Best French Movies

A True Masterpiece! A film which regularly charts top in critics’ polls of the best films of all time, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert’s masterpiece Les Enfants du Paradis is as solid a landmark in French film history as the Eiffel Tower is on the Parisian landscape. And at 187 minutes running time, it’s a edifice indeed, built from a rambunctious cast of characters–ranging from pickpockets and prostitutes to aristocrats and actors–whose lives intersect around the Theatre des Funambules, a popular Parisian theater on the Boulevard du Crime, during the 1840s. (The title refers to the poor who can only afford seats in the upper galleries of the theater.) The heart of the plot is a love story between mime artiste Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and streetwalker Garance (the magnificent, sand-paper-voiced Arletty). When Garance is falsely accused of pickpocketing, Baptiste provides a mimed alibi for her to the police (one of the film’s most famous set pieces). The rose she later throws him in gratitude sets off a romantic obsession, one of several that structure the film, as do love triangles, duels, and tortured confessions of feeling.

IMDB Rating : 8.0/10

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French cult-director Jean-Luc Godard made this masterpiece way in 1963 but it is still as captivating as it was then. Featuring then superstar Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli as her husband- screenwriter who is hired to write a screenplay based on the ancient Greek myth “The Odyssey”. The story deals with the creative process of film making as viewed by Godard, but also focuses on the breakdown of a marriage by the growing contempt of Bardot for her husband , whom she feels is selling out to greedy US producer Jack Palance.

IMDB Rating : 7.8/10

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Asterix and Obelix have to win the Olympic Games in order to help their friend Alafolix marry Princess Irina, portrayed by supermodel Vanessa Hessler. Brutus uses every trick to have his own team win the game, and get rid of his father Julius Caesar in the process, but fails. A family and fun film which will give you enjoyable moments. Its €78 million budget makes it one of the most expensive European movies ever.

IMDB Rating : 4.8/10

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Driven by fate, Vianne drifts into a tranquil French village with her daughter Anouk in the winter of 1959. Her newly opened chocolatier is a source of attraction and fear, since Vianne’s ability to revive the villagers’ passions threatens to disrupt their repressive traditions. The pious mayor sees Vianne as the enemy, and his war against her peaks with the arrival of “river rats” led by Roux, whose attraction to Vianne is immediate and reciprocal. Splendid subplots involve a battered wife, a village elder, and her estranged daughter, and while the film’s broader strokes may be regrettable (if not for Molina’s rich performance, the mayor would be a caricature), its subtleties are often sublime. A sweet delightful treat.

Nominated for 5 Oscars. Another 8 wins & 28 nominations

IMDB Rating : 7.3/10

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Nominated for 5 Academy Awards and another 51 wins & 46 nominations including Best Original Screenplay, this magical comedy earned overwhelming acclaim nationwide! A painfully shy waitress working at a tiny Paris cafe, Amélie makes a surprising discovery and sees her life drastically changed for the better! From then on, Amélie dedicates herself to helping others find happiness … in the most delightfully unexpected way! But will she have the courage to do for herself what she has done for others? Amelie is, without a doubt, one of the most heartwarming films ever made.

IMDB Rating : 8.6/10

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Alain Delon is the coolest killer to hit the screen, a film noir loner for the modern era, in Jean-Pierre Melville’s austere 1967 French crime classic. Delon’s impassive hit man, Jef Costello, is the ultimate professional in an alienated world of glass and metal. Hitman Jef Costello is a perfectionist who always carefully plans his murders and who never gets caught. One night however, after killing a night-club owner, he’s seen by witnesses. His efforts to provide himself with an alibi fail and more and more he gets driven into a corner.

IMDB Rating : 8.2/10

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Pierro escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl, who is chased by hit-men from Algeria.

They lead a unorthodox live, always on the run. One of the best Belmondo classics.

IMDB Rating : 7.5

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Hailed as one of the finest French films ever made, legendary director François Truffaut’s early masterpiece Jules and Jim charts the relationship between two friends and the object of their mutual obsession over the course of twenty-five years.

Francois Truffaut’s Jules et Jim was a very popular art-house movie in the early sixties. If you like character-driven stories about unconventional people, you’ll enjoy Jules and Jim.

IMDB Rating : 7.8

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The film tells us a true story about a young man from Southern France who leaves his village to fight in the Wars of Religion in the 16th century. He comes back to his village and family eight years after he left – now a different man.

Nobody notices the changes in him after many years until one day a vagrant claims to recognize him and says that he is not the real Martin Guerre. His family had to consider the possibility that he may not be really Martin Guerre. Eventually the question goes to court. The film was remade in English, and updated to the Reconstruction, in 1993 as Sommersby, starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster. See this original instead of the imitation. The film story flows well and the cinematography is great.

IMDB Rating : 7.3

Based on the book

Based on the book

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