From the late 1960s through the early '70s, Americans saw the crumbling of the old morality, which gave way to the new twin blights of urban decay and bad hair. If this golden age of anti-heroes and the stars who played them is your bag - if you take your detectives tough, your streets mean, and your realism gritty - then you'll want to add some of these movies to your collection.
"She ... the meaning of my life is she," crooned Charles Aznavour in his tribute to les femmes back in the early 1970s, when male French filmmakers were still inspired by that unfathomable sphinx: woman. French cinema doesn't have the same power today, and equality has normalized relations between the sexes (somewhat).
