The Red Circle (Le cercle rouge)The lives of two anti-heroes intersect when a man is released from a 5-year prison term on the same day that a convicted murderer escapes from a train.
Melville's penultimate film was his largest commercial success in France and is perhaps his most perfectly-realised work, epitomising the crisp and no-nonsense approach that he refined in his crime films.
The last of the director's films to be shot by his great collaborator Henri Decaë, this mature work features a set of quintessentially Melvillian trench-coated characters, flawlessly cast with Alain Delon, Yves Montand and Gian Maria Volonté in lead roles.
