Classe tous risques Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.5

Classe tous risques Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 21, 2026

Claude Sautet's "The Big Risk" (1960) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the release include archival content with Lino Ventura; archival program with reformed gangster Jose Giovanni; original trailers; and more. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Forget the drama, cash is all I need.

French gangster Abel Davos (Lino Ventura, The Beast is Loose) and his best pal Raymond Naldi (Stan Krol) desperately need cash to move back to France. In downtown Milan, they mug two bank clerks and quickly disappear. Shortly after, the Italian police block all major roads leading to and out of the city.

Despite the heavy police presence, the fugitives successfully join Davos' wife, Therese (Simone France), and their two boys in Ventimiglia. There they also meet another gangster with plenty of connections (Corrado Guarducci, Les Cousins), who urges them to use a boat and reach the beautiful coastal city of San Remo, and from there try to sneak into France. Davos and Naldi like the idea, but later that same day, when they reach the border, two Italian guards notice their boat and open fire. During the shootout, Naldi and Davos' wife are killed.

Davos and his boys manage to get to Nice, where a retired thief who owes him a favor (Charles Blavette, Quai des Orfèvres) allows them to stay in his hotel. Davos immediately phones his associates in Paris and asks them to figure out a way to safely move him out of Nice. However, no longer interested in dealing with him, his associates place his fate in the hands of Eric Stark (Jean-Paul Belmondo, The Professional), a loner willing to risk his life for money, hoping that he will make a crucial mistake and the police will either capture Davos or kill him while trying. A few days later, Davos and Stark connect in a post office in Nice.

On the way back to Paris, Stark picks up Liliane (Sandra Milo, 8½), a beautiful young girl who wants to be an actress, after he sees an angry man trying to beat her up on the side of the road. The two arrange to see each other again.

Eventually, after successfully reaching Paris, Davos meets his associates in a bar, and instantly figures out that he can no longer trust any of them. In the hours after the meeting, he follows Stark's advice to hide in the empty maid’s room in his building while the two figure out what to do next. However, sensing that time is not on his side, Davos changes his mind and instead makes a very risky play to secure enough cash for yet another desperate run.

Claude Sautet, one of the great French directors of the last century, made The Big Risk a.k.a. Classe Tous Risques while working with original material penned by reformed gangster Jose Giovanni, whose name is attached to some of the best French crime films from the 1960s and 1970s. (Jacques Becker’s Le Trou, Jean-Pierre Melville’s The Second Wind, and Henri Verneuil’s The Sicilian Clan all display Giovanni’s name). In the 1970s, Giovanni also stepped behind the camera and directed a couple of excellent character studies about men on the run, starring Alain Delon. (Two Men in Town, Boomerang, The Gypsy).

The Big Risk is about the code of honor that once existed amongst gangsters. Small parts of it look as if they have been extracted from an old documentary, but the bleak atmosphere and stylish visuals remind of Melville’s big and popular gangster films.

However, unlike Melville’s famous protagonists, the men and women populating Sautet’s films are typically ordinary, vulnerable individuals who can easily be hurt. This is precisely the case with Ventura’s loyal gangster, who also happens to be a loving father, trying to be good in the same way different men and women do in Sautet’s great romantic dramas. (César et Rosalie, A Heart in Winter, Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud).

Ventura, who frequently said that he is a child of the streets, is the heart and soul of The Big Risk. In some of the best sequences, Ventura simply smokes or looks around to see if anyone is following him, but the visuals are brilliant. The supporting cast is similarly impressive. The young Belmondo is terrific as Ventura’s partner. As usual, Milo looks very elegant and sexy. Despite having limited time in front of the camera, even Krol, a former prisoner, leaves a lasting impression.

The Big Risk was lensed by Belgian cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet, who worked with Robert Bresson on Au Hasard Balthazar and Mouchette, and Roman Polanski on Tess.

The soundtrack was created by future Oscar-winner Georges Delerue (Day for Night, One Deadly Summer).

Classe tous risques Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Big Risk arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this release:

"Undertaken by TF1 Studio at the Eclair Classics laboratory, this new 4K restoration was created from the original 35mm camera negative. The monaural soundtrack was remastered from the original soundtrack negative. Restoration funding was provided by the CNC, Coin de Mire Cinema, and OCS."

The new 4K restoration is also made available on 4K Blu-ray in this combo pack release.

I have several releases of The Big Risk in my library. The only Blu-ray release is this Region-B release, produced by the BFI in 2014. I like it a lot. It presents a wonderful 2K restoration of The Big Risk, again prepared on behalf of TF1 in France, which is a major upgrade in quality.

I viewed the new 4K restoration, in its entirety, on 4K Blu-ray and in 1080p on this Blu-ray release. If you have only seen The Big Risk on DVD, you will be pleased with the improvements in quality it brings. There are many, and the 4K restoration makes it easy to experience The Big Risk in a new way. It produces more attractive, stable, healthier visuals. However, I think that its grayscale could and should have been managed better. In some areas of the new presentation, there are inconsistencies, which are a byproduct of a well-known weakness that is present on the overwhelming majority of 4K restorations of black-and-white films completed at Eclair Classics. Specifically, in darker areas, shadow nuances are often impacted by elevated grays, creating flatness and softness, occasionally introducing small anomalies that are associated with filtering adjustments. On the 4K Blu-ray, the Dolby Vision grade hides these inconsistencies quite well, but on a very large screen, they can be identified. In 1080p, trained eyes will have an even easier time spotting them. While not a major issue, this is something that easily can be avoided. My score is 4.25/5.00.

Classe tous risques Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this release: French LPCM 1.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I viewed the new 4K restoration of The Big Risk, in its entirety, on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray. The comments below are from our review of the combo pack release.

The lossless track that was prepared for the 2K restoration of The Big Risk is excellent. If any additional work was done on it when the 4K restoration was prepared, it is impossible to tell -- or at least I could not tell. Georges Delerue's harmonies sound equally great again, and clarity, sharpness, and stability seemed identical to me. I did not notice any encoding anomalies to report in our review. The English translation is excellent.

Classe tous risques Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Claude Sautet, Invisible Magic - critics N.T. Binh and Dominique Rabourdin conducted seventeen hours of audio interviews with Claude Sautet. Presented here are excerpts from their resulting 2003 documentary, featuring Sautet, Jose Giovanni, and Bertrand Tavernier. In French, with English subtitles. (9 min).

• Jose Giovanni - after interviewing Jose Giovanni for the documentary Claude Sautet, Invisible Magic, critic N.T. Bihn returned to the raw footage to edit this program, exclusively for this release. In French, with English subtitles. (13 min).

• Lino Ventura - in French, with English subtitles.
  
  1. Ventura and Sautet - in this archival TV program, Lino Ventura discusses his involvement with The Big Risk. The program first aired on French TV on March 22, 1960. (5 min).
  2. Ventura on His Career - a collection of excerpts from archival interviews in which Lino Ventura reflects on his career. (10 min).

• Trailers -
  
  1. Original French Theatrical Trailer
  2. U.S. Release Trailer
  3. 4K Restoration Trailer (2025)

• Booklet - an illustrated booklet featuring essays by filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier and critic T.N. Binh, a reprinted interview with Claude Sautet, and a 1962 tribute by Jean-Pierre Melville, as well as technical credits.

Classe tous risques Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Claude Sautet's The Big Risk is not just a formidable rival of Jean-Pierre Melville's iconic gangster films. It is a legitimate classic, one of the greatest of all French gangster films. The previous 2K restoration of it was excellent, but was made available only on the other side of the Atlantic. While not flawless, the new 4K restoration of The Big Risk is also easy to describe as a good upgrade to those who have only seen the film on DVD. If you choose to add it to your library, also consider acquiring Maurice Labro's The Beast is Loose, another terrific French gangster film, penned by Sautet. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.