The Earrings of Madame De... (Criterion Collection)

French master Max Ophuls's most cherished work, the Earrings of Madame de... is an emotionally profound, cinematographically adventurous tale of false opulence and tragic romance. When the aristocratic woman known only as Madame de... (the extraordinary Danielle Darrieux) sells her earrings, unbeknownst to her husband (Charles Boyer), in order to pay personal debts, she sets off a chain reaction, the financial and carnal consequences of which can only end in despair. Ophuls adapts Louise de Vilmorin's incisive fin de siecle novella with virtuosic camera work so elegant and precise it's been called the equal to that of Orson Welles.