Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
Amour Fou
Jessica Hausner’s long-awaited follow-up to Lourdes is a devilish anti-Rom-Com in which German poet seeks mates for a suicide pact.
Period drama 2014 92 mins
Director: Jessica Hausner
Overview
Jessica Hausner’s long-awaited follow-up to Lourdes is a mischievous satire on the conceits of Romantic-era fiction. Following the final days in the life of 19th-century German poet Heinrich von Kleist (The Marquise of O), it charts his attempts to find a partner for a suicide pact only to meet with despairing disappointments.
Crackling with deliciously absurd dialogue and framed in painterly precise compositions, Amour Fou finds Hausner channelling the studied style Eric Rohmer, and winning much acclaim when the film debuted at Cannes Film Festival 2014.
Contains suicide themeRelated
Period drama
L'innocente
Period drama 1976 130 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti's final film is a brilliant and disturbing drama set against the opulent backdrop of decadent, late 19th-century aristocracy.
The General
Comedy 1926 79 mins Silent Director: Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton's masterpiece is widely and rightly regarded as one of the greatest comedies ever made.
Onibaba
Period drama 1964 102 mins Director: Kaneto Shindo
Stylish, symbolic and erotically charged Japanese horror in which the fortunes of a murderous mother-and-daughter team are upended by a strangely masked samurai.
The Marquise of O...
Period drama 1976 103 mins Director: Eric Rohmer
Eric Rohmer's first feature-length film after a four-year break from filmmaking is a German-language adaptation of Henrich von Kleist's classic novel, following the titular Marquise as she deals with an unwanted pregnancy.
The Seventh Seal
Fantasy 1957 96 mins Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.
Smiles of a Summer Night
Comedy 1955 109 mins Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman’s Cannes prize-winning comedy assembles various couples in a country house in 1900.
Comedy Genius
Delicatessen
Comedy 1990 100 mins Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Jeunet and Caro's endlessly inventive and wildly enjoyable post-apocalyptic black comedy, about a sinister butcher and the circus clown who becomes his nemesis.
Computer Chess
Comedy 2013 91 mins Director: Andrew Bujalski
Andrew Bujalski’s hilarious and surreal comedy about the birth of computer culture, set in an early 1980s conference where primitive programmers take on chess masters.
The Slappiest Days of Our Lives
Comedy 1953 73 mins
A young Peter Sellers voices this compilation film of silent slapstick footage, featuring Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy.
Penny Points to Paradise
Comedy 1951 72 mins Director: Tony Young
The first screen outing for Goon Show stars Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe in a cheerful comic escapade set in Brighton.
La Règle du jeu
Drama 1939 102 mins Director: Jean Renoir
Renoir's depiction of an intransigent society teetering towards disaster was derided upon release and only later acclaimed as one of cinema’s most vital films.
Fun at St. Fanny's
Comedy 1955 80 mins Director: Maurice Elvey
Ronnie Corbett features in this quick-fire vintage classroom caper, featuring enough old jokes to fill a Christmas cracker factory.
New
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Comedy 2005 154 mins Director: Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu's multiple award-winning drama about a seriously ill man caught in an absurdist bureaucratic nightmare over the course of one night.
Our New President
Documentary 2018 78 mins Director: Maxim Pozdorovkin
The Russian media's obsession with the election of Donald Trump is told entirely through clips, in this fascinating essay on news bias, pop culture and the power of images.
From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses
Documentary 2014 114 mins Director: Rüdiger Suchsland
Rüdger Suchsland’s 2014 documentary on the social and cultural impact of German cinema during the Weimar Republic.
Varieté
Drama 1925 94 mins Silent Director: E.A. Dupont
This under-appreciated classic of German silent cinema stars Emil Jannings as Boss, a middle-aged circus acrobat whose life is derailed by a seductive stranger (Lya de Putti).
Westfront 1918
War 1930 96 mins Director: G.W. Pabst
Four infantrymen on the Western Front suffer the everyday hardships and insanity of trench warfare, in G.W. Pabst's anti-war classic.
The Proposition
Western 2006 104 mins Director: John Hillcoat
John Hillcoat and Nick Cave's brilliant, brutal bushranger western, with Guy Pearce as the outlaw tasked with tracking down his psychopathic elder brother (Danny Huston).
Extras
Jessica Hausner on Her Film Amour fou (Q&A)
