Le petit soldatMovies like Le petit soldat
- Key Features:
- Political intrigue, Photojournalist, Paramilitary, Moral ambiguity, Algerian War, Political violence, Espionage, Betrayal, Cynicism, Existential crisis
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, cynical
- Target Audience:
- Cinephiles, Political thriller enthusiasts, Arthouse cinema fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Indecision → Fear → Resignation
Le petit soldat

Despite his lack of political convictions, photojournalist Bruno Forestier is roped into a paramilitary group waging a shadow war in Geneva against the Algerian independence movement.
Le petit soldat
Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever.

Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.

Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.

October 2015. French customs seize seven tonnes of cannabis in the heart of the capital. The same day, Hubert Antoine, a former mole with a shady past, contacts Stéphane Vilner, a journalist at Libération. He claims to be able to demonstrate the existence of State drug trafficking led by Jacques Billard, prominent media figure and high-ranking French police officer. Suspicious at first, the young journalist finally dives into an investigation that will lead him to the darkest corners of the Republic.

Ariel, a young French Jew, decides to leave his family to go to Israel and secretly become an agent of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. After years of training, his first mission is in Paris to steal secrets from Remy Prieur, a French atomic scientist.

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

Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?

Sam, a freelance journalist, decides to investigate the growing phenomenon of disaffected youth joining extremist groups. He infiltrates a group of four young people who have been tasked with the creation of a jihadist cell and whose mission is to destabilise the city centre of Paris.

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 French teacher in a small Algerian village during the Algerian War forms an unexpected bond with a dissident who is ordered to be turned in to the authorities.

In France, terrorist groups and intelligence agencies battle in a merciless war everyday, in the name of radically opposed ideologies. Yet, terrorist and secret agents lead almost the same lives. Condemned to secrecy, these masters of manipulation follow the same methods. Alex and Al Barad are two of them. The former is the head of the D.G.S.E.'s (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the French equivalent of the CIA or the MI6) counter-terrorism unit while the latter reigns over a terrorist network, and both fight using the most ruthless of weapons: human beings.

April 1988, Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia. 30 gendarmes are taken hostage by a group of Kanak freedom fighters. 300 soldiers are sent from France to re-establish order. 2 men confront each other: Philippe Legorjus, chief of the terrorist squad, and Alphonse Dianou, head of the kidnappers. Through their shared values, they will attempt to make discussion triumph. But, in the middle of a presidential election, when the stakes are political, order isn't always dictated by morality. A violent and troubling epic that marks the return of Mathieu Kassovitz in front and behind the camera.

In Louis Malle's lauded drama, Lucien Lacombe is a young man living in rural France during World War II who seeks to join the French Resistance. When he is rejected due to his youth, the resentful Lucien allies himself with the Nazis and joins the Gallic arm of their Gestapo. Lucien grows to enjoy the power that comes with his position, but his life is complicated when he falls for France Horn, a beautiful young Jewish woman.

A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.

André Demester secretly and painfully loves Barbe, his childhood friend, accepting from her the little that she gives him. He leaves home to be a soldier in a war in a far off land. Barbarity, camaraderie and fear turn him into a warrior. As the seasons go by, Barbe, alone and wasting away, waits for the soldiers to return. Will Demester’s boundless love for Barbe save him?

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?

Set in 1899 Paris, a young police sergeant is chosen to infiltrate a group of anarchists, an opportunity he sees to rise through the ranks. However, he soon finds himself becoming attached to the group.

A young Dutch soldier deployed to suppress post-WWII independence efforts in the Netherlands’ colony of Indonesia finds himself torn between duty and conscience when he joins an increasingly ruthless commander’s elite squad.

A poor young Belgian mother wants her petty thief of a boyfriend to be gainfully employed to raise their newborn child, but he has other ideas.

Pierre and Manon are poor. They make documentaries with nothing and they live by doing odd jobs. Pierre meets a young intern, Elisabeth, and she becomes his mistress. But Pierre will not leave Manon for Elisabeth; he wants to keep both.

When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband – also a legendary agent – faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage, or his country.

In London, an airport baggage handler is forced by French and British intelligence agents to seduce the wife of a businessman with ties to Syrian terrorists.

Occupied France; Lebrac leads a play war between two rival kid gangs, but a girl he likes, who's Jewish, is in danger of being discovered by local Nazi sympathisers. Lebrac and the village must now respond to the reality of what's happening.

While shooting a film, the director becomes interested in the unfolding struggle of a young factory worker that has been laid off by a boss who did not like her union activities.

Mathieu, a member of the French institute in Irkutsk, is arrested overnight by the Russian authorities. Imprisoned and accused of sexual abuse on his own daughter, he realises he is a victim of a Kompromat. With the help of the FSB, someone has built up a case to frame him. Isolated, he has no one to turn to. Proving his innocence is impossible: the only solution is to escape.

A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth. But, a tenacious magistrate is determined to not to let them get away with it.

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.

Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.

Afghanistan. War correspondent Elsa Casanova is taken hostage by the Taliban. Faced with her imminent execution, a Special Forces unit is dispatched to free her. In some of the world’s most breathtaking yet hostile landscapes, a relentless pursuit begins between her kidnappers who have no intention of letting their prey escape them and a group of soldiers who risk their lives in pursuit of their single aim – to bring her home alive. This strong, independent woman and these men of duty are thrown together and forced to confront situations of great danger that inextricably bind them – emotionally, violently and intimately.

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.

During a war in an imaginary country, unscrupulous soldiers recruit poor farmers with promises of an easy and happy life. Two of these farmers write to their wives of their exploits.

A group of Serbian socialists prepares for the war in a surreal underground filled by parties, tragedies, love and hate.

After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts, finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him.

After being freed from a Vietnamese war prison, French Lt. Col. Pierre Raspeguy is sent to help quell resistance forces in Algeria. With the help of the Capt. Esclavier, who has grown weary of war, and Capt. Boisfeuras, who lives for it, Raspeguy attempts to convert a rugged band of soldiers into a formidable fighting unit, with the promise of marrying a beautiful countess if he's made a general.

Charles drifts through politics, religion and psychoanalysis, rejecting them all. Once he realises the depth of his disgust with the moral and physical decline of the society he lives in, he decides that suicide is the only option...

A restless photographer leaves her family to "find herself" and takes up deep-sea diving.

Paul, a young idealist trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, takes a job interviewing people for a marketing research firm. He moves in with aspiring pop singer Madeleine. Paul, however, is disillusioned by the growing commercialism in society, while Madeleine just wants to be successful. The story is told in a series of 15 unrelated vignettes.

Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.

The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.

Following the assassination of President Marc Jarry, a member of the investigation committee refuses to sign off on the committee's final findings.

In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.

Servais Mont, a freelance photographer who works taking compromising photos, gets fascinated by Nadine Chevalier, a tormented low-budget movie actress married to an eccentric film photo collector.

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

Sebastien Grenier, a former French spy, is working as a financial analyst in Zurich. However, his peaceful existence starts to disintegrate when he is recruited by a top French intelligence operative to discover how one of their own secret agents was found out and executed in broad daylight.

Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.

A war photographer and absent father, who spends more time taking care of his camera than his four daughters, enjoys a happy life in the Alps with his new girlfriend. But his life is turned upside down the day that his best friend tries to reconcile him with his family by telling them a big lie.

A short two-minute rumination on the once volatile situation during the period of the Bosnian War presented in the form of a photo-montage with accompanying text.

Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.

Some young folks, tired of the society they're living in, plan a bomb attack over Paris before taking shelter for a night in a shopping center.

A British mercenary arrives in pre-Revolution Cuba to help train the corrupt General Batista's army against Castro's guerrillas while he also romances a former lover now married to an unscrupulous plantation owner.

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.

From his offices in Switzerland, Russian Igor Lipovsky is engaged in a vast and profitable gunrunning operation with Africa. The French government wants to hinder the activities of the arms dealer and sends a team to sink one of his ships heading for Angola with a load of illegal weaponry. Lisa, Brisseau, Loïc, Tony and Raymond are professionals: they carefully set up their cover, plan all their moves meticulously, and carry out orders without asking questions. Perhaps they should. The code-name of the mission is "Janus"; and just like with the ancient deity, there are two opposite faces for every aspect of the operation: the objective of the French government, the role of each team member, the presumed friend and the assumed foe...

A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

A French diplomat is surveilled by a secret service to find a weakness for political control, his private life becoming 'File No. 51'.

Eight short films explore the subject of male infidelity. Serial cheaters, Fred and Greg, spend a night on the town doing what they do best, and with absolutely no regrets. The duo play various characters in assorted extracurricular situations, ranging from sexist to the darker sides of carnal desires.

A young journalist, an experienced cameraman and a discredited reporter find their bold plan to capture Bosnia's top war criminal quickly spiraling out of control when a UN representative mistakes them for a CIA hit squad.

In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.

An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.

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.

In a small town in post-WWII France, 16-year-old Janine tries to improve her conditions by any means necessary. Three people—Michel, a married lover; Raoul, a fellow thief; Mauricette, a photographer she meets in prison—will help her learn from her mistakes.

Georges Duroy travels through 1890s Paris, from cockroach ridden garrets to opulent salons, using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth, from a prostitute’s embrace to passionate trysts with wealthy beauties, in a world where politics and media jostle for influence, where sex is power and celebrity an obsession.

"Ni Pour, Ni Contre" tracks the fall of a young TV camerawoman, Caty, after she becomes involved with a group of petty criminals and their enigmatic leader, Jean. The gang lives hand-to-mouth until the day Jean plans a daring bank robbery. Although other gang members feel out of their league, Jean persuades them to take part and Caty finds herself in a hellish world of betrayal, violence and murder.

Paris, France. Fred and his colleagues, members of the BPM, the Police Child Protection Unit, dedicated to pursuing all sorts of offenses committed against the weakest, must endure the scrutiny of Melissa, a photographer commissioned to graphically document the daily routine of the team.

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.

In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…

In the second of Rohmer's moral tales, he examines the relationship between two friends and a girl who at first appears easily exploited. It is a complex tale of feelings and misconceptions, acted out within the head of the main character, as part of Rohmer's attempt to more easily simulate the mindscape quality of literature within a film.

Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.

An FSB officer falls in love with his agent, an American woman who works as a trader in a Russian bank.

Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.

A methodical police inspector becomes entangled in a web of deceit after a murder investigation reveals disturbing connections to his own department. As suspicion tightens around him, he must outwit both the killer and the system to survive.

Using the interrogation of a US counterinsurgency agent as a backdrop, the film explores the consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.

Freshly hired as a labor nurse in a chemical factory, Nour discovers that small arrangements exist between management and her father, Slimane, the staff representative, and the company's pivot. Lies about polluting discharges, hidden illnesses of employees, hidden accidents ... Nour, little by little, no longer accepts the compromises of his father to preserve the image of the company. She decides to launch the alert.

Convinced that his subtenant is a spy and an enemy of the state, Ilija Čvorović falls into deep paranoia which leads to an absurd and destructive chain of events.

Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner's son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.

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.

Madagascar, at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. On an air base of the French army, the soldiers live the last carefree years of colonialism. Influenced by his readings of Fantômette, Thomas, a child who is not yet 10 years old, gradually forges a look at the world around him.

A band of mercenaries led by Captain Curry travel through war-torn Congo across deadly terrain, battling rival armies, to steal $50 million in uncut diamonds. But infighting, sadistic rebels and a time lock jeopardize everything.

A talented photographer who lands a lucrative job in Paris with a scandal-mongering tabloid and becomes romantically involved with an eccentric children's book publisher while resisting the sexual advances of another photographer.

Simon, a Jewish police inspector, arrests Karim, a Muslim, in the bust of a drug smuggling cargo ship, only to realize that Karim is an undercover agent from the military intelligence, whose mission he was not aware of. The two men pursue the narc investigation, which will lead them to confront middle eastern terrorists together.

After escaping unscathed from a car accident, photo model Simone decides that having a baby is the only way to give her vacant life some meaning. She asks her best friend Philippe to get her pregnant, and he reluctantly agrees, on the condition that they conceive somewhere in a desert, so they leave Montréal on a 24-hour round-trip to Salt Lake City to find a suitable spot.

A pathetic police chief, humiliated by everyone around him, suddenly wants a clean slate in life, and resorts to drastic means to achieve it.

When two girls go missing, Paul Chartier, an impulsive young police recruit, is assigned to “Maldoror”. This secret unit has been set up to monitor a dangerous sex offender. When the operation fails, fed up with the limits of the legal system, Chartier embarks on a solitary hunt to bring down the culprits.

Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.

Henri Serin (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an umbrella salesman, leads a quiet life between his work, his family and his passion for painting. During his many business trips, Henri indulges in a few amorous escapades, which provide a welcome change from the tiresome daily routine his bigoted wife locks him into. One fine day, Henri decides to drop everything and live on love and fresh water. He ends up in Pont-Aven, where he meets Émile, a local painter imitating Gauguin, with whom he shares his drinking and other feminine attractions.

Old professional killer Wagner seeks someone to teach what he knows as long as he is already dying, and he chooses Max, young and passionless thief to be his successor.

An ex-soldier with PTSD is hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman while he's out of town.

Northern Spain, October 1944. Several groups of guerrilla fighters, former Republican soldiers exiled in France after the end of the Spanish Civil War, infiltrate the country in order to provoke a popular uprising against General Franco's dictatorship.

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.

In 1920, Major Dellaplane, a man of honor and ethics, searches for missing French soldiers. He meets Madame Irène de Courtil, a politically connected Parisian, and their paths cross.

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.

After being imprisoned by the Assad regime in Syria, Hamid now works undercover as part of a secret group pursuing their leaders, including the guard he suspects was responsible for his torture.

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

Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works but his focus on movie making also leads to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas.

An idealistic young employee at the U.N. investigates the grisly murder of his predecessor – and uncovers a vast global conspiracy that may involve his own boss.

After a bad breakup, a college-aged Parisian moves into her father's flat only to discover that he is living with his new girlfriend - a young woman her age.

