism” (Lucy Sante, The Current).
Shoot the Piano Player
François Truffaut
France, 1960Saturday, July 18 6:30 PMIntroduction and Post-Screening Discussion by Laura TruffautView DetailsThis razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure Nouvelle Vague. François Truffaut’s frolicsome yet faithful genre pastiche relates the adventures of a mild-mannered piano player.
Mississippi Mermaid
François Truffaut
France, 1969Friday, July 24 7 PMIntroduction and Post-Screening Discussion by Laura TruffautView DetailsThis is François Truffaut’s go-for-broke romantic melodrama, in which Jean-Paul Belmondo gives up everything for the love of his mail-order bride, a beautiful, two-timing, possibly murderous jade played by Catherine Deneuve.
Le corbeau
Henri-Georges Clouzot
France, 19434K Digital Restoration
Sunday, July 26 7 PMView DetailsIn this classic noir dealing with the effect on a small town of an outbreak of poison pen letters, director Henri-Georges Clouzot conducts a study of group psychology in a mood of all-embracing suspicion.
Panique
Julien Duvivier
France, 1946Digital Restoration
Wednesday, July 29 7 PMView DetailsJulien Duvivier’s long-unseen Georges Simenon adaptation, starring Michel Simon and Viviane Romance, is an “allegory of wartime collaborationism and the cruel madness of rumor, fear and spite.”
The Clockmaker of St. Paul
Bertrand Tavernier
France, 1974Digital Restoration
Sunday, August 2 4:30 PMView DetailsBertrand Tavernier’s debut feature is an expertly crafted adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel. “An extraordinary film” (Roger Ebert).
Le trou
Jacques Becker
France, 19604K Digital Restoration
Thursday, August 6 7 PMView DetailsA group of convicts attempts an escape in Jacques Becker’s last film, one of the great prison break movies and, for Jean-Pierre Melville, “the greatest French film of all time.”
The Seventh Juror
Georges Lautner
France, 1962Digital Restoration
Sunday, August 9 7 PMView DetailsGeorges Lautner’s 1962 film noir is a true discovery. It focuses on Grégoire Duval, a respected member of society who becomes involved as a juror in a landmark case.
Bob le flambeur
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 19564K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, August 19 7 PMView Details“The cinematic birth of the cool, Jean-Pierre Melville’s drollest, most likable gangster movie. . . . Exceedingly light on its feet” (J. Hoberman, Village Voice).
Purple Noon
René Clément
France, 1960Thursday, August 27 7 PMView DetailsRené Clément’s adaptation is a dazzling sea blue film noir starring Alain Delon as an idle, lethal young American in Europe.
Elevator to the Gallows
Louis Malle
France, 1958Digital Restoration
Friday, August 28 7 PMView DetailsLouis Malle’s first feature is an elegant thriller featuring an iconic performance by Jeanne Moreau and a celebrated Miles Davis jazz score. This is a consistently engaging, atmospheric noir.