Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £6.99 a month

This film is certified

I confirm I am over 12

Video Player is loading.

Current Time 0:00

Duration 0:00

Loaded: 0%

Stream Type LIVE

Remaining Time 0:00

Title of error

See Help

Les Enfants Terribles

Jean-Pierre Melville’s film of Jean Cocteau's controversial novel about a teenage brother and sister and their intense, closeted relationship.

Drama 1949 106 mins

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Subscribe to watch

Overview

In this compelling tale of incestuous obsession, a teenage brother and sister, Paul and Elisabeth, create an intense, private world in their untidy shared single room. Within the room, they live, sleep, argue and play out their erotically charged games without heed to the real world going on around them. However, when outsiders intrude into their intensely private realm, the scene is set for tragedy.

A hauntingly atmospheric film of Jean Cocteau's 1929 claustrophobic hothouse novel, for which he also wrote the screenplay and provided the voice-over, Les Enfants Terribles is dominated by a performance of fierce intensity by Nicole Stephane as the scheming heroine Elisabeth. The music by Bach and Vivaldi forms the film's impassioned score. Les Enfants Terribles brought two very different film-makers together for the first time – the mercurial, multi-talented Jean Cocteau and the single-minded, self-sufficient Jean-Pierre Melville. The pair disagreed over casting, scoring and several other elements, but from their clashes there emerged a unique film that is as true to Cocteau's vision as to Melville's.

Director

Jean-Pierre Melville

Featuring

Nicole Stéphane and Edouard Dermithe

Genres

Drama

Certificate

Country

France

Language

French with English subtitles

Subscribe to watch

War Pony War Pony

Drama 2022 115 mins Director: Gina Gammell and Riley Keough

The lives of two Oglala Lakota boys interlock in this coming-of-age drama set against the backdrop of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.

Subscribe to watch

Chocolat Chocolat

Drama 1988 100 mins Director: Claire Denis

Claire Denis' fully formed debut offers a child’s-eye-view of racial and sexual tension that bubbles with unspoken desires.

Subscribe to watch

Eat the Night Eat the Night

Thriller 2024 107 mins Director: Caroline Poggi and Johnathan Vinel

Siblings find passion and peril online and in the real world, in this visually electric French drama.

Subscribe to watch

God's Own Country God's Own Country

Drama 2017 105 mins Director: Francis Lee

A troubled young sheep farmer falls for a hired hand in this stunning debut from Francis Lee.

Subscribe to watch

Pornomelancholia Pornomelancholia

Drama 2022 94 mins Director: Manuel Abramovich

Soulful docufiction featuring real-life porn actor Lalo Santos.

Subscribe to watch

Amores perros Amores perros

Drama 2000 148 mins Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Alejandro González Iñárritu's (Birdman, The Revenant) gripping debut feature is a savagely brilliant triptych around the theme of animalistic desires.

Subscribe to watch

I Am Love I Am Love

Drama 2009 114 mins Director: Luca Guadagnino

Tilda Swinton and Luca Guadagnino’s sumptuous, operatic vision of an aristocratic family disrupted by unstoppable forces of passion.

Subscribe to watch

Lady Macbeth Lady Macbeth

Period drama 2017 89 mins Director: William Oldroyd

Florence Pugh shines in this exceptional British debut of a young wife's need for freedom, whatever the cost.

Subscribe to watch

Clemency Clemency

Drama 2019 112 mins Director: Chinonye Chukwu

Alfre Woodard is quietly devastating as a weary prison warden presiding over her twelfth execution, in this Sundance-winning death row drama.

Subscribe to watch

County Lines County Lines

Drama 2019 90 mins Director: Henry Blake

Blistering thriller of a teen groomed to work for a brutal, organised drugs network.

Subscribe to watch

Scrapper Scrapper

Comedy 2023 90 mins Director: Charlotte Regan

A gorgeous and colourful heart-warming gem from Charlotte Regan, one of the best new voices in British film.

Subscribe to watch

All We Imagine as Light All We Imagine as Light

Romance 2024 118 mins Director: Payal Kapadia

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning portrait of three women is a transcendent tale of love and sisterhood.

Subscribe to watch

The Living Wake The Living Wake

Comedy 2007 92 mins Director: Sol Tyron

Accompanied by his faithful assistant Mills (Jesse Eisenberg), self-proclaimed genius K. Roth Binew (Mike O’Connell) decides to go out in style following a terminal prognosis – staging a living wake.