The Bride Wore Black

Director: François Truffaut
Year Released: 1968
Rating: 3.0

Instead of committing suicide, Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) does the next best thing: seek revenge against the five men (Claude Rich, Michael Bouquet, Michel Lonsdale, etc.) who were responsible for the death of her husband on their wedding day (to borrow from DFW, it could have been called Brief Executions of Hideous Men).  Hitchcock's influence is clear right from the beginning - Bernard Herrmann even provided the score! - but the whimsical tone is all Truffaut: at first Moreau's calm killer is a little repellant, but as it goes on one oddly begins to root for her, leading all the way up to the perversely satisfying conclusion (which goes in a different direction from the original story by Cornel Woolrich).  At the time, Truffaut himself disowned it, but as a black comedy it's far better than he thought.