Diva

Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix

1982 / 117min / 35mm

The quintessential Paris rundown film has postman Frédéric Andréi on the lam from hitmen sicced on him by drug dealers, cops, and Taiwanese music pirates. Beineix’s directorial debut, a beast at the arthouse box office, is an orgy of stunning set pieces (including a motorcycle-and-moped chase through the Métro!), punky attitude, and cinéma du look flair, with almost every frame sporting a cherry red accent somewhere. “Ravishing, style-soaked… the height of Beineix’s—or really anybody’s cinematic imagination. Diva is the 1980s by Immaculate Conception.”—The New York Times