Directed by Jean Renoir

Directed by Jean Renoir

12 Episodes

The son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir was also a master of his medium: cinema. After making his mark in the early thirties with two very different films, the anarchic send-up of the bourgeoisie BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING and the popular-front Gorky adaptation THE LOWER DEPTHS, Renoir closed out the decade with a critical humanistic study of French society that routinely turns up near the top of lists of the greatest films ever made: THE RULES OF THE GAME. After a brief, unfulfilling Hollywood stint during World War II, Renoir traveled to India to make his first Technicolor film, THE RIVER, and then returned to Europe in the early fifties to direct three visually dazzling explorations of theater, THE GOLDEN COACH, FRENCH CANCAN, and ELENA AND HER MEN. Renoir persisted in his cinematic pursuits until the late sixties, when he decided to dedicate himself solely to writing, leaving the future of the medium to those who looked to him in reverence.

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Directed by Jean Renoir

12 Episodes

  • La chienne
    1:36:06
    La chienne
    Episode 1

    La chienne

    Episode 1

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1931 • France
    Starring Michel Simon, Janie Marèse, Georges Flamant

    Jean Renoir's ruthless love triangle tale, his second sound film, is a true precursor to his brilliantly bitter THE RULES OF THE GAME, displaying all of the filmmaker's visual genius and fully imbued wit...

  • On purge bébé
    52:05
    On purge bébé
    Episode 2

    On purge bébé

    Episode 2

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1931 • France
    Starring Michel Simon

    Based on a comic one-act play by Georges Feydeau, the hour-long ON PURGE BÉBÉ is Jean Renoir’s first sound film. It was made in 1931, the same year as LA CHIENNE.

  • Boudu Saved from Drowning
    1:25:12
    Boudu Saved from Drowning
    Episode 3

    Boudu Saved from Drowning

    Episode 3

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1932 • France
    Starring Michel Simon, Charles Granval, Marcelle Hainia

    Michel Simon gives one of the most memorable performances in screen history as Boudu, a Parisian tramp who takes a suicidal plunge into the Seine and is rescued by a well-to-do bookseller, Edouard Les...

  • Toni
    1:24:55
    Toni
    Episode 4

    Toni

    Episode 4

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1935 • France

    This multi-lingual drama from Jean Renoir follows Toni, an Italian immigrant who gets entangled in many relationships after moving to the south of France.

  • The Lower Depths
    1:32:51
    The Lower Depths
    Episode 5

    The Lower Depths

    Episode 5

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1936 • France
    Starring Jean Gabin, Louis Jouvet, Suzy Prim

    Jean Renoir’s fascinating adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play softens the bleak social realism of the source material thanks to the director’s gently humanist, distinctly Gallic touch. Comedy an...

  • A Day in the Country
    41:01
    A Day in the Country
    Episode 6

    A Day in the Country

    Episode 6

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1936 • France
    Starring Sylvia Bataille, Georges D’Arnoux, Jane Marken

    This bittersweet film from Jean Renoir, based on a story by Guy de Maupassant, is a tenderly comic idyll about a city family’s picnic in the French countryside and the romancing of the mother and grow...

  • La bête humaine
    1:41:25
    La bête humaine
    Episode 7

    La bête humaine

    Episode 7

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1938 • France
    Starring Jean Gabin, Simone Simon, Julien Carette

    Based on the classic Emile Zola novel, Jean Renoir’s LA BÊTE HUMAINE was one of the legendary director’s greatest popular successes, and earned star Jean Gabin a permanent place in the hearts of his country...

  • The Rules of the Game
    1:47:59
    The Rules of the Game
    Episode 8

    The Rules of the Game

    Episode 8

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1939 • France

    Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis' country château lays bare some ugly tr...

  • The River
    1:39:23
    The River
    Episode 9

    The River

    Episode 9

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1951 • France, United Kingdom, India, United States
    Starring Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields

    Director Jean Renoir’s entrancing first color feature, shot entirely on location in India, is a visual tour de force. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, the fi...

  • The Golden Coach
    1:42:39
    The Golden Coach
    Episode 10

    The Golden Coach

    Episode 10

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1953 • Italy
    Starring Anna Magnani, Odoardo Spadaro, Nada Fiorelli

    THE GOLDEN COACH (LE CARROSSE D’OR) is a ravishing eighteenth-century comic fantasy about a viceroy who receives an exquisite golden coach, and gives it to the tempestuous star of a touring commedia dell...

  • French Cancan
    1:43:58
    French Cancan
    Episode 11

    French Cancan

    Episode 11

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1955 • France, Italy
    Starring Jean Gabin, Françoise Arnoul, María Félix

    Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the canc...

  • Elena and Her Men
    1:38:39
    Elena and Her Men
    Episode 12

    Elena and Her Men

    Episode 12

    Directed by Jean Renoir • 1956 • France, Italy
    Starring Ingrid Bergman, Jean Marais, Mel Ferrer

    Set amid the military maneuvers and Quatorze Juillet carnivals of turn-of-the-century France, Jean Renoir’s delirious romantic comedy ELENA AND HER MEN (ELENA ET LES HOMMES) stars a radiant Ingrid Ber...

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