The Judge and the Assassin

The Judge and the Assassin (Le Juge et l'Assassin, 1976) is Bertrand Tavernier's crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. In 1890s France, ex-sergeant Joseph Bouvier shoots the woman who spurned him, then turns the gun on himself — and survives, with bullets lodged in his skull.

Released from an asylum, Bouvier drifts along the country roads of southern France and, year after year, murders young shepherds and shepherdesses. An ambitious magistrate named Rousseau sets out to catch him, determined to send the ragged little man to the guillotine as a sane killer rather than let him be shut away as a madman. Michel Galabru plays the vagrant murderer, Philippe Noiret the calculating judge, and Isabelle Huppert a working-class girl swept into the case.

Tavernier isn't really making a thriller. Behind the manhunt he paints a cold portrait of the Third Republic — its hypocrisy, class contempt and political scheming. Bouvier is modeled on Joseph Vacher, the real drifter whose crimes shocked late-19th-century France. Galabru took home a César for the part. Stream The Judge and the Assassin online on iFILM.