Our Ultimate Must Watch List of French Movies
Our ultimate list of French movies has films from all genres including classics, comedy, drama, romance, children and documentary categories and is perfect for Francophiles. Some films are French with English subtitles and some are English so whether you want to improve your French or be entertained, our movie list is just in time for the holiday season. Most films are for an adult audience but there are also a few cartoons and kids movies included in our list that we enjoy as a family.
Living in the northern hemisphere you’ll love curling up under a blanket and watching a movie or if you’re in the southern hemisphere and need some time indoors out of the heat then there’s something here you’ll want to watch.
This list of 28 movies are all ones I have in my media library and that I’ve watched and personally recommend for their entertainment, insight into French culture or personalities, are recognised as French classics or have won numerous awards. I love finding locations in Paris that have been featured in some of my favourite French films and Maison Collignon, the grocery store at 56 Rue des Trois Frères, Montmartre Paris (photo above) where Amelia was filmed in one of them and it’s included on my walking tour of Montmartre in our Classic Paris Tours.
Enjoy your holidays …
CLASSICS
Amelie
One Person Can Change Your Life Forever – Rated M
Amelia Poulain (Audrey Tautou) lives in Paris, and in a world of her own. Introverted, but with a very extroverted imagination, Amelie is obsessed with the small pleasures of life and believes that she can twist the fate of others by affecting the slightest changes in their environment.
So she sets out to give the lonely and unloved a new lease of life, taking some time to enjoy skimming tones and planning to win the heart of Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz).
Welcome To The Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis)
The Most Successful French Film of All Time – Rated M
[I could have included this in the comedy category as it’s classed as a “comedy sensation”, but as it’s also the most successful French film of all time so I’ve included it here under the classic category.]
Welcome to the Sticks is a heartwarming comedy of manners. When actor and comedian Dany boon set out to poke fun at the stereotypes the southern French perpetuate about their northern counterparts, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: in making the most successful French movie of all time. The light hearted and good natured humour centring on regional differences and local traditions is the same the world over, making this a universally entertaining film.
Welcome to the Sticks tells the tale of post office manager Philippe Abrams and his wife Julie who love the sunny South of France. But when Philippe gets caught trying to cheat his way into a transfer to a Riviera town the punishment could not be worse. Philippe must pay for his sins by spending three years at a post office in the dreaded Nord Pad de Calais: France’s northernmost region, reputed for it bad weather, rusting factories, smelly food and socially retarded inhabitants who speak an impenetrable dialect.
Leaving Julie and their son Raphael behind and braving the chilly North alone, Philippe soon finds, to his absolute surprise, that he is having quite a good time with the friendly fun-loving Northerners.
He continues the charade but for how much longer? Julie announces she is moving the whole family to be with Philippe and comedic panic sets in.
Le Week-End
Le Week-End (Rated M) is a beautifully observed, funny and poignant story about the nature of love and commitment where husband and wife years to recapture their youthful fearlessness, lack of responsibility and idealism.
Meg and Nick (Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan) revisit Paris on their anniversary to revitalise their marriage, and run into an old friend (Jess Goldblum) who gives them a new outlook on life and love.
Paris, Je T’Aime
Stories of Love from the Heart of the City – Rated MA15+
One City. 10 Million Hearts. One Love Story. One Film.
Through the neighbourhoods of Paris, love is veiled, revealed, imitated, sucked dry, reinvented and awakened.
A stunning line-up of internationally renowned directors and actors rediscover the city of Paris in a collective work about love.
The Secret of the Grain
A Grand Film About Ordinary People – Rated M
Set in the rustic port of Sète in southeastern France.
Slimane has worked in the same shipyard job for over 35 years, when his growing dissatisfaction prompts him to try to open his own restaurant. His dream seems unbelievable, but his contagious conviction and persistence work their way into the heart of his loyal but dispersed family; the four children from his first marriage, his ex-wife, current girlfriend and her bright, outspoken daughter Rym.
A slow-burning drama about fate, food and family.
ROMANCE
Priceless
A Scrumptious Romantic Comedy – Rated M
Irène (Audrey Tautou) is an old-fashioned gold-digger, seducing rich older men in return for dresses, trinkets and baubles. When she mistakes shy barman Jean (Gad Elmaleh) for one of her usual prey, she is abhorred to discover his lowly status and flees to the Riviera. Jean tags along hopefully, so Irène proceeds to viciously bleed him dry before unceremoniously dumping him.
But when a rich older woman adopts Jean as her plaything, Irène becomes intrigued and starts to instruct him in her dark arts.
Courted
Follow His Heart or Rule With His Head – What Is a Judge Supposed To Do – Rated PG
Presiding judge at Criminal Court, Michel Racine (Fabrice Luchini, Moliére) is a formidable man. His sobriquet is “The Two Figure Judge”, because he always hands down sentences of at least 10 years. But his life takes a dramatic turn when he reunited with Ditte Lorenson-Coteret who happens to sit on the jury for a homicide trial.
Six years ago the two developed a special friendship, leading to love. But these are dangerous times, and for a high profile judge, fraternisation is simply not an option. What is a judge supposed to do. Follow his heart or rule with his head? His is a complex dilemma of cruel and distracting emotions, where nothing is simply black or white and where guilt or innocence is just a gavel strike away.
Chocolat
One Taste Is All It Takes – Rated M15+
In the small French village of Lansquenet where life has remained the same for 100 years, the wind of change is about to sweep through it, altering it forever.
Free-spirited wanderer, Vianne Rocher has arrived with her daughter to set up a chocolaterie during the Easter Lenten period of abstinence. her arrival is frowned upon by some locals but to others, her presence is life changing. Somehow, almost magically, her delectable treats are tantalising more than just tastebuds – they are curing lost hopes, awakening unexpected passions and fulfilling unspoken desires.
A sweetly surprising film that will make romantics and chocoholics melt.
DRAMA
Le Divorce
A Smart, Sexy Comedy Drama M15+
In this captivating sexy comedy drama with a stellar ensemble cast Isabel (Kate Hudson) heads to Paris to help out her sister (Naomi Watts) and arrives to find her jilted by her French husband. To take their minds off these marital woes, the sisters take Paris by storm, making new acquaintances by attending parties where native and expatriates mingle. Cross-cultural romances, culture clashes and scandals ensue.
Coco Avant Chanel
From Rags to Riches to Haute-Couture: The Incredible Story of Coco Chanel – Rated M
A film by Anne Fontaine and starring Audrey Tautou
In a remarkable tour de force portrayal, the lovely Audrey Tautou becomes the legendary style icon Coco Chanel. From her humble beginnings at a French country orphanage to the extravagant heights of Parisian society, Chanel’s indomitable creative spirit was expressed as a dance hall singer, seamstress, social rebel and fashion icon.
Benoît Poelvoorde and Alessandro Nivola portray the men of wealth and elegance infatuated with the multi-faceted Coco Chanel, whose vision and style – inspired by fashion and fuelled by passion – paved a daring new way for modern women to look, dress and live their lives.
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
The must-see fashion film of the year endorsed by the House of Chanel – Rated MA15+
Paris 1913, Coco Chanel is devoted to her work and madly in love with Arthur “Boy” Capel. At the Théatre des Champs-Élysées, Igor Stravinsky premises his Rite of Spring. Coco attends the premiere and is mesmerised. But the revolutionary work is too modern, too radical: the enraged audience boos and jeers. A near-riot ensues. Stravinsky is inconsolable.
Seven years later, the rich, respected and successful Coco is devastated by Boy Capel’s death. She meets Stravinsky again – now penniless and exiled by the Russian Revolution. Their attraction is immediate and electric. Coco offers Stravinsky the use of her country villa so that he will be able to work. He moves in straight away, with his children and consumptive wife. And so, a passionate, intense love affair between two creative giants begins.
A Bag of Marbles
One of the Rare Movies Depicting the French Occupation From the Perspective of the Children – Rated M
Set during the turmoil and despair of World War II, A Bag of Marbles (also known as Un Sac de Billes) tells the remarkable true tale of two young French Jewish boys, aged 10 and 13, as they attempt the perilous journey to the southern Free Zone, to find relief and freedom from the impending Nazi occupation. With the aid of a helpful priest the boys are driven to step out of the shadow of evil and use their wits and charm to remain one step ahead of their persecutors, in order to survive.
A Bag of Marbles is a moving story of brotherly love, tenacity and youthful resilience.
Orchestra Seats
When Jessica decides to leave rural France in favour of the capital, her grandmother’s words ring in her ear: “I always loved luxury, but I could not afford to live in it. I decided to work in it”. A lovely bubbly young thing, Jessica charms her way into a job at an old fashioned cafe in the highbrow theatre district in the 8th arrondissement.
Surrounded by auction houses and theatres, she meets a variety of characters each struggling with their own lives: a popular soap star who is trying to break out of television; a concert pianist who is questioning his direction; and an ageing financier who is closing a chapter of his life by auctioning his extensive modern art collection.
As she encounters these people, Jessica finds she is caught up in their lives, their loves and their art and the true value of her grandmother’s words.
Female Agents
A Classic War Thriller with Superb Performances – Rated MA15+
Based on true events, true stories and real heroines, Female Agents is a powerful, action-packed World War II epic starring Sophie Marceau and Julie Depardieu.
Set in spring 1944, a five woman commando unit parachutes into occupied France on a daring and dangerous mission to protect the secrets of the D-Day landings and eliminate Colonel Heindrich, Head of German counter-intelligence.
Their dangerous mission to change the war become a desperate fight for survival.
look at me (Comme Une Image)
A reflection on the corrupting power of fame and disappointments of family life – Rated PG
Étienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a famous novelist who is unconcerned by the unhappiness of his daughter Lolita, an overweight, sulky and insecure but gifted aspiring soprano. Lolita would love her father to look at her but unfortunately he is blinded by visions of himself.
Lolita’s apparent docility conceals a deep undercurrent of loathing, both for herself and for a world which she feels judges her solely on her appearance and, to add insult to injury, it seems that every person she meets want to know her solely as means of getting to her famous father.
Molière
Comedy. Drama. Adventure. Romance. The best stories are from the heart. – Rated PG
Molière invents a fanciful yarn based on speculative historical fiction taken from a piece of real life – in this case, the mysterious disappearance of the French playwright for several months in 1644 – and concocts a thoroughly irresistible and lavish story of intrigue, romance, comedy and artistic inspiration. Director Laurent Tirad spins the story about this period of Molière’s life.
Beginning in Paris, the 22 year old Jean Baptiste Poquelin, also known as Molière, is not yet the writer that history recognises as the father and true master of comic satire, and a dramatist to rank alongside Shakespeare and Sophocles. Far from it, he is a failed actor doing a spell in prison for failure to repay debts. History actually loses track when he’s bailed out of prison by an “anonymous” person. Tirad imagines Molière’s saviour to be wealthy trader Monsieur Jourdain.
Jourdain puts him up at the mansion and demands acting lessons, for he plans to woo a pretty, sharp-tongued Marquise by performing a self-composed play. Of course, the play is rotten and what’s worse, Jourdain is married.
In French fashion there is Molière’s growing affection for Jourdain’s wife, amorous entanglements and moments of pure wit all in a Versailles-era sumptuous France.
Gemma Bovery
Life Imitating Art – Rated MA15+
In this vibrant seriocomic re-imagining of Flaubert’s literary classic Madam Bovary, life imitates art in uncanny ways when earthy British beauty Gemma Bovery and her furniture restorer husband Charles move to a charming ramshackle and farmhouse in the very same Norman village where the novel was written a century earlier.
Their welcoming neighbour, local baker and Flaubert expert Martin Joubert, becomes entranced with Gemma and sets out to be her guide and mentor to her new surroundings. It doesn’t take long before he is drawing parallels between the literary and real life woman, while he insinuates himself into her life.
COMEDY
OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies
Introducing Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, French special agent OSS117 – Rated M
After the mysterious death of his colleague Jack Jefferson while on assignment in Egypt, OSS117 is sent in to find the killers. And monitor the Suez Canal. And the British in Cairo. And the Russians too. In fact, save the entire Middle East. Under cover as a poultry fanicer, OSS117 – handsome and irresistibly suave, suitably arrogant but culturally clueless – gives his hall for his country, in Cairo, in bed and in the dark.
Set to a hip-shaking score of arabesque cocktail music, from the minute the credits roll OSS117: Cario Nest of Spies is a side splitting spoof of the screen’s greatest spies from James Bond to Inspector Clouseau, Maxwell Smart to Austin Powers.
Le Diner De Cons (The Dinner Game)
Wealthy publisher Pierre Brochant faces his greatest social challenge in this classic French comedy of errors. He is supposed to find a “guest” (who must be an idiot), to bring to a dinner sponsored by his friends, who are wealthy and obnoxious yuppies engaged in a never ending game of oneupmanship.
Little does Pierre realise that Françoise is a giant among idiots who will have systematically destroyed half his life – quite innocently – before entrees even reach the table.
The Closet
A giddy, social comedy – Rated M15+
François Pignon, a very bland sort of man who works as an accountant in a rubber factory, is about to be fired. His new neighbour comes up with an idea to prevent such a thing happening: he spreads the rumour that he’s gay so that the factory management might be afraid they’ll be sued for sexual discrimination. Of course, nothing happens as it should, but the changes in François Pignon’s life – and other people’s too is drastic!
Après Vous
An Eccentric Comedy – Rated M
Antoine (Daniel Auteuil), a maitre d’ at an upmarket Parisian brasserie, prevents the suicide of a stranger (Jose Garcia) and attempts to reinvigorate the man’s zest for life. But it soon becomes clear that Louis will be forever gripped by a single obsession: Blanche, the love of his life and the woman who drove him to despair.
Blanches isn’t interested in Louis, and even worse, she becomes attracted to Antoine. For a principled man like Antoine, it’s a situation of the utmost delicacy – complicated by the fact that Blanche is extremely beautiful.
A comedy portraying male friendship developing in the unlikeliest of situations.
The Valet – La Doublure
Another uproarious comedy from the kind of French farce, Francis Veber (The Dinner Game, The Closet, Tais Tou) – Rated M
When French tycoon Pierre Levasseur (Daniel Auteuil) is spied with his supermodel mistress Elena (Alice Taglioni), the pictures end up on the front page of a Paris daily. Telling his powerful wife Christine (Kristin Scott-Thomas) – who holds a controlling stake in the companies he runs – that there must have been a mistake, he declares Elena was actually with the other fellow in the photo.
Trying to keep one step ahead of his dubious wife, Pierre engineers it so a naive car park valet, Veber’s recurring fool Francois Pignon (God Elmaleah), appears to be Elena’s boyfriend, moving her into his flat and his life. As Pierre’s web of deceit widens, so do the possibilities of discovery – and with them disaster after hilarious disaster.
Up For Love
All About The Long & Short of Falling In Love – Rated M
When successful lawyer Diane (Virginie Efira) gets a call from the man who has found her mobile phone, she is immediately intrigued and charmed. As she and Alexandre (Dujardin) chat and make plans to meet, it becomes evident that the chemistry between them is great indeed. However, when they meet the next day it turns out there may be one small problem. Despite his charisma and good looks, Alexandre comes up a bit short (almost 2 feet actually).
Is Diane out of his reach or can they meet in the middle? They’re both looking for love but society is watching and judging. Will they be Up For Love?
CHILDREN
Ratatouille
A Disney Pixar movie – Rated PG
From the creators of Cars and The Incredibles comes a breakthrough comedy with something for everyone. With delightful new characters, experiences Paris from an all new perspective.
In one of Paris’ finest restaurants, Remy, a determined young rat, dreams of becoming a renowned French chef. Torn between his family’s wishes and his true calling, Remy and his pal Linguini set in motion a hilarious chain of events that turns the City of Lights upside down.
The War of the Buttons
The French Resistance Came In All Shapes and Sizes – Rated PG
From the furtive imagination of writer/director Yann Samuell comes the smash hit adaptation of Louis Pergaud’s classic 1912 novel (a book long on the French curriculum and reprinted over thirty times) about the rivalry between children in two villages.
A gang of boys, aged 7 to 14 led by the intrepid Lebrac (Vincent Bres) are at war with the kids of the neighbouring township, their sworn enemies. In this uncompromising battle of honour and allegiances that’s been kept alive for generations, humiliation is the most fearsome defeat and no tactic is too extreme – even if it necessitates fighting naked or accepting the help offered by Lanterne (Salome Lemire) – a girl! She’s the gang’s new recruit, a tomboy full of panache and ingenuity – and it seems victory could now just be a skipping stone’s throw away. But it’s not easy to wage war without getting caught by your parents.
A huge success, The War of the Buttons is a cheeky family comedy about integration, independence and innocence, about conflicts big and small, and growing up. Read our full review The War of the Buttons – Film Review.
Belle and Sebastian
Two Great Friends. One Grand Adventure. – Rated PG
Belle and Sebastian is based on the much-loved children’s book and French TV series. Set during the Second World War, it is a timeless tale of a boy and his dog. Six year old orphan Sebastian lives on the mountainside with a kind but gruff caretaker.
He comes across Belle, a wild mountain dog and together they form an unshakeable bond as they go on an amazing adventure through the French Alps. Along the way, they become pivotal in the attempted escape of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany for the safety of Switzerland.
DOCUMENTARY
French Odyssey with Rick Stein
A sumptuously filmed gourmet tour of France – Rated G
Rick Stein is returning to a Marseille restaurant where he claims to have had “one of the best seafood lunches imaginable”, but the celebrated cook is in no hurry. He is travelling by barge through the waterways of Southern France and is intent on sampling the local culinary delights on the way.
Rick leaves Cornwall for the mouth of the mighty Girdone river in Bordeux, where he boards the Anjodi – an eighty year old, hundred foot long barge – and meets the captain, Bernard, a man who knows the best bars, wine producers and restaurants along the 800 kilomètre journey.
For Rick, this is a journey of inspiration and discovery. In each step of his trip, he delights in the local products and techniques and demonstrates how to make traditional recipes from the artichoke salads of Brittany to the traditional Agen dish of rabbit with prunes, from the famous sausages of Toulouse, to the cassoulet of Castelnaurdry and from John Dorey cooked in the vermouth of Marseille to a Carmargue speciality of roast bass and fennel.
An Insider’s Guide to Paris
Parisian Art Historian Sandrine Voillet Explores Today’s Paris – Rated M
Guiding viewers through more than 800 years of Paris’ history, Sandrine celebrates the art, revolutions and characters that have combined to create this spectacular “City of Light”. From the Renaissance to the French Revolution, from the construction of the Eiffel Tower to Mitterand’s Grands Projects, the city has borne witness to extraordinary people and events.
Sandrine explores the city’s secrets, its blood stained past, treacherous plots and illicit love affairs. The lavish court of Louise XVI during the sexual decadence of revolutionary Paris; the crazy years of the early 1900s, played out in the Moulin Rouge and Folies Bergège, the jazz explosion of the 30s and 60s hedonism.
Surrounded by friends and fellow locals, Sandrine also explores today’s Paris – a vibrant, multicultural city with a life force of its own.
Related Posts
The Film Lover’s Guide to Paris – detailed guide book to Paris based on famous films and their set locations in Paris. This is a perfect read for all Francophiles and film lovers.
The War of the Buttons – read our full review of this children’s classic that has been part of the French school curriculum for years.
Everything French – Our Ultimate Book Reading List for Francophiles – if you also like reading books on France and all things French then our huge book list is for you. There’s a book for everyone included in this list!
Cassoulet Recipe – A French Family Favourite – enjoy this delicious recipe
