Film

Loulou

Isabelle Huppert abandons her respectable marriage for Gérard Depardieu's magnetic drifter in this 1980 French provocation. Morally unsparing and sexually frank, it's a film that treats desire as something ungovernable and class transgression as genuinely dangerous. For anyone drawn to cinema that refuses to judge its characters into simple shapes.

TMDb rating3.1

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A Bigger Splash2015

Stylish, sun-drenched collision between a woman in limbo and a charismatic outsider who disrupts everything. Like Loulou, it's less interested in plot than in the textures of attraction and class collision.

But Very slow, very 1969, and the outsider character tips into genuinely abusive behaviour. Not everyone will stay engaged.

A Bigger Splash poster

Belle de Jour1967

Buñuel's masterpiece about a respectable wife harboring transgressive desires. Surreal where Loulou is grounded, but both films understand that respectability is a costume worn over something darker.

But Dreamlike and oblique. If you want clarity about motive, this will frustrate you.

Belle de Jour poster

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles1976

Chantal Akerman's rigorous study of a woman's daily rituals before rupture. Like Loulou, it privileges observation over judgment and finds genuine drama in the mundane structures we live in.

But Three hours of housework and very little conventional narrative. Not everyone has the patience.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles poster

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Danton1983

Both films understand that sexual and political transgression speak the same language; Depardieu embodies the dangerously seductive outsider in both.

Polish director Andrzej Wajda's film of the French Revolution, but really about charisma, class hatred, and the danger of charm in politics. Depardieu plays the seductive outsider who terrifies the establishment. The connection: both films understand that sexual and political transgression speak the same language.

But Historical drama that's really about ideology. If you want spectacle, you'll be disappointed by its austerity.

Danton poster
More like this (7)

The Passenger1975

Antonioni's film about identity swapping and a man drifting into another life. Both films treat displacement as seductive rather than cautionary, and float through their narratives like dreams.

But Deliberately paced to the point of stasis. The ending is ambiguous to the point of frustration.

The Passenger poster

Vagabond1985

Agnès Vardès portrait of a young woman adrift and economically disposable. Like Loulou, it's unsentimental about poverty and sexuality, and refuses to make its protagonist redemptive.

But Structured as interviews and fragments. Some find it cold; others find that coldness clarifying.

Vagabond poster

A Prophet2009

Underworld rise-and-fall that treats criminality as seductive and self-fashioning as survival. Same interest in transgression as a form of agency that Loulou has, but modern and visceral.

But French prison drama. If you need likeable characters, this isn't your film.

A Prophet poster

Thérèse2012

Claude Charbol's austere study of a woman who murders her husband and remains utterly blank about motive. Huppert again, playing opacity rather than revelation.

But Very quiet, very still, almost clinical. The restraint can read as cold.

Thérèse poster

Scenes from a Marriage1974

Bergman's surgical dissection of what happens when a marriage cracks. Where Loulou is about escape into desire, this is about the slow death of it. Both are uncompromising about what people do to each other.

But Emotionally exhausting. Long and relentlessly intimate.

Scenes from a Marriage poster

The Story of Adèle H.1975

Truffaut's film of obsession and self-destruction. Like Loulou, it refuses to simplify female desire into either tragedy or triumph, and watches its protagonist without sentimentality.

But Isabelle Adjani's performance is magnificent but unpleasant to watch. The film doesn't offer relief.

The Story of Adèle H. poster

Possession1981

Both are unflinching about infidelity and desire as forms of violence; both emerged from 1980s European cinema unafraid to be ugly.

Andrzej Żuławski's hallucinatory, body-horror nightmare about a marriage disintegrating into madness and infidelity. Surrealist where Loulou is realist, but shares its refusal to make domestic transgression anything but chaos and pain.

But Visually grotesque and genuinely disturbing. Some will find it unwatchable; others will feel assaulted rather than moved.

Possession poster

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