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La Règle du jeu PG rating

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.

Drama 1939 102 mins

Director: Jean Renoir

Overview

In 1939 Renoir, a director associated with the left wing Popular Front, turned his gaze away from working people to the haute bourgeoisie, setting his action during a shooting weekend at a country house. It’s an upstairs-downstairs world where servants and masters become enmeshed in a tangle of desire, a jumble of motivations in which, in the film’s famous phrase, “Everyone has their reasons”.

Ranked 13th in the 2022 Sight and Sound Great Films of All Time poll