This Special Friendship

This Special Friendship (Les Amitiés particulières, 1964) is a French drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Jean Delannoy and adapted from Roger Peyrefitte's 1945 novel of the same name.

A Jesuit boarding school in 1930s France. Bells, rules, dormitories, silence after lights-out. An older student finds himself drawn to a twelve-year-old newcomer in a way he cannot put into words — and that the school's priests will absolutely not permit. When a father-prefect realises how close the two boys have become, the institution moves to separate them. Delannoy keeps everything composed and controlled, and the film is heavier for it: the camera never flinches, the music never swells, and what is quietly destroyed here feels genuinely irretrievable. Stream This Special Friendship online on iFILM.