12 Movies Directed by Olivier Assayas

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Gilles and Christine a boy and a girl live in the outskirts of Paris, their families are ineffective and distant and they lead a purposeless life. They steal some records in a supermarket but she is caught and sent to a nursing home by force by her parents. She escapes and follows Gilles to a house where some other youths live. They then decide to go south: Christine has been told there is a commune there, where artists live. So they head south sleeping rough...

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Rene Vidal, a director in decline, decides to remake Louis Feuillade's silent serial "Les Vampires." Believing no French actress can match Musidora as Irma Vep (an anagram for vampire), he casts Hong Kong action heroine Maggie Cheung, though she speaks no French. On the chaotic set, she's aided by Zoe, the wardrobe mistress with a crush on her; she defends Vidal to a Parisian journalist who trashes all French film and praises John Woo and Schwarzenegger; she befriends Vidal when he goes over the edge; and, in costume, she breaks into a hotel suite to steal jewels as her victim talks on the phone. We also watch the making, the rushes, and the remains of Vidal's unfinished film.

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A story about the transition from late youth to early maturity, the film follows several friends and lovers as they come to make decisions on how to live their lives--getting a job more in harmony with ones ideals, committing to a lover, giving up a lover that no longer loves you: a film about grown-ups growing up.

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In late nineteenth century Charante, Protestant minister Jean Barnery causes local disquiet when he arranges a separation from his obsessive wife - and more talk when he decides to take her back. By this time he has been drawn to Pauline, niece of a Cognac distiller, and this precipitates him divorcing his wife, settling on her and his daughter the shares he owns in his family's porcelain factory. He resigns the ministry, marries Pauline, and moves to Switzerland and a tranquil life. On the death of his father he agrees to return home to save the factory, knowing the problems it will bring will change his life completely. So it proves, with service in the Great War having a further profound impact on him and those around him.

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Diane works for a French firm bidding to purchase a Japanese animation outfit. Diane maliciously hatches a plot to take the job of her supervisor Karen. The plan succeeds, but then Diane faces problems when a competing American firm, represented by Elaine, becomes involved. Diane's assistant Elise remains loyal to Karen, and she frustrates Diane's every move. When it comes to light that the one of the concerned parties controls an Internet site which broadcasts actual torture, the plot thickens.

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Diane works for a French firm bidding to purchase a Japanese animation outfit. Diane maliciously hatches a plot to take the job of her supervisor Karen. The plan succeeds, but then Diane faces problems when a competing American firm, represented by Elaine, becomes involved. Diane's assistant Elise remains loyal to Karen, and she frustrates Diane's every move. When it comes to light that the one of the concerned parties controls an Internet site which broadcasts actual torture, the plot thickens.

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London-based Emily Wang gained minor notoriety from her VJ-ing on cable television. She is now more renowned for being the longtime girlfriend and pseudo manager of rock musician Lee Hauser, who seems to be on the brink of stardom. Those that know the couple believe she is a bad influence on him, and is the reason why he is a junkie. After Lee dies from an accidental heroin overdose and Emily is imprisoned for six months on possession charges, she learns that the courts have awarded custody of their young adolescent son, Jay, to Lee's aging parents, Albrecht and Rosemary Hauser, who live in Vancouver. A concerned Albrecht asks that she not attempt to see Jay for at least two years while she cleans up her act so as to give Jay a fighting chance at a decent life. Emily initially agrees, knowing that she is in no position to look after Jay. To regain her life, she decides to move back to her old stomping grounds of Paris. As Emily tries mostly unsuccessfully to become clean while eking out a living doing what she wants to earn money, which is primarily still in the realm of rock music, Rosemary poisons Jay's mind about his mother. Caught in the middle is Albrecht, who, out of personal circumstance, wants Jay to eventually have a relationship with his mother if only because he knows that he and Rosemary will not be able to look after Jay until adulthood and that Emily is the only other family he has.

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Paris, je t'aime is about the plurality of cinema in one mythic location: Paris, the City of Love. Twenty filmmakers have five minutes each; the audience must weave a single narrative out of twenty moments. The 20 moments are fused by transitional interstitial sequences and also via the introduction and epilogue. Each transition begins with the last shot of the previous film and ends with the first shot of the following film, extending the enchantment and the emotion of the previous segment, preparing the audience for a surprise, and providing a cohesive atmosphere. There's a reappearing mysterious character who is a witness to the Parisian life. A common theme of Paris and love fuses all.

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In a small town, Hèlène is a family matriarch who has devoted her life to preserving the legacy of her artist uncle. However, while her eldest son, Frèdèric, wants to preserve her home after her passing, she harbors no such illusions as she prepares her legacy. After her death, her children realize what she anticipated as they come to terms with their inheritance's place in their own lives. In the resulting disposition of their mother's assets, treasured heirlooms of a romantic family past drift away even as their changing modern world confronts the value of their memories.

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In the months after the heady weeks of May '68, a group of young Europeans search for a way to continue the revolution believed to be just beginning.

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At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago. But back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant to rehearse in Sils Maria; a remote region of the Alps. A young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal is to take on the role of Sigrid, and Maria finds herself on the other side of the mirror, face to face with an ambiguously charming woman who is, in essence, an unsettling reflection of herself.