L’Argent (Money) is a modern crime story based on a novella by Leo Tolstoy. A counterfeit 500-franc note is set in circulation by a young man driven by self-righteous anger. The deception leads an aggrieved shopkeeper to cheat a customer in turn, the naive clerk Yvon, with catastrophic consequences. Yvon ends up in prison, loses his family, and ultimately becomes a cold-blooded criminal.

The film employs an intentionally restrained, almost mechanical style, with actors who never display even the slightest hint of emotion. And yet, as an audience, one rarely encounters anything so poetic and moving.

Director Robert Bresson himself remarked that those who work with climaxes can never achieve true minimalism, whereas those who work with a minimum may, in turn, reach moments of great intensity.