Christian Barbier

On a train from Paris to Antwerp, a director and his team hash out the plot to a crime movie as it's enacted by a drug smuggler and a seductress.

Long underappreciated and unseen, this tragic masterpiece—Jean-Pierre Melville’s most personal film, based on a novel by Joseph Kessel—recounts the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought in the French Resistance. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and Simone Signoret star as intrepid underground fighters in an unsparing tale of defiance in the face of insurmountable odds.