Chabrol & Huppert: Doing Wrong 

In this gut-wrenching true-crime story set in 1933 Paris, Huppert plays an angelic-looking teenage dreamer leading a double life as dutiful student/daughter by day and scheming sex worker by night. As Violette’s resentment grows more extreme, her rebellion turns literally poisonous toward her ineffectual, possibly abusive father and overbearing mother.

Huppert delivers one of her finest performances as real-life “criminal” Marie Latour, a woman forced to the extremes: performing illicit abortions and renting out her home for prostitution to support her two children in Nazi-occupied France while trapped in a loveless marriage with an absent partner (François Cluzet).

The clinical storytelling of Flaubert’s oft-adapted novel proves an ideal match for Chabrol’s cool control, while Huppert’s embodiment of Emma Bovary, the bored wife of a spiritless country doctor (Jean-François Balmer) who keeps herself vitalized through lusty affairs and extravagant spending, digs deep into the psychology of her ill-advised choices.

As gorgeously crafted as it is absolutely chilling, Chabrol’s adaptation of Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone is widely considered the director’s crowning achievement. It depicts the dangerous pairing of two kindred spirits: stoic maid Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) and free-spirit Jeanne (Huppert), who will become the worst nightmare of Sophie’s employers.

In the most playful film of the Chabrol-Huppert alliance, petty scam artists Betty (Huppert) and Victor (Michel Serrault) join the big time when Betty eyes a larger target. As they enter dangerous new territory, it’s not always clear who’s playing who, but that’s all just part of the fun.

When a young aspiring musician (Anna Mouglalis) learns of a strange past connection to a famous concert pianist (Jacques Dutronc), she feels compelled to meet him. His embrace of her presence sparks the jealousy of his son and, more perilously, his devoted third wife (Huppert).