Directed by Louis Malle

Directed by Louis Malle

25 Episodes

Crime dramas, comedies, romances, tragedies, fantasies, documentaries, and, of course, coming-of-age stories—director Louis Malle did it all. This most unpredictable and eclectic of filmmakers enriched cinema over a nearly forty-year career that took him from the peripheries of the French New Wave (ZAZIE DANS LE MÉTRO, THE FIRE WITHIN) to the vanguard of American moviemaking (MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ). While his intellectually curious nature led him to pursue myriad paths—including a fascinating parallel career as a master of the nonfiction form—it’s his deeply personal films about the terrors and confusions of childhood, such as MURMUR OF THE HEART and AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS, that stand as perhaps his most indelible achievements.

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Directed by Louis Malle
  • Crazeologie

    Episode 1

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1954 • France

    In 1954, Louis Malle was a film student at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris, where he shot this rarely seen short, CRAZEOLOGIE. Inspired by the theater of the absurd of such playwrights as Samuel Beckett and Eugène Iones...

  • Elevator to the Gallows

    Episode 2

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1958 • France
    Starring Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly

    For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau, evocative cinematography by Henri Decaë, and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Da...

  • The Lovers

    Episode 3

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1958 • France
    Starring Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Marc Bory

    Louis Malle unveiled the natural beauty of Jeanne Moreau in his breakthrough, ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS. With his follow-up, the scandalous smash THE LOVERS (LES AMANTS), he made her a star once and for all. A deeply fe...

  • Zazie dans le métro

    Episode 4

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1960 • France
    Starring Catherine Demongeot, Philippe Noiret

    A brash and precocious ten-year-old (Catherine Demongeot) comes to Paris for a whirlwind weekend with her rakish uncle (Philippe Noiret); he and the viewer get more than they bargained for, however, in this ana...

  • Vive le Tour

    Episode 5

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1962 • France

    In his short documentary Vive le Tour, Louis Malle presents his energetic evocation of the Tour de France. This, Humain, trop humain, and Place de la République, Louis Malle's three French-set documentaries, reveal, in an eclectic array of ways, the direct...

  • The Fire Within

    Episode 6

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1963 • France
    Starring Maurice Ronet, Léna Skerla, Jeanne Moreau

    After garnering international acclaim for such seminal crowd-pleasers as THE LOVERS and ZAZIE DANS LE MÉTRO, Louis Malle gave his fans a shock with THE FIRE WITHIN (LE FEU FOLLET), a penetrating study of i...

  • Spirits of the Dead

    Episode 7

    Directed by Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, and Roger Vadim • 1968 • France, Italy

    Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, and Roger Vadim each direct a tale from Edgar Allan Poe in this haunting anthology film.

  • PHANTOM INDIA: Episode 1

    Episode 8

    “The Impossible Camera”
    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking PHANTOM INDIA the most personal film of his career. This extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discov...

  • PHANTOM INDIA: Episode 2

    Episode 9

    “Things Seen in Madras”
    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking PHANTOM INDIA the most personal film of his career. This extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discov...

  • PHANTOM INDIA: Episode 3

    Episode 10

    “The Indians and the Sacred”
    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking PHANTOM INDIA the most personal film of his career. This extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of d...

  • PHANTOM INDIA: Episode 4

    Episode 11

    “Dream and Reality”
    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking PHANTOM INDIA the most personal film of his career. This extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discovery,...

  • PHANTOM INDIA: Episode 5

    Episode 12

    “A Look at Castes”
    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking PHANTOM INDIA the most personal film of his career. This extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discovery, ...

  • PHANTOM INDIA: Episode 6

    Episode 13

    “On the Fringes of Indian Society”
    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking PHANTOM INDIA the most personal film of his career. This extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sens...

  • PHANTOM INDIA: Episode 7

    Episode 14

    “Bombay”
    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking PHANTOM INDIA the most personal film of his career. This extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discovery, as well as...

  • Calcutta

    Episode 15

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1969 • France

    When he was cutting Phantom India, Louis Malle found that the footage shot in Calcutta was so diverse, intense, and unforgettable that it deserved its own film. The result, released theatrically, is at times shocking--a chaotic portrait of a city engulfed ...

  • Murmur of the Heart

    Episode 16

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1971 • France, Italy, West Germany
    Starring Benoît Ferreux, Lea Massari, Daniel Gélin

    Louis Malle’s critically acclaimed MURMUR OF THE HEART gracefully combines elements of comedy, drama, and autobiography in a candid portrait of a precocious adolescent boy’s sexual mat...

  • Humain, trop humain

    Episode 17

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1973 • France

    Louis Malle presents his meditative investigation of the inner workings of a French automotive plant. This, Vive le Tour, and Place de la publique, Malle's three French-set documentaries, reveal, in an eclectic array of ways, the director's eternal fascina...

  • Lacombe, Lucien

    Episode 18

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1974 • France, Italy, West Germany
    Starring Pierre Blaise, Aurore Clément, Holger Löwenadler

    One of the first French films to address the issue of collaboration during the German occupation, Louis Malle’s brave and controversial LACOMBE, LUCIEN traces a young peasant’s ...

  • Place de la République

    Episode 19

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1974 • France

    Louis Malle presents his entertaining snapshot of the comings and goings on one street corner in Paris. This, Vive le Tour, and Humain, trop humain, Malle's three French-set documentaries, reveal, in an eclectic array of ways, the director's eternal fascin...

  • Black Moon

    Episode 20

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1975 • France, Germany
    Starring Cathryn Harrison, Joe Dallesandro, Thérèse Ghiese

    Louis Malle meets Lewis Carroll in this bizarre and bewitching trip down the rabbit hole. After skirting the horrors of a mysterious war being waged in the countryside, beautiful young Lil...

  • My Dinner with André

    Episode 21

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1981 • United States
    Starring Wallace Shawn, André Gregory

    In this captivating and philosophical film directed by Louis Malle, actor and playwright Wallace Shawn sits down with his friend the theater director André Gregory at a restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side, ...

  • God’s Country

    Episode 22

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1985 • United States

    In 1979, Louis Malle traveled into the heart of Minnesota to capture the everyday lives of the men and women in a prosperous farming community. Six years later, during Ronald Reagan's second term, he returned to find drastic economic decline. Free...

  • . . . And the Pursuit of Happiness

    Episode 23

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1986 • United States

    In 1986, Louis Malle, himself a transplant to the United States, set out to investigate the ever-widening range of immigrant experience in America. Interviewing a variety of newcomers (from teachers to astronauts to doctors) in middle- and working-c...

  • Au revoir les enfants

    Episode 24

    Directed by Louis Malle • 1987 • France, West Germany
    Starring Gaspard Manesse, Raphaël Fejtö, Francine Racette

    AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the p...