By Vlad Zakh · February 5, 2026
Drama feel goodthought provoking
Michel Simon brought a gruff, unpredictable physicality to French cinema and became one of the era’s most vivid, singular character actors. L’Atalante and Boudu Saved from Drowning are highlights, Port of Shadows shelters a deserting soldier in a foggy port, Drole de Drame turns a botanist’s crime-novelist side into farce, La Beaute du Diable pacts an ageing scholar with the devil, and La Poison plots a henpecked husband’s revenge.
01 Michel Simon is in this Sacha Guitry black comedy about a henpecked husband who methodically plots to murder his relentlessly cruel wife.
Directed by Sacha Guitry · 1h 25m
Stream: Criterion Channel · Rent or buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Fandango At Home
Stream: Criterion Channel · Rent or buy: Apple TV Store
02 Michel Simon features in this French fantasy about an ageing scholar who makes a fateful pact with the devil in exchange for youth and knowledge.
Directed by René Clair · 1h 36m
Rent or buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube
03 Michel Simon is in this French classic about a deserting soldier hiding in a foggy port town who falls for a woman entangled with dangerous criminals.
Directed by Marcel Carné · 1h 33m
Stream: France Channel Amazon Channel · Rent or buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Buy: Apple TV Store
Rent or buy: Apple TV Store
Rent or buy: Amazon Video
04 Michel Simon appears in this French comedy about a mild-mannered botanist whose secret career as a crime novelist spirals into a farcical situation.
Directed by Marcel Carné · 1h 35m · Rated NR
05 Michel Simon appears in Jean Vigo's classic about a newlywed couple whose life aboard a barge is tested by isolation, temptation and an eccentric first mate.
Directed by Jean Vigo · 1h 28m · Rated NR
Stream: Darkroom · Rent or buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Fandango At Home
Stream: Curzon Amazon Channel · Rent: Apple TV Store, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Curzon Home Cinema, YouTube · Buy: Apple TV Store, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube
Rent or buy: Apple TV Store
06 Michel Simon appears in Renoir's comedy where a rescued homeless vagrant disrupts the comfortable bourgeois household that takes him in.
Directed by Jean Renoir · 1h 24m
Stream: Criterion Channel
Stream: Criterion Channel
Streaming availability data from JustWatch, via TMDB. Availability changes often, so check the service before you plan a movie night.
