MUBI brings you a great new film every day.  Start your 7-day free trial today!
Watch a new film every day for $4.99.
Try MUBI for FREE.
 

Synopsis

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece The Rules of the Game is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners. At a weekend hunting party, amorous escapades abound among the aristocratic guests and are mirrored by the activities of the servants downstairs. The refusal of one of the guests to play by society’s rules sets off a chain of events that ends in tragedy. Poorly received upon its release in 1939, the film was severely re-edited, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II. Only in 1959 was the film fully reconstructed and embraced by audiences and critics who now see it as a timeless representation of a vanishing way of life.

Director

Original

Jean Renoir

The son of the painter Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir became one of France’s most important and respected filmmakers during the middle of the 20th century. A Philosophy and Math student, Renoir became a cavalryman, but was invalided out of the army before World War I. Later, he married a model and aspiring actress, and, following the death of his father and the acquisition of an inheritance, set up his own production company to produce movies for his wife. Renoir learned from these early experiences of financing movies and watching other films, and became a director in 1924. With the advent of sound, Renoir’s career was quickly made with a series of profitable films, including La Chienne (1931), a savage and dark drama about a man’s self-destruction, which was later remade by Fritz Lang as Scarlet Street. Renoir’s subsequent films, including The Lower Depths (1936) and Grand Illusion (1937), were among the finest made in France before the war, and were well acknowledged at the time of… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 65 wall posts.
Picture of DT

DT

19May13

CC#216: Less a monument to Bazin (save for the Danse Macabre, a contained masterclass of story via mise en scene), nor a mere upstairs-downstairs critique (as in Gosford Park) as a sprawling portrait of the selfish, (in)discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, permeating across class into all eponymous mores and pockets of society, proving dense even today for its loose, variegated manner - its dramatic fantasy classified in its preamble but the euphemism for its featherweight lampoon, devolving into farce before ending with humanist dirge.

  • Picture of DT

    DT

    20May13

    N.B. Judged off the (earlier) Janus print.

Picture of Aguaespejo

Aguaespejo

26Feb13

I can at a pinch perhaps make a case for why I think Vertigo or Kane are overrated, but my gosh Regles du Jeu seems even now, even today, after all the films I have watched, to be a bona fide masterpiece if any! Film as Music finds its perfect exemplar here.

Langston Young likes this

Picture of Ciprian David

Ciprian David

10Feb13

The mechanical dolls form together one of the most beautiful metaphors in film history. The complexity of character mise-en scène is probably unequaled. <3 Jean Renoir as Octave.

Picture of Joe Zaydon

Joe Zaydon

9Feb13

Sheer brilliance from start to finish. A masterclass in ensemble casting and filled to the brim with delicious visuals. A film far ahead of its time.

Ciprian David likes this

Related Films

Fans

Displaying 5 of 2411 fans.

Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
W184

Sight & Sound's "Greatest Films of All Time"

By Notebook on August 3, 2012

The British magazine unveils the results of their 2012 poll of the greatest films of all time.

read article
W184

Daily Briefing. La Furia Umana 10, Frieze 142 and More

By David Hudson on October 1, 2011

Also: Andrei Ujică at the Museum of the Museum Image, NYFF notes and remembering Paulette Dubost.

read article
W184

Re: Renoir

By Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on April 17, 2010

"As soon as you make a theory, facts destroy it."”– Jean Renoir Jean Renoir is not "elegant." Jean Renoir was never a "master." Though he

read article
W184

Movie Poster of the Week: "The Holy Man"

By Adrian Curry on April 16, 2009

On top of his many accomplishments, Satyajit Ray was also a graphic designer who designed many of his own film posters.

read article

Lists

Displaying 5 of 569 lists.

Reviews

Displaying 2 of 2

Where do I begin?

By WhatsUp​Will on March 10, 2012

You know that feeling you get when you watch a film and you feel like at least a dozen things aesthetically and thematically went over your head? Yeah, I got that feeling constantly while watching…  read review

Renoir rules, ok?

By Musycks on December 15, 2008

‘Rules Of The Game’ was the French film that for me unlocked the door to the philosophical way the French see things. After being force fed the artificiality of Carne’s ‘Les Enfants Du Paradis’, and…  read review

Forum

Displaying 2 discussion topics.

DC13: Jean Renoir

19 posts by 14 people 4 months ago

BFI Sight & Sound’s top five film books

9 posts by 4 people about 3 years ago

DVD

Buy the DVD from The Criterion Collection.