Les Miserables

Les Misérables (1995) — watch online on iFILM — is Claude Lelouch's ambitious transposition of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel to twentieth-century France, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. Lelouch plants the novel itself inside the story: illiterate chauffeur Henri Fortin hears Hugo read aloud and begins recognising his own life in the pages. The film landed the César for Best French Film in 1996.

It opens at a New Year's ball in 1900: a count is found dead, and Fortin is arrested on suspicion. While he rots in prison, his wife breaks apart and their son Roger claws his way to a boxing championship. Then the story jumps to the 1930s — Roger (Belmondo again) shelters a Jewish dancer fleeing Nazi persecution and a young law student hunted alongside her. Annie Girardot, Michel Boujenah and Alessandra Martines round out the cast across several decades.

Lelouch doesn't summarise Hugo — he runs Hugo's moral framework through Vichy France and the Occupation and lets the resonances land without commentary. At 175 minutes it demands patience; in return it delivers genuine scope. Stream Les Misérables (1995) online on iFILM.