A masterpiece of cinematic surrealism and a cornerstone of mid-century French art film, Orpheus (Orphée) finds poet, playwright, and visionary Jean Cocteau at his most mysterious and mythic.

A modern retelling of the Orpheus myth set in postwar Paris, the film follows a celebrated poet (played by the impossibly cool Jean Marais) as he becomes obsessed with a shadowy Princess—Death incarnate—and journeys into the land of the dead to reclaim his wife, and perhaps his soul.

Blending classical mythology with avant-garde technique, Cocteau conjures magic from mirrors, rubber gloves, reverse film, and pure imagination. The result is a haunting meditation on fame, creativity, and mortality, where even the afterlife feels like a stage lit by dream logic and doomed desire.