Serie Noire - Standard Edition (Blu-ray)

Alain Corneau's Série Noire adapts Jim Thompson's novel A Hell of a Woman to the bleak suburban outskirts of Paris. In an astonishing, kinetic performance, Patrick Dewaere plays Franck Poupart, a neurotic door-to-door salesman spiraling into madness after falling for a young woman (Marie Trintignant) trapped in exploitation by her own aunt. What begins as desperate infatuation soon turns to robbery and murder, with Corneau rendering Thompson's nihilistic American pulp into something unmistakably French—a harrowing portrait of social despair set against the grey banlieues of the 1970s. Five César nominations including Best Actor for Dewaere.

• France
• 111 minutes
• Color
• 1.66:1
• French
• 1979

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

- High-definition digital transfer
- Interviews with Alain Corneau, Patrick Dewaere, and Myriam Boyer from Belgian Television (1981, 11 min)
- Série noire: The Darkness of the Soul – archival documentary (2013, 50 min)
- Archival interview with Alain Corneau and Marie Trintignant (2002, 29 min)
- A Hollyhock in a Cornfield – visual essay about Jim Thompson adaptations by Paul Martinovic (2024)
- English subtitles