The Devil, ProbablyMovies like The Devil, Probably
- Key Features:
- Existentialism, Social alienation, Disillusionment, Suicide, Political disillusionment, Skepticism, Psychoanalysis, Moral decay, Philosophical, French New Wave, Cerebral
- Tone:
- serious, cynical
- Target Audience:
- Art house cinema enthusiasts, Philosophical film lovers, Cerebral viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Disgust → Despair
The Devil, Probably

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...
The Devil, Probably
Depressed Alain Leroy leaves the clinic where he was detoxified. He meets friends, acquaintances and women, trying to find a reason to continue living.

A young student decides to have no more interaction with the world than is needed to minimally sustain life. His increasingly automaton-like behavior is coupled with a strange clarity of insight about the world around him.

A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.

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.

Meursault is a man who feels utterly isolated from everyone and everything around him. This alienation results in sudden, inexplicable bursts of violence, culminating in murder.

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

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.

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

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

Satan tempts Father Dossignan, who is trying to save the soul of a young girl who killed one of her lovers.

Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

Victor is a legal advisor who finds himself abandoned by his wife and fired the same day. He tries to seek comfort from different friends and family members, but everyone he meets is concerned with their own problems. His morale begins to falter when he realizes that no one cares about him.

In Paris at night, a young aspiring filmmaker grapples with heartbreak after his girlfriend leaves him for his best friend. After a failed attempt to confront his friend, he wanders the streets and encounters a girl who has just been abandoned. Their paths cross at a party, bringing together two tormented souls.

The mayor of Lyon, Paul Théraneau, is in a delicate position. After 30 years in politics, he is running out of ideas and is faced with a feeling of existential emptiness. To overcome this, Paul hires a young and brilliant philosopher, Alice Heimann. Then follows a dialogue between two diametrically opposed personalities who will turn their certainties upside down.

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.

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.

A forged 500-franc note is passed from person to person and shop to shop, until it falls into the hands of a genuine innocent who doesn't see it for what it is—which will have devastating consequences on his life.

Algiers, 1938. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother's funeral without shedding a tear. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague. He quickly slips back into his usual routine. However, his daily life is soon about to be disrupted by his neighbor, Raymond Sintès, who draws Meursault into his shady dealings. Until one blisteringly hot day, a tragic event occurs on a beach...

After long absence, a man returns to his hometown only to find his best friend has become an alcoholic.

Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.

A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.

Young Polish nobleman Jakub is saved from imprisonment by a stranger. In return, the stranger wants to obtain a list of Jakub’s fellow conspirators. As he follows his mysterious savior across the country, Jakub is affected by the overall chaos and moral corruption; he goes insane and becomes a mass murderer.

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 filmmaker holds a series of boundary-pushing auditions for his latest project: a thriller on the subject of female pleasure.

A teenager stops off to see his dealer to test a new drug before heading off for a night of partying. On the way home, he picks up an injured woman, and the night takes a surreal turn.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

Jacques, a young man with artistic aspirations, spends four nights wandering Paris with a young woman, whom he rescued from suicide.

A philosophy teacher restless with the need to do something with his life meets a young woman suspected of driving an artist to his death. He finds the very simple Cecilia irritating but develops a sexual rapport with her. Obsessed with the need to own and tormented by her inability to respond to him, he becomes increasingly violent in a quest he can't name - a quest that slowly begins to undermine his certainties.

A young husband and father, perfectly content with his life, falls in love with another woman.

Young provincial Charles arrives in Paris to stay with his cousin Paul while studying law. Paul is a decadent, bohemian pleasure-seeker who shows the meek, diligent Charles the thrills of city life. When Charles falls for Florence, one of Paul's acquaintances, relationships begin to shift.

Vincent finds himself under attack for no apparent reason overnight. When the phenomenon intensifies, he must run and change his way of life completely.

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment.

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 middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

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.

Mona Bergeron is dead, her frozen body found in a ditch in the French countryside. From this, the film flashes back to the weeks leading up to her death. Through these flashbacks, Mona gradually declines as she travels from place to place, taking odd jobs and staying with whomever will offer her a place to sleep. Mona is fiercely independent, craving freedom over comfort, but it is this desire to be free that will eventually lead to her demise.

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.

A writer leaves his upper-class life and journeys with a woman claiming to be his sister, and her two friends.

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.

A drunken, self-destructive woman called Betty wanders into a Parisian bar where she meets middle-aged alcoholic Laure. Laure decides to take care of Betty. Recovering in a hotel room, Betty begins to recount to Laure the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy and unfaithful marriage.

Zachary, 17 years old, gets out of jail. Rejected by his mother, he hangs out in the mean streets of Marseille. He falls in love with Shéhérazade, a young prostitute of whom he becomes the pimp without realizing it...

Recovering from an attempted suicide, a man is selected to participate in a time travel experiment that has only been tested on mice. A malfunction in the experiment causes the man to experience moments from his past in a random order.

Sasha is a young vampire with a serious problem: she's too sensitive to kill. When her exasperated parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha's life is in jeopardy. Luckily, she meets Paul, a lonely teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers. But their friendly agreement soon becomes a nocturnal quest to fulfill Paul's last wishes before day breaks.

Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.

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.

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

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.

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 group of young people leave a disco and bump into a shepherd who is ready to spend his night worshipping Satan.

Believing that the world will end that very day, three mental patients Coco, Tsumuji, and Satoru set out upon a journey. Walking upon the tops of the walls of the city, they seek to find a picnic spot with the best vantage point to view the final event.

A troubled young woman is thrown out of a convent and forms a relationship with a radical Muslim.

Mousse and Louis are young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day, they overdose and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she's pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis' brother joins her in her refuge.

Three characters living in an unfinished painting venture out into the real world in search of their creator to convince him to finish his work.

Lui, a struggling author with a heart condition, and his wife Elle, a retired psychiatrist, find their idyllic life shattered when Elle begins to succumb to the effects of dementia.

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.

A bombastic, womanizing art dealer and his painter friend go to a seventeenth-century villa on the Riviera for a relaxing summer getaway. But their idyll is disturbed by the presence of the bohemian Haydée, accused of being a “collector” of men.

Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as a professor in a circa-1700 French university, despairs at the ravages of old age ... whereupon Mephistopheles, agent of Lucifer, appears as a virile, handsome young man and exchanges bodies with him to induce Faust to sign a pact to exchange his soul for renewed youth, riches and power. But though the "new" Faust is attracted by the material improvements in his life, he remains wary of signing, while Mephistopheles, now posing as the aged professor whose body he inhabits, must find a way to trick him into signing the pact - and dissuade him from the love of a gypsy girl who prays for his soul - or find himself damned by his own Master...

A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.

Lacking inspiration, a composer isolates himself at a desolate house, on a small island, in Brittany. There he finds an old piano and receives visits from people who won't let him rest.

Isabelle, a 17-year-old student, loses her virginity during a quick holiday romance. When she returns home, she begins a secret life as a prostitute for a year.

Five long-term pals confront ageing and mortality as they enjoy their last weeks together before taking different paths.

The idea is simple / A married woman and a single man meet / They love, they argue, fists fly / A dog strays between town and country / The seasons pass / The man and woman meet again / The dog finds itself between them / The other is in one, / the one is in the other / and they are three / The former husband shatters everything / A second film begins: / the same as the first, / and yet not / From the human race we pass to metaphor / This ends in barking / and a baby's cries / In the meantime, we will have seen people talking of the demise of the dollar, of truth in mathematics and of the death of a robin." - JLG

Handed over to foster care by his mother—who's unwilling to give up permanent custody—the now-adolescent François understands that nothing in life is permanent, and his increasingly erratic actions reflect this knowledge.

Barny, although a Marxist, is intrigued by the mysteries of religion. In confession, she teases a priest, Léon Morin, but he is a young and intelligent man and ready to discuss anything.

A young man becomes convinced that the solution to all his problems is to live in jail, and he will do whatever it takes to get it.

Romain, 31, a fashion photographer with terminal cancer, elects to die alone, preparing others to live past him rather than prolong the inevitable with chemotherapy or be smothered in sympathy by those who know him.

Julien Bouin, a former typographist, and his wife Clemence, who used to perform in a circus, hardly talk to each other in their small house, soon to be demolished. His cat Greffier being the only one he still gives affection to, he becomes the object of Clemence's anger.

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

Louis, a terminally ill writer, returns home after a long absence to tell his family that he is dying.

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure.

A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.

A young woman joins a theatrical troupe where she slowly believes that the director is involved with a secret group and that he is in grave danger.

Failed musician Jay abandoned his family and now earns a living as head bartender in a trendy London pub. Every Wednesday afternoon, a woman comes to his house for graphic, almost wordless, sex. One day, Jay follows her and learns about her. This eventually disrupts their relationship.

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

A Russian poet, Andrei and his interpreter, Eugenia travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

Eight Italian politicians from the communist party gather on a terrace in Rome for a get-together. They discuss about their past, present and future.

Pierre, a Parisian engineer, goes up in the Alps for his work. Irresistibly attracted by what surrounds him, he camps out alone high in the mountains and leaves behind his everyday life. Up there he meets Léa, a chef of an alpine restaurant, while mysterious glows glitter in the deep mountains…

An explosion sends fear and terror through Berlin. Young Maxi's home is reduced to rubble and ashes, burying her mother and little brothers. Only she and her father survive the terrorist bomb attack. When she happens to meet the charismatic Karl, who tells her about a conference for young people in Prague, she seizes the opportunity to flee Berlin and her grieving father. The political movement behind the meeting claims to be working for a better Europe. Maxi has no idea how close the murderers really are to her family.

Guillaume Canet is told by a young co-star that he's no longer Rock'n' Roll and can't sell films anymore. He then tries to prove her wrong and gets help from his girlfriend, Marion Cotillard.

A series of dark and troubling events forces Bill to reckon with the meaning of his life… or lack thereof.

Four friends gather at a villa with the intention of eating themselves to death.

Twenty-something Freddy is becalmed in a podunk French village where the only sign of life is the local amateur brass band and youth aimlessly roaming around the countryside on scooters. He has an intense sexual connection with his girlfriend but has no joy or passion to give her. When she falls for a handsome Arab youth a tragedy unfolds.

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

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

In 1923 Berlin, following the suicide of his brother, an American acrobat struggles to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism, and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

Arthur is invited to a New Year's Eve party to celebrate the year 2000. His girlfriend Lucie would like a baby from him but he refuses. Through the ceiling of the toilets, he discovers a passage leading to this futurist Paris. There, he meets an old man Ako who affirms he is his son and that he wants to exist. Otherwise he will vanish into the air. Arthur is still hesitant because his life is an unfulfilled one: a has a little lucrative job, is uncertain about his future and things are getting out of hand when Ako discovers the passage and interferes in the party.

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

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

Hell is a rich girl from Paris’ posh neighbourhoods living in the fast lane to compensate the void of her life: sex, drugs & rock’ n’ roll. She meets her male counterpart in the person of Andrea, a seductive young man, and they both fall madly in love.

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.

Fed up with her present lifestyle, and more particularly sexually unsatisfied by her boyfriend Fred, Sandrine decides to find a new way in life. Intrigued by her friend Sophie, who tells her about her sexual experimentations, she will find, through various encounters, new pleasures and new experiences, whether physical or spiritual.

Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.

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

The Catholic Jean-Louis runs into an old friend, the Marxist Vidal, in Clermont-Ferrand around Christmas. Vidal introduces Jean-Louis to the modestly libertine, recently divorced Maud and the three engage in conversation on religion, atheism, love, morality and Blaise Pascal's life and writings on philosophy, faith and mathematics. Jean-Louis ends up spending a night at Maud's. Jean-Louis' Catholic views on marriage, fidelity and obligation make his situation a dilemma, as he has already, at the very beginning of the film, proclaimed his love for a young woman whom, however, he has never yet spoken to.

Jean-Pierre, a wealthy businessman, is lonely. He still desires his wife but she only seems interested in shopping and the beauty salon. Tired of lunching alone every day, one day he decides to invite his chauffeur to join him, and a relationship quickly develops as the two find they have much in common. Are they just cash machines for their wives? Don't they deserve some love in return? Jean-Pierre confiscates his wife's credit card, but things don't turn out exactly the way he'd hoped...

