When a children’s writer loses his son in a hit-and-run, he vows revenge. Although chance and lucky guesses lead him to his prey, surrounding the perpetrator is a peculiar assortment of relatives immobilized by their own apathy and culpability. The deceptive writer might have to revise his plot.

One of the major directors of the French New Wave, Claude Chabrol is known for his dark psychodramas, in which the thoughts of his characters are obscured. Asking us to question how and why we act the way we do, this thrilling, late ’60s crime drama also takes aim at middle-class mores.