Just Before NightfallMovies like Just Before Nightfall
- Key Features:
- Guilt, Confession, Murder, Adultery, Moral dilemma, Psychological drama, Betrayal, Redemption, Existential crisis
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Fans of psychological thrillers, Viewers interested in moral dilemmas
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Guilt → Despair']
Just Before Nightfall

A married man who killed the wife of his best friend during a tryst feels compelled to turn himself in.
Just Before Nightfall
Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.

Vincent, a police officer, and his partner Manuel steal a large amount of cocaine from José Marciano, a ruthless crime lord who is quick to seek revenge, endangering Vincent's life, career and family.

Star-crossed lovers Thérèse and Laurent think they've gotten away with murder after Thérèse's weakling husband "falls" from a speeding train. But when forced to contend with a blackmailer's demands and the mute accusations of Thérèse's mother-in-law, it's only a matter of time before the law, their passion or blind chance trips them up.

On the night before retirement, police lieutenant Amore has to investigate the off-duty death of his longtime partner, who fell victim of a shady scheme Amore himself was secretly part of.

An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.

A cop investigates whether the man convicted of murdering his daughter is really guilty.

They are the perfect French haute bourgeois couple: Paul is a respected surgeon and Lucie cooks and gardens exquisitely. But now, in the autumn of his life, Paul can’t resist the lure of an ambiguous and dangerous relationship with a mysterious young woman. Might there be something sinister behind the roses delivered to his office and the “chance” meetings?

When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.

In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.

Max, Paul and Simon have been friends for 35 years. They take great pleasure in their one vacation a year together without their partners and meet-up regularly to spend evenings drinking or playing cards. Each has a successful career and they all appear to have perfect lives until the night Simon announces to his friends that he has just strangled his wife, Estelle after a blazing row. Max and Paul are horrified by Simon's confession, but worse is to come when Simon asks them to lie and provide him with an alibi for the time Estelle was killed. Both men are torn between lying or turning over their best friend to the police.

A gang of four professional criminals kidnaps a wealthy teenage girl from an airport in Paris in a meticulous plan to extort money from the girl's wealthy father. Holding her prisoner in an isolated beach house, the gang's scheme runs perfectly until their personal demons surface and lead to a series of betrayals.

Inspector Lam investigates the brutal murder of Tsui, a famous musician. Wong, the designated suspect, just spent 20 years in jail for the murder of Tsui's daughter but has always claimed his innocence.

In the harbor city of Le Havre, France, a woman is stabbed during the night, just below the windows of her neighborhood. Pierre (Yvan Attal) has witnessed the murder, and heard the wails of the women crying for help. So have the neighbors, certainly. But at the end, nobody called the police. Nevertheless, sorrows are too heavy for Pierre, which feel the needs to tell everything to his wife (Sophie Quinton), and to the police. During the investigation, it appears that 38 people witnessed the murdering, and none reacted...

A wealthy wife's affair with her daughter's guitar tutor is threatened when the tutor is attacked and rescued by a hired killer, leading him to suspect their secret is out.

Marco returns to Paris after his brother-in-law's suicide, where he targets the man his sister believes caused the tragedy – though he is ill-prepared for her secrets as they quickly muddy the waters.

Set in Paris the story follows Lisa, who, while on vacation with her husband, rekindles a passionate affair with her ex-boyfriend. But that may lead to a murder.

After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.

Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris...

Franck and Simon are both good cops. They work as partners. But their lives take a tailspin when Simon, driving drunk, causes a tragic car wreck. A few years later, out of the police, he is forced to take matters into his own hands when his family is in danger.

Inspector Lavardin is called to a provincial village to investigate a murder – only to find that one of his ex-lovers is the victim’s widow.

An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.

When political thugs murder an opponent's volunteer and also kill a cop, chief inspector Verjeat believes the politician who hired them is as guilty as the murderous goon. Verjeat's pursuit of the councilman, Lardatte, gets him a warning from his superiors. When he embarrasses Lardatte while disarming a hostage (the dead volunteer's father), Verjeat is told he's being transferred within a week. He speeds up his hunt for the goon and, with Lefévre, one of his young detectives, he engineers a complicated scheme to buy more time before the transfer. How should Verjeat play out his values of honor and duty?

Like many happy people, Bruno Hamel is leading an uneventful life until one afternoon, when his daughter is raped and murdered. When the murderer is arrested, a terrible project germinates in Bruno's darkened mind. He plans to capture the "monster" and make him pay for his crime.

Antoine works in a bar in Paris. One evening on his way home from work, he intervenes when a man tries to commit suicide. He feels strangely guilty about having saved the man's life and constantly tries to help him, make things better. No matter what Antoine does, he can't get Louis's mind off Blanche, the woman of his dreams, his sole obsession, the reason why he wanted to die... Antoine decides to look for her, but doesn't let Louis know.

Mathieu owes everything to his friend Vincent : his house, his job, and even his life, ten years ago. With their wives, they are an inseparable quartet, and live the easy life on the French Riviera. But Mathieu discovers Vincent is cheating on his wife.

In their blue hotel room, a clandestine couple of two married lovers plan an impossible future, as death shutters their already frail tranquillity. Now, the noose tightens more and more around innocents and sinners; but, was there a crime?

Saint Tropez. Julie Wormser and her lover, writer and neighbour Jeff Marle, plan the murder of her wealthy husband Louis, an alcoholic impotent. She hits him, and leaves the rest of the task to Jeff. Julie finds herself alone the following day, and becomes therefore the prime suspect. Where is Louis' body? Where is Jeff? Is there any secret beyond a door?

A struggling writer finds a shortcut to fame, but a blackmailer threatens to ruin his perfect life.

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.

Three officers are tasked with escorting an illegal immigrant to Charles de Gaulle airport, where he will be forced onto a plane and sent back to his homeland. But when they find out about the truth, they have to make a difficult choice.

Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.

After 25 years together, married life has taken its toll on Xavier and Sophie, so when Sophie decides to invite their neighbours over for dinner, Xavier is less than enthusiastic to say the least! He can’t stand how obviously still in love they are and their lack of discretion… especially at night! On coming face-to-face with the uninhibited couple, Xavier and Sophie will be forced to confront their own, sad reality, before finding themselves pushed into a corner by a somewhat… indecent proposal.

A group of travelers, including a monk, stay in a lonely inn in the mountains. The host confesses the monk his habit of serving poisoned soup to the guests, to rob their possessions and to bury them in the backyard.

An executive manager, his wife and his family, at the point when his professional choices are about to overturn all their lives. Philippe Lemesle and his wife are separating, their love irretrievably damaged by pressures of work. A successful executive in industrial conglomerate, Philippe no longer knows how to respond to the contradictory demands of his bosses. Yesterday they wanted a manager, today an enforcer. Now he must decide what his life really means.

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

Young and ambitious Captain Vivés has just been appointed group leader at the Grenoble Criminal Squad when Clara's murder case lands on his desk. Vivés and his team investigate Clara's complex life and relations, but what starts as a professional and methodical immersion into the victim's life soon turns into a haunting obsession.

In the sterile setting of a powerful multinational, a ruthless corporate executive and her ambitious protégée bare their claws in a vicious battle for supremacy.

A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

Germán, an honest family man, sees how his whole world wobbles the night when, driving home, accidentally runs over two teenage girls. From that moment, Germán will have to do everything in his power to prevent his life from being destroyed forever.

Paul Exben is a success story – partner in one of Paris's most exclusive law firms, big salary, big house, glamorous wife and two sons straight out of a Gap catalog. But when he finds out that Sarah, his wife, is cheating on him with Greg Kremer, a local photographer, a rush of blood provokes Paul into a fatal error.

Fed up with her cheating husband, Louise, 45, takes off for a weekend in Corsica. But after a wild night of unbridled passion with a man who winds up dead, Louise is unwittingly mistaken for his secret, longtime girlfriend by his Corsican fearsome but loving mother.

Detectives Jonas and Erik are called to the midnight sun country of northern Norway to investigate a recent homicide, but their plan to arrest the killer goes awry, and Jonas mistakenly shoots Erik. The suspect escapes, and a frightened Jonas pins Erik's death on the fugitive. Jonas continues to pursue the killer as he seeks to protect himself; however, his mounting guilt and the omnipresent sun plague him with an insomnia that affects his sanity.

Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.

In the middle of the night, someone brings Ivan's body home to his wife and his young son. Flashbacks reveal the relationships among Ivan and his brother Alex, a cop with a cleanliness fetish; siblings Juliette and Jimmy, Ivan's partners in a seedy nightclub; the love triangle of Alex, Juliette, and Marie, a professor of philosophy; and of Alex and his nephew, Ivan's dour, stoic son. Ivan's death changes every relationship.

Two brothers and their wives meet up at a haute-cuisine restaurant to discuss what to do about a horrific crime that their sons committed together. As the quartet debate their options, the conversation reopens old wounds between the siblings.

While on a joyride with the headlights turned off, two men hit and kill another man carrying a satchel full of money. The two men decide to take the money and throw the body into a pond and bury the money in a coal hill. The next morning the police discover the body of a kidnapped 12-year blind girl, Melody, in a warehouse near the site of the hit-and-run. They determine that the kidnapper saw the girl's father bringing the ransom to him and also witnessed the hit-and-run and the men stealing the ransom.

A middle-aged businessman faces bankruptcy after his partner's suicide and a rival's unscrupulous offer to buy his company. Determined to avoid the trap, he finds an unexpected solution through a prostitute.

A French man spies on a lovely younger woman across the way. When he's spotted by the woman shortly after being questioned by the police about a local murder, the man's simple life becomes more complicated.

Paul Braconnier and his wife Blandine only have one thing in mind: to find a way to kill each other without risk. After listening to a radio show, Paul decides to go to Paris to meet a famous lawyer in the acquittal of the murderers. He tells the lawyer that he killed his wife. The lawyer asks Paul to reconstruct the circumstances of the drama. Without knowing it, he explains, in spite of himself, the way for Paul to murder his wife by putting the odds on his side to avoid death penalty or even be released...

A group of travelers, including a monk, stay in a lonely inn in the mountains. The host confesses the monk his habit of serving poisoned soup to the guests, to rob their possessions and to bury them in the backyard. The story unfolds as the monk tries to save the guest's lives without violating the holy secrecy of the confession.

Stuck in a passionless marriage, a journalist must choose between her distant but loving husband and a younger ex-boyfriend who has reentered her life

A woman with no memories runs in fear through the night when she is rescued by a man passing by. They will both have to figure out who her mysterious enemies are and what they want to achieve.

After his young son dies from the negligence at a hospital, Harry Fertig takes matters into his own hands and kills the doctor, nurse and clerk responsible. Slick lawyer Roy Bleakie, looking only to win a case and not caring of the matters involved, is asked by Fertig's boss to defend him. Shocked to hear that his client wants to plead guilty, the case causes Bleakie to question his own morals by defending an honorable man.

A series of murders is committed in Nice on the French riviera. The commissaire Carella is in charge and tries to find a missing link between all these murders.

Suave antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli is picked up by the police with no justification. At the precinct, Martelli realizes what the investigation is all about-- that he is the main suspect in the killing of his wealthy ex-lover. Is he guilty, or is he just a sleaze?

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

A gangster escapes jail and quickly makes plans to continue his criminal ways elsewhere, but a determined inspector is closing in.

In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.

When Daniel and Isabelle invite Patrick and his new flame, Emma, to dinner, it’s with some misgivings. After all, Patrick has just dumped his ex-wife — their best friend — to run off with a much younger woman. But when the ravishing Emma appears, all of Daniel’s qualms fly out of the window. He’s instantly smitten with the seductive woman...

A Parisian criminal gang fall apart after challenges to the gang's leader lessen his influence.

A man meets up with two "good guys" to recover what is unlawfully his, taking them on his whirlwind ride, doing things they never would have imagined, just to survive.

Porter Wren is a Manhattan tabloid writer with an appetite for scandal. On the beat he sells murder, tragedy, and anything that passes for the truth. At home, he is a dedicated husband and father. But when Caroline, a seductive stranger asks him to dig into the unsolved murder of her filmmaker husband Simon, he is drawn into a very nasty case of sexual obsession and blackmail--one that threatens his job, his marriage, and his life.

Lisa and Julien are married and lead a happy uneventful life with their son Oscar. But their life radically changes one morning, when the police comes to arrest Lisa on murder charges. She's sentenced to 20 years of prison. Convinced of his wife's innocence, Julien decides to act. How far will he be willing to go for her?

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.

A demoted police officer assigned to a call dispatch desk is conflicted when he receives an emergency phone call from a kidnapped woman.

A philosophy professor has an illicit affair with one of his students, a bright yet troubled girl who lives alone.

The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.

Investigates the corrupt judicial system under which Alain Mar'caux and his wife Edith were arrested on accusations of pedophilia horrific acts they never committed- and the years he spent fighting to get out of prison, clear his name and keep his family.

A steely special ops agent finds his morality put to the test when he infiltrates a crime syndicate and unexpectedly bonds with the boss' young son.

A serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their lives. Minos, as he calls himself, wants to prevent the world from free women and he targets at first these ones. Commissaire Letellier is given the investigation and he has hard work with the maniac.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.

Frank Valken, high-flying robber, has just made a final masterful break. At least that’s what he believes… Ideal suspects, Valken and his gang find themselves involved in a criminal case of thirty years. It seems that the crazy killers are back.

A police chief in northern France tries to solve a case where an old woman was brutally murdered on Christmas Eve. However, in a neighborhood rife with crime, everyone seems to be a suspect.

In August 1952, a family of British tourists is found by the roadside in Haute Provence, brutally murdered. In the ensuing, very public, investigation a local landowner, 75 year old Gaston Dominici, is arrested for the murders, having been denounced by his sons. Under police interrogation, Dominici confesses to have killed the family and it looks certain that he will be charged, tried and sentenced to death. But then the case begins to collapse. The old man retracts his confession and the lack of evidence against him becomes apparent…

In a Tokyo love hotel district, a woman is found dead in a derelict apartment. As police investigate, a romance novelist's wife lives a life that seems simply a daily repetition without romance. To break away from the loveless monotony, she follows her desires and becomes a nude model enacting sex in front of a camera. Soon, she meets a mentor and begins selling her body to strangers, while at home, she hides behind the façade that she's still the doting wife she's supposed to be.

When his wife's murderer is released due to a procedural error, Luc will do everything in his power to stop it from happening... He is going to take justice into his own hands and will then compete with the constitutional state which let him down.

Forced to work extremely hard to keep things afloat, Paul begins hearing voices in his head questioning his past choices. Convinced that his wife has been unfaithful, he begins to see every male guest as a potential threat. What follows is Paul's downward spiral into the madness of deranged jealousy where he finally discovers that hell is not a state of mind – hell is himself.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

After a perverted impulse drives them to kill, Alice and her boyfriend, Luc, drag the body into the woods, only to find themselves hopelessly lost – much like the fairy-tale plight of Hansel and Gretel. Starving and with no hope of being found, they chance upon a dilapidated cottage where a hulking man takes them prisoner and proceeds to feed Luc's sexual appetite.

On the run from his former employer, a reluctant hitman seeks refuge in an isolated village where he is faced with events that test the true nature of his conscience.

Claude Massoulier is murdered while hunting at the same place as Julien Vercel, an estate agent who knew him and whose fingerprints are found on Massoulier's car. As the police discover that Marie-Christine Vercel, Julien's wife, was Massoulier's mistress, Julien is the prime suspect. But his secretary, Barbara Becker, while not quite convinced he is innocent, defends him and leads her private investigations.

A cop goes up against his lifelong friend, who has become one of the city's biggest drug traffickers.

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.

Michael and Joanna are a young and successful married couple who appear to have it all. But when Michael finds himself alone on a business trip with an attractive new colleague and Joanna encounters the other great love of her life, each is thrust into an evening of temptation.

When a priest hears a murderer’s confession, he becomes bound by his vow of silence—even as circumstantial evidence turns suspicion toward him. Torn between faith and self-preservation, he faces public scandal and trial for a crime he cannot reveal the truth about.

The story of a husband who suspects his wife of adultery, and sets out to track down the other man in her life.

Jenny, a young doctor who feels guilty after a young woman she refused to see winds up dead a few days later, decides to find out who the girl was, after the police can't identify the young woman.

One night, Leo, a Spaniard working in Brussels as a subway driver, sees a young man on the edge of the platform, just before he falls onto the tracks.

Frank spends his summer days hopelessly searching for companionship at a popular cruising spot on the shores of a lake in rural France. One day, he meets Michel, an attractive yet darkly mysterious man and falls blindly in love.

When he and his pregnant wife are attacked in their home, a former elite agent becomes trapped in a deadly manhunt tied to his own painful past.

While serving as a juror in a high profile murder trial, family man Justin Kemp finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma…one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict—or free—the accused killer.

A reckless night of indiscretion and lust leads a woman into the dark world of blackmail and murder. When revealing photos of her sexual tryst unexpectedly surface, Katy is forced to submit to whatever her tormentors desire.

Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves the town. She will track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?

Police commander Simon Weiss, head of the division that supervises Paris’s demi-monde, starts out on his nightly tour of bars, discos and strip clubs, making sure once again that the owners don’t bend the rules too far. Weiss knows he’s between a rock and hard place: it’s obvious that criminal gangs run rampant in his special domain, and even more obvious that they’re protected by higher-ups in the department.



