Conducted every 10 years, the Sight & Sound Best Movies of All Time poll is voted on by film critics, writers, professors and other experts in the field of cinema. Although the primary list consists of 100 movies, the poll actually includes a total of 200 films. The Cosford Cinema will be showcasing ten selections from the second half of the list every Sunday over the fall from Sept. 10-Dec. 3.

ARMY OF SHADOWS | 1969 | DIRECTOR: Jean-Pierre Melville | WITH: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann | RUNNING TIME: 2 HOURS 25 MINUTES | UNRATED: Brief but disturbing violence, intense scenes, mild language | In French, Italian and English with English subtitles | 4K digital projection

The most personal film by the underworld poet Jean-Pierre Melville, who had participated in the French Resistance himself, this tragic masterpiece, based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, recounts the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought in the Resistance.

Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret star as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime.

Long underappreciated in France and unseen in the United States, the atmospheric and gripping thriller Army of Shadows is now widely recognized as the summit of Melville’s career, channeling the exquisite minimalism of his gangster films to create an unsparing tale of defiance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

"As with so many of Melville’s noirs, doom lies in wait for those reckless or foolish enough to deviate from their prescribed obligations and loyalties, and Army of Shadows extends the filmmaker’s pessimism even further than is customary across his work. Melville’s outlook, though, ultimately reflects the fundamentally ambiguous realities of war, the ethical and emotional degeneration but also the honor.

"Melville captures the unbearable intimacy of murder and the terrible spiritual and psychological toll suffered by those mired in combat. And yet in this unremitting watchfulness, the director also locates the ascetic dignity in his characters' willingness to make, and carry out, the ugliest of choices and sacrifices—a stark reminder that, for better and worse, what war creates is not simple heroes or villains but, rather, warriors." -- Nick Schrager, Slant Magazine

Tickets are $5 and available at link above. UM students use code UMSTUDENT at checkout (must show Cane Card at the door).