The Times's 100 Best French Films

At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days as a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-around do-gooder. But when she bumps into a handsome stranger, will she find the courage to become the star of her very own love story?

Jean is young, gay, and promiscuous. Only after he meets one or two women, including Laura does he come to realize his bisexuality. Jean has to overcome a personal crisis (he is HIV-positive) and a tough choice between Laura and his male lover Samy

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.

When Nelly, a woman being just divorced, meets by chance M. Arnaud, a mature salesman just retired, begins a strange and special relationship between the two personalities.

Isa and Marie bond while working in a French sweatshop and soon begin sharing an apartment that Marie is watching for a hospitalized mother and daughter. Marie, hoping to avoid a life of struggle and poverty, takes up with Chriss, a nightclub owner whose most attractive asset is his money. Isa recognizes the ultimate futility of the relationship...

Foreign Legion officer Galoup recalls his once glorious life, training troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented, until the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup's mind.

A lush, elegant epic taking us on a time-swirling trip down the infinitely complex labyrinth that is Marcel Proust's memory lane.

Fat Girl deals with the themes of feminine puberty and sexuality. Filmed in southern France.

An unemployed man finds his life sinking more and more into trouble as he hides his situation from his family and friends.

Krimo a 15 years old shy boy falls in love for Lídia who is his classmate.To be able to assume his love for her he decides to take a part in the play that was to be one of his friends.

The Big Blue is a captivating tragedy about the friendship and rivalry of two men and their passion for the ocean and diving.

This bizarre surrealistic black comedy takes place in a small fictitious post-apocalyptic town where food is scares and butcher Louison has the macabre business of using human flesh to feed his costumers. Yet when his daughter falls in love with his next slaughter victim things turn into chaos.

The City of the Lost Children is a fantasy science fiction film from Jean-Pierre Jeunet about a scientist who kidnaps children and steals their dreams.

Paul Dedalus is at a crossroads in his life. He has to make several decisions; should he complete his doctorate, does he want to become a full professor, does he really love his long-standing girlfriend, or should he re-start with one of his other lovers?

After completing jail time for beating up a man who tried to seduce his mentally-handicapped teenage daughter, the Butcher wants to start life anew. He institutionalizes his daughter and moves to the Lille suburbs with his mistress, who promises him a new butcher shop. Learning that she lied, the Butcher returns to Paris to find his daughter.

Each week, Pierre and his friends organize what is called as "un dîner de cons". Everyone brings the dumbest guy he could find as a guest. Pierre thinks his champ -François Pignon- will steal the show.

While fixing up their summer cottage, Michel and his family run into a man who claims to have gone to high school with Michel.

A French corporation goes head-to-head with an American web media company for the rights to a 3-D manga pornography studio, resulting in a power struggle that culminates in violence and espionage.

When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters--an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire--to rescue him.

Abdel, a local hoodlum, is hospitalized after a riot, where a policeman lost his gun. His friend Vinz finds it and claims he will kill a cop if Abdel dies.

Grand Illusion is a classic war film from French director Jean Renoir created without using images from the first World War.

César runs a bar along Marseilles' port, assisted by his 23-year-old son, Marius. Friends since childhood, Fanny and Marius love each other, but Marius has a secret wanderlust: every ship's whistle stirs a longing for foreign lands. When M. Panisse seeks Fanny's hand in marriage and when a departing clipper needs a deckhand, Marius and Fanny mus...

After Fanny's boyfriend leaves her and sails away, she finds out she's pregnant.

Leaping forward twenty years, the trilogy continues with the death of Fanny's husband, Panisse, and the discovery of her secret by her son, Césariot. The young man resolves to track down his biological father, Marius, whose life has been fraught with calamity and poverty.

The Wages of Fear / Le Salaire de la Peur – is a black and white French classic by Clouzot about a South American village in the 1950’s where men who are paid to transporting extremely dangerous nitroglycerine. The story is about the rivalry that grows between the two groups of drivers. An art road genre movie.

Pick Pocket is a corporation drama from French avant-garde director Robert Bresson about a pickpocket thief.

Atmospheric and gripping, Army of Shadows is Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece about the French Resistance underground fighters who must grapple with their own brand of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime.

Three friends face mid-life crises. Paul is a writer who's blocked. François has lost his ideals and practices medicine for the money. The charming Vincent faces bankruptcy and his wife, from whom he's separated, wants a divorce.

In France, before WWI. As every Sunday, an old painter living in the country is visited by his son Gonzague, coming with his wife and his three children. Then his daugther Irene arrives. She is always in a hurry, she lives alone and does not come so often... An intimist chronicle in which what is not shown, what is guessed, is more important tha...

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely obs...

Blue This is the first film in a trilogy of films who’s colors make up the three colors of France. With the colors meaning – freedom, equality and brotherliness. “Blue” relating to the French ideals of freedom that are somewhat vague. A film by Krzysztof Kie?lowski.

White is the second film from the trilogy by Kieślowski. “White” meaning equality. Here Kieślowski shows his talent at making comedies. It’s about the relationship between Karol, a polish hair dresser, and the beautiful Dominique, who he’s dependant on.

Red This is the third film from the trilogy by Kieślowski. “Red” meaning brotherliness. Here Kieślowski masterly tells strange coincidentally linked stories in the most packed work.

This is the story of human beings who know exactly what they'd do if they were somebody else, but can't handle being themselves very well, who are very simply struggling to find out who they are.

In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

Newly married couple Juliette and ship captain Jean struggle through marriage as they travel on the L'Atalante along with the captain's first mate and a cabin boy.

Beauty and the Beast is the 1946 adaptation from the 1757 classic love story. This romantic and dramaticly staged film from Director Cocteu’s is his second film to deals with surreal imagery.

In late 19th century France, the Countess Louise, wife of a wealthy general, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off her secret debts, then claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the count...

In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.

This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She become...

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that they have something deeply in common.

A lackadaisical handyman and aspiring novelist tries to support his younger girlfriend as she slowly succumbs to madness.

Famed swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his cousin Roxane. He has never expressed his love for her as he his large nose undermines his self-confidence. Then he finds a way to express his love to her, indirectly.

Set against Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, while it was closed for repairs, this film is a love story between two young vagrants: Alex, a would be circus performer addicted to alcohol and sedatives and Michele, a painter driven to a life on the streets because of a failed relationship and an affliction which is slowly turning her blind.

An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.

Francois, a sympathetic factory worker, kills Valentin with a gun. He locked himself in his furnished room and starts remembering how he was led to murder. He met once Francoise, a young fleurist, and they fell in love. But Francoise was gotten round by Valentin, a dog trainer, a machiavellian guy...

Remy Germain is a doctor in a French town who becomes the focus of a vicious smear campaign, as letters accusing him of having an affair and performing unlawful abortions are mailed to village leaders. The mysterious writer, who signs each letter as "Le Corbeau" (The Raven) soon targets the whole town, exposing everyone's dark secrets.

Les Diaboliques is a Horror mystery thriller from French director Henri-Georges Clouzot about a triangle relationship that leads to murder.

Dr. Génessier is riddled with guilt after an accident that he caused disfigures the face of his daughter, the once beautiful Christiane, who outsiders believe is dead. Dr. Génessier, along with accomplice and laboratory assistant Louise, kidnaps young women and brings them to the Génessier mansion. After rendering his victims unconscious, Dr. Gé...

A stone-faced Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as enigmatic gangster Silien, who may or may not be responsible for squealing on Faugel (Serge Reggiani), just released from the slammer and already involved in what should have been a simple heist. By the end of this brutal, twisting, and multilayered policier, who will be left to trust?