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.
Vincent lives in a village, along the Rhône. Every morning he goes to the factory to work, and in the evening he takes care of his family. One day, he decides to go on a trip with the money given by his father.
A young man enters a brothel and sees a staged narration of a Chinese folk tale concerning a female pirate.
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.
A librarian, a gangster's ex-lover and a woman who has recovered from a coma spend an eye-opening summer in Paris.
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.
With few words and leaving it to the spectator to fill in blanks, this short subject contemplates one ordinary day in the life of a single woman and her child.
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.
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.
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.
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
At a Spanish cloister, a celebrated French general of the Napoleonic Wars recognizes the voice of one of the nuns and recalls how, five years ago, she was the Duchess of Langeais, and he her most persistent suitor.
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.
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.
A couple goes on a hike in the woods, and the woman refuses to return.
Leaud portrays a Parisian publisher of romance novels who hits on the gimmick of having his live-in girlfriend (carrot-top cutie Helene Lapiower) pose as author Rosine de Beaumont for book jacket and autograph signings. She's an immediate hit but rebels against being exploited, and throws Leaud out of their apartment. Complications occur when she meets a nerd (Rufus) claiming to be the book's author, leading to discovery of the real author (Thierry Fortineau), a bookseller who"s so happy to be in print at last that he's not to miffed at the deception. Climax shot at Charles de Gaulle Airport neatly weaves plot threads together for a blissfully happy ending.
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 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.
