L'Armée des ombres

Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece about the French resistance against the Nazi Occupation went unreleased in the United States for thirty-seven years before its triumphant theatrical release in 2006. Atmospheric, gripping, and finally tragic, Army of Shadows is Melville's most personal film, featuring veteran actors Lino Ventura and Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel and the incomparable Simone Signoret as intrepid underground fighters who must face their own brand of honor and shadowy ethical codes. Set wholly in the dark recesses and back alleys of the war, Army of Shadows is a devastating, intimate look at the fight against evil in an already amoral world.