Les Films Ariane

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence; which is considerable.

When the men of a Sicilian village start obsessing over ravishing blonde midwife Jessica, angry females revolt by refusing to have sex with their husbands. As the local priest tries to encourage procreation, Jessica falls for a tricky recluse.

In 1830s France, pianist/composer Frédéric Chopin is pursued romantically by the determined, individualistic woman who uses the name George Sand.

Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent help small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French political power. But when his great scam involving millions gets exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.

In 1914, sixteen year old Roger returned home from boarding school during vacation to find his puberty hit hard in a house filled with beautiful women. These women have previous engagements with other men who are away, and during this time, Roger impregnates them all, including his aunt and sister, then devises plans to cuckold the men.

Dressed as a clown, the clever rascal Grimm holds up the most secure bank of Montreal and takes 30 hostages. While confusing and ridiculing the police with his strange behavior, he calmly manages to rid the bank of a fortune. But then an unsatisfied companion arouses trouble...

A thief known as Simon the Swiss faces up and downs in his criminal profession.

When a woman fed-up with life in general commits suicide, what's left ? In the same vein, a lover, a mother, a friend, a few buddies, all orphans, all well-to-do, but mainly lost at sea without a ship. The lover : Paul, a lone wolf who tries to escape from his memories through drink or by chasing women as though they were the cure to everything. The best friend : Lucie, coming and going, suitcase in hand , as though she were carrying a corpse or a time bomb, ready to flee at the drop of a hat with her suitcase of course. The mother : Marthe. Between shovel and incinerator, she counts her dead, cat and husband included. And then, there is Lucien, madly running after Lucie, screeching guitar in hand. And the others, always running.

A discontented concert pianist causes all sorts of heartbreak with his egotistical and womanizing antics, and all the people in his life attempt to force him to grow up in this French comedy/drama.

A remake of a pre-war French film success, Club de femmes is a seriocomedy centralized in an all-female boarding house. Forced to band together because of a housing shortage, the film's heroines set up camp in a deserted structure, despite the tongue-cluckings of local busybodies and do-gooders. Complications ensue when a huge corporation announces plans to raze the building and erect a factory. Amazingly, the ladies are saved by the very company that wants to evict them.

A man returns to Rouen, after fifteen years in the United States, and feels like a stranger among old friends.

Louise lives alone and seems to like it that way. She has been through a divorce and the recent death of her mother. Recently, she has moved to Annecy, a moderate-sized city, to take work as a schoolteacher. She encounters a much younger man, Luigi, an Italian who is down on his luck. Though he moved to France to find work, he was robbed of his money and papers and is stranded. When he helps her bury her dogs, which her neighbour has poisoned for barking, their relationship grows to a new level.

French secret service agent Josselin Beaumont is dispatched to take down African warlord N'Jala. But when his assignment is canceled, he's shocked to learn that his government is surrendering him to local authorities. He is given a mock trial and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor. But Beaumont escapes from prison and vows not only to avenge himself against his betrayers but also to finish his original assignment.

As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.

In the early 16th century, Italy is ruled by the powerful Borgia family, led by César Borgia and his sister Lucrèce. In a ruthless power play, César plots to have his sister’s husband murdered. But without her brother’s knowledge, Lucrèce has taken a strong lover who will challenge the Borgias.

A writer of pulpy book series in which he's the hero and his beautiful English roommate is the love interest attempts to finish his new book in time at the publisher's demand.

When they realize the times are changing, five crooks decide to switch from bank robberies to personality abductions.

The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The stage version presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the school girl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when a policeman shoots several pupils in a classroom. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of act two. In the movie version Sarafina feels shame at her mother's (played by Miriam Makeba in the film) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.

In the 18th century, Louis de Bourguignon is working with the Malichot's gang, but their ways are too 'unethical' for him. He creates his own band, acting under the name of Cartouche, making audacious robberies of the rich people, and even distributing the takings with the poor. Thus, cartouche attracts the people's sympathies, Venus's love, and hate from the Police and Malichot... Cartouche can escape all the traps they set at him - except the entrapments of love. Eventually, he will be saved by a woman, at her own cost.