La Bête Humaine

Jacques Lantier (Jean Gabin), a railwayman, brings his train back to Le Havre and crosses paths with Roubaud (Fernand Ledoux), a stationmaster, and Roubaud's wife Séverine (Simone Simon). Jean Renoir, working from Émile Zola's 1890 novel, sets the three of them among locomotives and rail yards. Lantier is tormented by his own violent impulses, and the film treats them as a force in the body, the same way it treats the drive of the engines he runs.