The Watchmaker of St. Paul

The Watchmaker of St. Paul (L'Horloger de Saint-Paul, 1974) is a French crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. It marks Bertrand Tavernier's first feature, drawn from a Georges Simenon novel. Philippe Noiret stars as Michel, a Lyon watchmaker whose quiet life ends the day police arrive: his teenage son has killed a man and gone on the run with a girl.

The crime itself stays mostly offscreen. Tavernier is after the father, not the chase — a man forced to admit how little he understood his own boy. Michel sits through interviews, talks with a thoughtful inspector played by Jean Rochefort, sifts through the past, and slowly decides where he stands. It's a hushed, talky film about guilt, politics, and a parent rebuilding love for a child he is about to lose.

The movie earned a special jury prize at the Berlin festival and set the tone for everything Tavernier did next: attentive to ordinary people and to the city of Lyon. One for viewers who like unhurried European drama where the tension lives in conversation, not action. Stream The Watchmaker of St. Paul (1974) online on iFILM.