Les Bonnes Femmes

Les Bonnes Femmes, directed by Claude Chabrol, is a French New Wave film about four young women working as shopgirls at a Paris appliance store, whose monotonous days give way to nights spent seeking excitement. The film flopped badly on its 1960 release in France, drawing harsh criticism for being "ugly, misanthropic, and cynical"; it wasn't shown in the US until 1966, and only in major cities. Its reputation has since recovered substantially; it's now considered one of Chabrol's finest early films and a key work of the French New Wave, one Chabrol himself named as a career favorite. Who it's for: anyone curious about a French film that faced harsh backlash on release and was later reassessed as a New Wave classic, training its lens on four women's everyday lives. Who it's not for: viewers looking for a film with a clear moral message, since it approaches its characters with a detached, unsentimental eye.