Léon Morin, Priest

Léon Morin, Priest (1961) is a Jean-Pierre Melville drama you can watch online on iFILM. In a French town under German occupation, Barny, a young communist widow raising her daughter, has little faith in anything.

Half out of boredom, half out of spite, Barny (Emmanuelle Riva) steps into the confessional to mock religion to a priest's face. But young Father Léon Morin (Jean-Paul Belmondo) doesn't flinch — he argues back calmly, lends her books, and pulls her into a long debate about belief, doubt and desire. Their meetings grow more intimate, and an attraction neither will say out loud hangs over every scene.

Melville, known for his icy gangster noirs, made something hushed and chamber-sized here, a study of temptation both spiritual and physical. Belmondo, a year after detonating the screen in Breathless, plays it restrained and against his own type. This one's for viewers who prefer slow, sharp conversation and things left unsaid to tidy resolutions. Stream Léon Morin, Priest online on iFILM.