Les Rois Maudits plot
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the treasury of France was empty. Philip IV decides to have the Order of the Templars imprisoned under false pretenses, making all their treasures and valuables state property. Under intense torture, their grandmaster Jacques de Molay (Gérard Depardieu) confesses to the crimes of which he is accused without proof. He is sentenced to be burned at the stake. With his dying breath, he curses Pope Clement V, Nogaret (the king's advisor), and the king and their thirteen generations to come. The following years will be the most disastrous France has known. Half a century of political intrigue, murder, betrayal, war, famine and struggle for the throne, ultimately leading to the Hundred Years' War.