Two films made the French director François Ozon famous: 8 Women and Swimming Pool. The latter (2003) immediately followed the former (2002). Though both owe a debt to Alfred Hitchcock’s cinema of suspense, 8 Women actually has a crime at its center. The eight women in the film, played by France’s A-list actresses (Catherine Deneuve, Virginie Ledoyen, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, and so on), are suspects in a murder. One of them plunged a dagger into the back of the only man in the film—the man of the manor. All suspects have secrets. All are up to something. This superb murder mystery is also a pretty good musical. by Charles Mudede