NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Indicator Blu-ray (October 2026): Indicator have transferred Nadine Trintignant' "Crime Thief" (aka "Le Voleur de crimes") to Blu-ray. This is a limited edition, with separate UK and US releases. The 1080P transfer comes from a new 4K restoration of the original negative, and it shows. The disc is dual-layered, and the feature fills more than half of it at a very high bitrate. The image is framed in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. Colors are the standout. The interiors are designed in bold blocks of primary color, such as the yellow walls, purple pipes, and red panels of the scene between Jean and Tian, along with Florinda’s orange turtleneck against grey steel and brick. They come through rich and saturated without looking pushed, and skin tones stay natural throughout. Close-ups are wonderfully detailed. Pores, stubble, and freckles are clearly visible on Trintignant and Bolkan, and Bernadette Lafont’s hair holds individual strands against the dim background. Grain is intact and film-like. It’s naturally heavier in the bleached quarry exteriors under flat, overcast skies, which reflects the original photography rather than the transfer. Contrast is strong, and black levels hold detail in Jean’s dark jackets without crushing. I saw no damage or noise reduction. This is a film-like, sharp presentation of a little-seen picture, and it is unlikely to look better on digital.

NOTE: We have added 58 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Indicator use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original French language. It is clean and clear, with no hiss or dropouts, and dialogue is always easy to follow. The soundtrack is one of the film’s distinctive features. It mixes Jack Arel’s score with “Messe en F” from the Electric Prunes’ David Axelrod-written Mass in F Minor, whose psychedelic-liturgical swell sometimes plays ironically over Jean’s “triumphs.” The uncompressed track carries it with surprising depth for a mono source. Indicator offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The extras package on the Indicator Blu-ray offers four featurettes, all from 2026, that together cover the film from nearly every angle. In Nadine Trintignant, Filmmaker and Head of the Clan, which runs over 1/2 hour, film critic Aurore Renaut, who specializes in women in film, discusses the director and her career. A Look Back at the Lucien Léger Case runs 1/2 hour. In it, novelist Philippe Jaenada (La Serpe) examines the real 1964 case that inspired the film, the anonymous “L’Étrangleur” letters that turned a child murder into a French media sensation. In The Revolt of Jean Girod, a Man Without Qualities, which runs almost 1/2 hour, writer Sébastien Le Pajolec analyzes Jean-Louis Trintignant’s protagonist and his place among the alienated heroes of the era. Self-Portrait of a True Crime Story is a 23-minute critical appreciation from film historian Roland-Jean Charna. There is also an image gallery of promotional and publicity materials plus script galleries with the original screenplay and another of the complete dialogue script. The limited edition includes an exclusive 36-page booklet. It has a new essay by Rachel Pronger, an archival piece on Nadine Trintignant’s early career and Crime Thief’s place in it, an assessment of the film’s distinctive soundtrack, an overview of critical responses, and film credits.

Crime Thief is loosely based on the Lucien Léger affair. In 1964 a man claiming to be “L’Étrangleur” flooded the French press and police with letters about a child’s murder, and the case became a national media frenzy. Nadine Trintignant takes the idea of a man who craves the notoriety of a crime and pushes it somewhere stranger: Jean doesn’t commit the original act at all. He steals it. What attracts him is not violence but significance. Being someone the newspapers write about fills a void that marriage, fatherhood, and work never touched. Crime Thief is a fascinating rediscovery. It is a psychological crime film without a mystery, about a man who doesn't commit a murder but steals one, because being the man the newspapers write about fills a void that marriage, fatherhood, and work never touched. Jean-Louis Trintignant (A Man and a Woman, Amour, And God Created Woman, And Hope to Die, Confidentially Yours, Deadly Sweet, Death Laid an Egg, Is Paris Burning?, Le combat dans l'île (aka Fire and Ice), Love at the Top, My Night at Maud's, Spotlight On A Murderer, The Conformist, The Crook, The French Conspiracy, The Great Silence, The Man Who Lies, The Sunday Woman, Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, Three Colors: Red, Trans-Europ-Express, Z) plays Jean Girod with the blank, slightly smug detachment he had perfected by the late 60s, and his mildness makes the slide toward real criminality more unsettling than any outburst could. Florinda Bolkan (Candy, Love at the Top, Machine Gun McCain, The Perfume of the Lady in Black, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Don't Torture a Duckling, The Damned, A Brief Vacation, Footprints, Crime of Passion, Ring of Death, Perversion Story) is magnetic in her billed screen debut. Robert Hossein (The Wicked Go to Hell, Nude in a White Car, The Taste of Violence, Rififi, Vice and Virtue, Cemetery Without Crosses, Le Professionnel, Angélique, Marquise des Anges, Angélique et le Roy, Indomptable Angélique, Angélique et le Sultan) is the gruff, worldly friend who doesn't see what's growing in his spare room. The supporting cast includes Serge Marquand (Cemetery Without Crosses, Angélique, Spirits of the Dead, Barbarella, Last Known Address, Police Python 357, The Big Red One), Bernadette Lafont (Le Beau Serge, Out 1: Spectre, The Mother and the Whore, Violette), Giorgia Moll (Contempt), and Tanya Lopert (Satyricon, Navajo Joe, What's New Pussycat, Something Wild, Summertime). Nadine Trintignant's direction absorbs the Nouvelle Vague's cool, elliptical style but turns it toward the mechanics of media and self-mythology, giving us a portrait of male alienation made by a woman who seems to have studied it at very close range. The Indicator Blu-ray offers a superb, film-like transfer from a 4K restoration of the negative, faithful uncompressed mono with the Electric Prunes' Mass in F Minor used to great effect, new subtitles, four substantial new featurettes, script galleries, and a 36-page booklet. Very highly recommended!

Gary Tooze