Choice of Arms

Noël (Yves Montand, Police Python 357) leads an quiet life with his wife (Catherine Deneuve, Mississippi Mermaid) raising horses on a grand estate in the countryside. Long retired from his previous life in the criminal underworld, Noël’s world is turned around in one night when a former associate (Pierre Forget), gravely wounded from a job gone wrong, arrives at the farm accompanied by Mickey (Gérard Depardieu, 1900), a dangerously unpredictable young hood. As events begin to spin out of his control, Noël is forced to re-enter the world of criminality he left behind, and to reckon with his own violent nature. With Montand leading an all-star cast, Choice of Arms is a typically gripping slice of French noir from director Alain Corneau.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• High definition digital transfer

• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
  
  
• Shooting Choice of Arms - interviews with the cast and crew, including behindthe-scenes footage (1981, 22 mins)
  
  
• Interviews with Deneuve, Montand and Depardieu from the set (1981, 18 mins) 
  
  
• Interview with Manuela Lazic on Yves Montand in the 1970s (2024, 24 mins)
  
  
• Introduction by documentary filmmaker Jérôme Wybon (2024, 3 mins)
  
  
• Trailer
  
  

• Newly improved English subtitle translation

Choice of Arms is also available in USA/Canada from our partners MVD, Diabolik, Orbit, Grindhouse, Rough Cut Canada and others

Year: 1981
Country: France
Cert: 15
Format: Blu-ray
Region: AB
RAD099BD
EAN: 5060974681914
Release date: 20/07/2026

Press for Série noire:

"The film’s greatest achievement as a monumentally misanthropic film noir is embracing Thompson’s playful sense of spite" - Slant

"Alain Corneau and screenwriter Georges Perec display as strong a feel for the novelist’s bleak worldview as can be found in the many films derived from his work. An enticingly nasty little crime film… ripe for rediscovery" - Hollywood Reporter

"A satisfying slice of sleaze served up on celluloid, Série Noire is a deliciously good watch." - Film Inquiry