The Decline of the American Empire

The Decline of the American Empire (1986) is a Canadian drama-comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Director Denys Arcand follows four Montreal history professors spending an afternoon at a country house, preparing dinner. Their four female companions are at a gym across town. Both groups are discussing the same subject.

Sex, desire, fidelity, and the quiet arithmetic of long-term relationships — who knows what, who suspects what, and who has been pretending not to notice. When everyone finally sits down together, the distance between the two conversations collapses in ways that are uncomfortable for everyone at the table. The ensemble — led by Dominique Michel, Rémy Girard, and Pierre Curzi — carries it with the ease of people who have known each other just long enough to stop being careful.

Arcand's film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and launched the trilogy he completed with The Barbarian Invasions (2003), which took home the prize this one didn't. Quiet, intelligent, and sharper than it looks on the surface. Stream The Decline of the American Empire online on iFILM.