The Apartment

L'Appartement (The Apartment, 1996) is a French neo-noir mystery you can watch online on iFILM — directed by Gilles Mimouni and built around a Parisian obsession that refuses to let go. Max (Vincent Cassel) is hours from flying to Tokyo when he spots, across a café, the woman who vanished from his life two years ago without a word. He follows her. She disappears again. In her wake: an apartment key and a compact.

Max drops his fiancée and starts hunting. The trail leads to another woman, Alice (Monica Bellucci), who seems tangled in the same story from a different angle. The narrative loops back and forth in time, feeding out information slowly enough that you're never sure who is chasing whom or why. Romane Bohringer and Sandrine Kiberlain fill out a cast that keeps the whole puzzle in motion.

Shot across France, Spain and Italy, the film plays less like a thriller and more like the dread of someone who suspects they already missed their one chance. That particular anxiety is what makes it stick. Stream The Apartment (1996) online on iFILM.