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If both your parents were famous and beguiling filmmakers, at some point you have to make a choice between turning your back on lineage to become a teacher or lawyer or something completely non-showbiz, or just embracing your genealogy and accepting the struggle to emerge from two very imposing shadows.

For Mathieu Demy there was never any doubt about which road he would take. He first appeared onscreen at age 5 in One Sings, the Other Doesn’t under the direction of his mother, Agnes Varda, and made his mark in his 20s as a man with AIDS in the musical Jeanne and the Perfect Guy. His father Jacques Demy had a way with musicals as well, having directed the immortal The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, as well as Lola, Bay of Angels and Une Chambre en Ville.

Lately, Mathieu, who calls Los Angeles home but is currently working in Paris,...

Taking a look at the French director’s fascinating filmography.

One of the biggest films of 2016, La La Land, owes a thing or two to French director Jacques Demy. The bright, colorful musical visually mirrors Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and director Damien Chazelle was able to capture something of the melancholic sweetness of Demy’s musicals. Demy is not one of the most famous French directors, however his films have a specific charm and intelligence that no other filmmaker could match. The way he blended Hollywood style with French culture was unlike any other filmmaker at the time.

Demy began his career in 1960s France, during the time of the “Nouvelle Vague” or French New Wave. This was the time of films such as Breathless, Jules and Jim, The 400 Blows, and Le Beau Serge. However, Demy lies a little bit outside of this group of filmmakers, and...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

American Honey (Andrea Arnold)

European directors have often faltered when crossing the Atlantic. Billy Wilder and Wim Wenders found things to say where Paolo Sorrentino could not. American Honey is certainly the former. Based on a 2007 article from the New York Times, it’s a backwater American road movie directed by an Englishwoman, Andrea Arnold, and shot by Irishman Robbie Ryan. We spot a few cowboys and gas stations and even the Grand Canyon,...

Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week

"Dom Hemingway"

What's It About? Jude Law dons impressive chops and gold teeth to play a sleazy

safecracker fresh out of jail. Dom took the fall without ratting out his boss (Demián Bichir), and now it's time to pay the piper. Richard E. Grant co-stars as his best friend, whom Dom enlists on his quest to get paid. Emilia Clarke (the mother of dragons!) plays Dom's estranged daughter, Evelyn.

Why We're In: We love darkly funny crime thrillers, and it's cool to see Jude Law back in action.

Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week

The Essential Jacques Demy (Criterion)

What's It About? This box set comes with the most beloved movies by the French auteur: "Lola," "Bay of Angels," "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," "The Young Girls of Rochefort," "Donkey Skin," and "Une Chambre en Ville."

Why We're In: In addition to the digital restorations of these delightful classics,...

Danielle Darrieux turns 97: Darrieux has probably enjoyed the longest film star career in history (photo: Danielle Darrieux in ‘La Ronde’) Screen legend Danielle Darrieux is turning 97 today, May 1, 2014. In all likelihood, the Bordeaux-born (1917) Darrieux has enjoyed the longest "movie star" career ever: eight decades, from Wilhelm Thiele’s Le Bal (1931) to Denys Granier-Deferre’s The Wedding Cake / Pièce montée (2010). (Mickey Rooney has had a longer film career — nearly nine decades — but mostly as a supporting player in minor roles.) Absurdly, despite a prestigious career consisting of more than 100 movie roles, Danielle Darrieux — delightful in Club de femmes, superb in The Earrings of Madame De…, alternately hilarious and heartbreaking in 8 Women — has never won an Honorary Oscar. But then again, very few women have. At least, the French Academy did award her an Honorary César back in 1985; additionally, in 2002 Darrieux and her fellow 8 Women / 8 femmes co-stars shared Best Actress honors...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 22, 2014

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $124.95

Studio: Criterion

French director Jacques Demy launched his glorious feature filmmaking career in the Sixties, a decade of astonishing invention in his national cinema. He stood out from the crowd of his fellow New Wavers, however, by filtering his self-conscious formalism through deeply emotional storytelling. Fate and coincidence, doomed love, and storybook romance surface throughout his films, many of which are further united by the intersecting lives of characters who either appear or are referenced across titles.

Six of Demy’s films are collected in The Essential Jacques Demy. Ranging from musical to melodrama to fantasia, all are triumphs of visual and sound design, camera work, and music, and they are galvanized by the great stars of French cinema at their centers, including Anouk Aimée (8 1/2), Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour), and Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim).

The six works here, made...

Criterion has announced their July 2014 titles and among them is one fans have been waiting a long time to see introduced, David Cronenberg's head-exploding sci-fi Scanners, set for a July 15 release. The set will include a newly restored 2K digital film transfer, supervised by Cronenberg, "The Scanners Way" visual effects documentary, a new interview with Michael Ironside, a 2012 interview with actor and artist Stephen Lack, an excerpt from a 1981 interview with Cronenberg on the CBC's "The Bob McLean Show" and Cronenberg's first feature film, Stereo (1969). Also on July 15 comes Robert Bresson's 1959 classic Pickpocket, telling the story of Michel (Martin Lasalle), a young pickpocket who spends his days working the streets, subway cars, and train stations of Paris. Features include: New, 2K digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray Audio commentary by film scholar James Quandt Introduction by writer-director Paul Schrader The Models of "Pickpocket," a...

A report from a three film day at the Film Museum, where it seems I'll be spending much if not most of my time at Vienna. Wonderfully programmed, the progression went: Akerman's Les années 80 [The Eighties], followed by a film in the director's carte blanche section, Jacques Demy's final all-sung musical, Une chambre en ville [A Room in Town] (both 1983), and surprisingly concluded with Akerman's last fictional feature before this year's Almayer's Folly, 2004's Demaine on déménage (Tomorrow We Move).

I was unexpectedly lucky to see this program rather than one several weeks earlier, which paired The Eighties with its true successor, the stifling but brilliant musical Golden Eighties (1986). The former is made in that most unique of genres: the film produced to pitch a film. Godard was doing something similar at nearly the same time (for Passion, I believe?), transforming a lack of funds into both a new work and the potential for another new work.