History Film / AnOfficerAndASpy

* INeverGotAnyLetters: Among the primary sources of information for the late 19th century French secret services, there's the interception of letters. Picquart is eventually a victim of this.

In 1895, [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire). He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abound), of passing military secrets to UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany.

* ReassignedToAntarctica: When Picquart's investigation on Esterhazy starts going too dangerously far for them and risks exposing their conspiracy against Dreyfus, his superiors first have him reassigned to garrison inspections in Lorraine, followed by him being sent to North Africa. ''Then'' they want to send him to a North African area where he has high chances of being killed, and he simply decides to go back to France and face arrest.

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* KnightInSourArmor: Picquart, the main character and champion of Dreyfus's innocence, is a self-professed antisemite himself and has an affair with a married woman.
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Picquart provoked Henry in a sword duel to the first blood, and wins it.

* KnightInSourArmor: Picquart, the champion of Dreyfus's innocence, is introduced making an antisemitic joke at Dreyfus's expense during his demotion, even though he also believes that Dreyfus was given a less fair trial for being Jewish. Dreyfus believes that he gave him worse grades for being Jewish, which Picquart denies even though he also says he doesn't like Jews to his face. In the last scene, Picquart is the new Minister of War but he still denies Dreyfus's full service for the years he was unjustly in prison, arguing that it wouldn't be politically convenient.

* MortonsFork: Dreyfus points out at his trial that he's be ruled guilty if the spy's handwriting matches his, but also if it doesn't, because it is interpreted as Dreyfus altering his handwriting to not be caught. Bertillon replies "yes" to both without missing a beat.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Alphonse Bertillon (Creator/MathieuAmalric) is presented as a graphology expert, while he wasn't one in RealLife (rather he was a criminologist who basically pioneered biometry). His antisemitic opinions on the Dreyfus case are still depicted however, and while the real experts who proved he was a fraud in graphology are AdaptedOut, his InsaneTrollLogic still mitigates this.

* MalMariee: Pauline Monnier (Creator/EmmanuelleSeigner) doesn't love her husband (she got there by way of ArrangedMarriage), and she has an affair with Picquart.

* WreckedWeapon: The film opens with a recreation of the infamous [[https://winners-files.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/sale_110-public/38_1.jpg public degradation of Dreyfus]], with an officer stripping him of his military grade insignias and breaking his officer's sword.

* ArmiesAreEvil: Picquart is pretty much the only figure of the French military who truly wants to stand for justice and honesty in the case of Dreyfus. Most of the others believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories and want the army to remain "clean" (of Jews and troubles) and the very idea of another scandal hitting it prompts them to churn out lies, forged evidences and hierarchy cover-ups to maintain the disgrace of Dreyfus. Dreyfus himself is the highest ranked Jewish person in the French army, and he had to struggle to get there given what the army's heads and his superiors think of his kind.

* ConspiracyTheorist: Basically anyone who blames the "international Jewry" for anything that goes wrong.

* GreedyJew: Not played straight. Rather, a number of people in the army believe in corruption by "international Jewry" and are satisfied with Dreyfus being degraded and exiled, with some even actively trying to sweep Picquart's investigation under the rug and forging evidences to keep Dreyfus where he is.
* TheHandler: Commandant Henry is the handler for a prime source of intelligence, a cleaning woman who works in the German embassy.

* INeverGotAnyLetters: Among the primary sources of information for the late 19th French secret services, there's the interception of letters. Picquart is eventually victim of this.
* InsaneTrollLogic: The first evidence that is used against Dreyfus is proven to not have been written by him. The graphology expert accuses him nonetheless, stating that "Jewry" taught him how to hide his personal patterns when writing...
* InsigniaRipOffRitual: Like the novel, the film opens with a formal military ceremony, the "Degradation", in which Dreyfus is infamously stripped of his military insignia and his officer's sword is broken in two.

* KangarooCourt: The military justice that was in motion in the first phase of the Dreyfus Affair used very shallow evidences against Dreyfus, up to and including antisemitic conspiracy theories. The efforts of several army heads later on, up to sweeping evidences of Dreyfus' innocence under the rug and forging some others to accuse him, turned the first revision trial into something of one as well.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: When the Dreyfus Affair is at its boiling point in the French public opinion, some anti-Dreyfus people start burning piles of the newspaper L'Aurore (which defends Dreyfus) in the streets, then attack shops owned by Jews, even painting stars of David on the shop frontages they don't wreck. Sounds familiar?
* ReassignedToAntarctica: When Picquart's investigation on Esterhazy starts going too dangerously far for them and risks exposing their conspiracy against Dreyfus, his superiors first have him reassigned in garrison inspections in Lorraine, then he's sent in North Africa. ''Then'' they want to send him in a North African area where he has high chances of being killed, and he simply decides to go back to France and face arrest.

* BadassMustache: Picquart has a well-trimmed mustache like pretty much every man at the end of the 19th century and very early 20th century, and he's a MasterSwordsman, given the way he beats Henry in a fencing duel and turns Esterhazy's attack in the streets against him.

''An Officer and a Spy'' (French title ''J'accuse'') is a French historical drama film written and directed by Creator/RomanPolanski. It adapts the Robert Harris novel ''Literature/AnOfficerAndASpy'', {{based on|A True Story}} the notorious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair Dreyfus Affair]] that took France by storm at the end of the 19th century and in the early 1900s.

* MalMariee: Pauline Monnier doesn't love her husband (she got there by way of ArrangedMarriage), and she has an affair with Picquart.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Everyone in the film besides Picquart, the most immediately recognizable ones being Dreyfus, Esterhazy, Georges Clemenceau and Emile Zola. There are missing key people from the RealLife Dreyfus Affair, however.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Everyone in the film, the most immediately recognizable ones being Dreyfus, Esterhazy, Georges Clemenceau and Emile Zola; Picquart is a real person too. There are missing key people from the RealLife Dreyfus Affair, however.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Everyone in the film, the most immediately recognizable ones being Dreyfus, Esterhazy, Georges Clemenceau and Emile Zola. There are missing key people from the RealLife Dreyfus Affair, however.

* YourCheatingHeart: Pauline Monnier cheats on her husband with Picquart. He demands divorce upon learning of it.

In 1895, [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire). He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abund), of passing military secrets to UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany.

''An Officer and a Spy'' (French title ''J'accuse'') is a French historical drama film written and directed by Creator/RomanPolanski and based on the Robert Harris novel ''Literature/AnOfficerAndASpy''. It is {{based on|A True Story}} the notorious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair Dreyfus Affair]] that took France by storm at the end of the 19th century and in the early 1900s.

* YourCheatingHeart: Pauline Monnier cheats on her husband with Picquart.

* MiscarriageOfJustice: Dreyfus is wrongly accused of being a DoubleAgent working for the Germans and it takes years to prove his innocence and acuit him.

* EiffelTowerEffect: The military school where the Degradation of Dreyfus took place happens to [[https://p7.storage.canalblog.com/76/55/108143/7481709.jpg stand near the Eiffel Tower]], and Roman Polanski didn't miss the occasion to make use of this to great effect.

[[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire) in 1895. He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abund), of passing military secrets to UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany.

* ArmiesAreEvil: Picquart is pretty much the only figure of the French military who truly wants to stand for justice and honesty in the case of Dreyfus. Most of the others believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories and want the army to remain "clean" and the very idea of another scandal hitting it prompts them to churn out lies, forged evidences and hierarchy cover-ups to maintain the disgrace of Dreyfus. Dreyfus himself is the highest ranked Jewish person in the French army, and he had to struggle to get there given what the army's heads and his superiors think of his kind.