In a searing crime of passion, lonely, hard-working laborer Francois (Gabin) kills a womanizing predator, Valentin (Berry) and then flees to his apartment, where he holes up in the attic. As he waits for the police to arrive, Francois reflects on the two women he has loved, Francoise (Laurent) and Clara (Arletty), and the circumstances that drove him to commit this desperate act.

Perhaps the finest collaboration between Marcel Carne and screenwriter Jacques Prevert, this poetic story of sexual obsession finds an ordinary foundry worker driven mad by a no-account lothario who’s cynically targeted the woman he loves. The film was remade as “The Long Night” in 1947, but the purity of Carne’s vision in the original, not to mention the impeccable performances of Berry, Laurent, Arletty, and especially Gabin as the tormented loner, make this absolutely essential viewing.