Cinema - French films - War

French cinema: War (Page 1 of 6)

La 317e section (1965)

Pierre Schoendoerffer

In 1954, at the height of the Indochina War, a French platoon comprising four French soldiers and around forty Laotians is instructed to abandon Luong Ba, an outpost on the border with Laos, and relieve Lao Tsaï, a town 150 kilometres to the south. The platoon is led by the young lieutenant Torrens and his adjutant, Willsdorff, who served in the German army during the Second World War... [More...]

L’Accompagnatrice (1992)

Claude Miller

During the Nazi Occupation of France, Sophie Vasseur, a young pianist of humble origins, accompanies the great concert singer Irène Brice. Sophie is both fascinated and revolted by the world in which Irène lives, one in which privilege and patronage can be bought merely by aligning one’s sympathies with the Germans... [More...]

Allons z’enfants (1981)

Yves Boisset

In 1935, at the age of 13, Simon Chalumot is enrolled in a military school by his father. His reluctance to become a soldier is apparent to all and he is bullied and abused by the military staff and his fellow pupils. At 15, he runs away, but is captured and returned to the school by his father, a patriotic veteran of the last war... [More...]

Amen. (2002)

Costa-Gavras

During World War II, Kurt Gerstein is a scientific officer working for the SS on disinfection and water purification projects. When he discovers that a compound he has developed is to be used for mass gassing of Jews in concentration camps he is appalled and resolves to tell the world of the unfolding horror... [More...]

L’Armée des ombres (1969)

Jean-Pierre Melville

October, 1942. During the Nazi occupation of France, Philippe Gerbier, a civil engineer, heads a small network in the French Resistance. Betrayed by one of his colleagues, he is arrested by the French police and sent to a prison camp. Shortly after being transferred to Gestapo headquarters, Gerbier escapes and immediately sets about looking for the man who betrayed him... [More...]

L’Armée du crime (2009)

Robert Guédiguian

In Paris during the Nazi occupation, a labourer named Missak Manouchian leads a group of young Jewish immigrants, of various nationalities: Spanish, Rumanian, Hungarian, Polish, Italian and Armenian. They are united in a single cause, to oppose the Nazis and liberate France, and they are prepared to lay down their lives to achieve this end... [More...]

L’As des as (1982)

Gérard Oury

Jo Cavalier is the coach for the French boxing team at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. On the train to Berlin, he is accosted by a ten year old Jewish boy, Simon, who asks for his autograph – previously Jo was a flying hero who served in the flying corps during World War I. Simon was meant to join his family in Berlin, but when they do not meet him at the station, Jo takes him under his wing... [More...]

Austerlitz (1960)

Abel Gance

When the English renege on a peace treaty with France, the French general Napoléon Bonaparte has no recourse but to pursue a bitter war against England and her allies. Political conspiracies are rife and Napoléon brings forward his planned coronation to secure his position. Yet he needs one more great military victory to secure his future and enable him to realise his ambitions for France... [More...]

Avoir 20 ans dans les Aurès (1972)

René Vautier

In 1961, a group of pacifist Bretons are sent to fight in France’s war against Algeria. Reluctant warriors, they are moulded into killing machines by the inspirational lieutenant Perrin and soon find their first taste of conflict. One of the group continues to rebel against the folly of the war and goes on the run with an Algerian prisoner... [More...]

Babette s’en va-t-en guerre (1959)

Christian-Jaque

It is June 1940. France has fallen and the Germans are posed to invade England. In this desperate hour, British Intelligence has recruited Babette, a pea-brained young woman who has just been evacuated from France. The dim blonde bears a striking resemblance to a former mistress of General von Arenberg, the man responsible for the feared invasion... [More...]

La Bataille du rail (1946)

René Clément

This episodic film recounts the exploits of French railway workers supporting the activities of the French Resistance during the Second World War. From the start of the Nazi Occupation to the Liberation, the film shows the invaluable part played by ordinary railway workers in defeating the Germans. The second half of the film is concerned mainly with a daring attempt to sabotage a German convey heading for Normandy... [More...]

Le Bataillon du ciel (1947)

Alexander Esway

Spring, 1944: a decisive moment in the Second World War. Colonel Rouvier, an old fighter who lost his arm in combat in Tunisia, is put in charge of training a parachute regiment of the French Free Forces in England. After a period of intensive training, the first wave of soldiers land in Brittany to prepare for the arrival of General Patton’s armies..... [More...]

Les Bidasses en folie (1971)

Claude Zidi

Five friends – Jean-Guy, Phil, Gérard, Luis and Jean – are united by a single passion, to form a rock band. First they need money to buy the musical instruments, so they set about getting work. This proves to be a disaster, but the boys persevere, and with a little help from a friend, Crème, they win a talent contest... [More...]

Les Bidasses s’en vont en guerre (1974)

Claude Zidi

Gérard, Phil, Jean and Jean-Guy soon realise that they are not cut out for military service. Their lack of discipline and unerring aptitude for mucking things up lands them in the military prison, where it looks as if they will stay until they are released back into civilian life. When a lorry crashes into their cell, they decide to take a holiday and head for the countryside... [More...]

Le Bois des amants (1960)

Claude Autant-Lara

Brittany, Christmas 1943. Herta von Stauffen, a German soldier, makes an attempt to join her husband, Colonel von Stauffen, whom she has not seen since their wedding day. But Von Stauffen has orders to celebrate Christmas with his troops and so Herta is sent to the house of the widow Parisot, an old woman who regards Herta as an enemy because she is a German... [More...]

Boule de suif (1945)

Christian-Jaque

Normandy, 1870. A prostitute, Boule de suif, decides to leave France to escape from the occupying Prussian army. She leaves Rouen and sets off for Le Havre in a stagecoach, which she shares with a group of bourgeois men and women. When the coach stops at an inn, a Prussian officer forbids the travellers from continuing their journey until Boule de suif has spent the night with him... [More...]

Capitaine Conan (1996)

Bertrand Tavernier

In the final months of World War I, Captain Conan and his loyal soldiers clean up the enemy trenches on the battlefields of Europe. When the armistice is signed, Conan’s war continues – in the Balkans, where his job is maintain the peace and await orders for military operations. After the intense violent activity he has lived through, Conan finds it hard to adapt to a new kind of military life... [More...]

Le Caporal épinglé (1962)

Jean Renoir

June, 1940. In a German prisoner-of-war camp in North-East France, three soldiers are united by their desire to escape and return to their ordinary civilian lives. They are a middle-class corporal, a myopic intellectual, Ballochet, and an ordinary working class man nicknamed Pater. After their first attempt fails, thanks to Ballochet losing his spectacles, the corporal and Pater try again – and again... [More...]

Les Carabiniers (1963)

Jean-Luc Godard

Two country peasants are recruited to join the army and serve in the war. They are promised wealth, fulfilment and freedom to do whatever they wish whilst in active service. In a crusade that takes in most of the world, the two new recruits indulge their passion for rape, killing and acquiring luxury cars... [More...]

Le Chagrin et la pitié (1969)

Marcel Ophüls

Life in France at the time of the Nazi Occupation during World War II. Those who actively participated in the drama – politicians, soldiers, aristocrats, spies, collaborators and resistance supporters – recount their personal experiences with lucidity, eloquence and emotion. [More...]

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