Cinema - French films - War

French cinema: War (Page 4 of 6)

Liberté (2010)

Tony Gatlif

Théodore is the mayor and vet of a small village in Nazi occupied France during the Second World War. He lives with P’tit Claude, a nine-year-old boy who lost his parents at the start of the war. The local schoolteacher, Mademoiselle Lundi, has acquainted herself with a party of gypsies who have recently arrived in the area... [More...]

Lucie Aubrac (1997)

Claude Berri

Lyon, 1943. In Nazi occupied France, Raymond Aubrac is a leading member of the French Resistance. Shortly after blowing up a German supply train, he is arrested, ostensibly for blackmarketeering. His wife Lucie, an independently minded schoolteacher, takes it upon herself to get him released. Not long after this, Raymond is arrested a second time, whilst attending a meeting of Resistance leaders... [More...]

Madame Sans-Gêne (1962)

Christian-Jaque

Paris, August 1792. In the midst of the French Revolution, Catherine Hubscher is busily occupied as a washerwoman. One of her patrons is an unknown lieutenant named Napoleon Bonaparte, whom she befriends in spite of his reluctance to pay his bills. One of Bonaparte’s men, Sergeant Francis Lefebvre, makes an immediate impression on Catherine and within no time the couple are married... [More...]

La Madelon (1955)

Jean Boyer

In 1914, Madeleine, nicknamed La Madelon, works in her father’s café in a small village on the Marne. An attractive young woman, she has no shortage of admirers, including the wealthy Antoine Pichot. But she only has eyes for one man, the good natured Corporal Beauguitte. At the outbreak of war, the latter is obliged to leave his home village and honour his pledge to his country... [More...]

Mais où est donc passée la septième compagnie? (1973)

Robert Lamoureux

During the debacle of May 1940, the seventh company of the French army takes refuge in the woods but are ambushed by a German platoon. In the confusion, only three French soldiers manage to evade capture: Sergeant Chauchard and his two subalterns, Tassin and Pithivier. Their desperate flight through the countryside will prove to be one of the most fantastic of France’s wartime exploits..... [More...]

Marthe (1997)

Jean-Loup Hubert

Autumn, 1915. Wounded on a World War I battlefield, a young soldier, Simon, is sent to seaside town in Brittany to receive treatment and convalesce. Here, he meets and falls in love with a young schoolteacher, Marthe. Although she is engaged to a man who is also serving in the trenches of the seemingly interminable war, Marthe cannot help falling in love with Simon... [More...]

Les Maudits (1947)

René Clément

At Oslo in 1945, a French doctor, Guilbert, is abducted by a group of Nazis and taken aboard their submarine. The Germans plan to evade capture by the Allies by steering a course for South America. Guilbert finds himself in the company of several unsavoury fugitives, including a Gestapo chief, a German general, an Italian industrialist and a French journalist who collaborated with the Nazis... [More...]

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)

Luc Besson

At the time of the 100 years’ war between England and France, a young country girl, Jeanne, believes she has a mission from God to rid France of the English. She arrives in the court of the Dauphin, Charles, and manages to convince him of her divine purpose. She is given an army and miraculously manages to liberate the towns of Orléans and Reims... [More...]

Les Misérables (1995)

Claude Lelouch

France, 1900. When his employer shoots himself after a New Year’s party, chauffeur Henri Fortin is condemned for murder and sentenced to a term of hard labour. On learning that her husband died whilst attempting to escape from prison, Henri’s wife commits suicide. Their son, also named Henri, grows up to become a famous boxer, although he later has to abandon his career and thereafter runs a removals business... [More...]

Mission spéciale (1946)

Maurice de Canonge

May 1940. Commissioner Chabrier, a National Security operative, is about to capture a gang of spies who, under a cover of respectability, have been supplying secrets to the German High Command. One of the spies is Emmy de Wilder, the seemingly blameless director of a hospital in Rouen. The debacle at Dunkirk prevents Chabrier from fulfilling his mission but he refuses to admit defeat... [More...]

Mon colonel (2006)

Laurent Herbiet

In 1993, a retired colonel, Raoul Duplan, is shot dead in Paris. Anonymous letters and diary extracts are sent to the police and the army, hinting that the killing is linked to the Algerian war of independence. In 1957, Guy Rossi, a young volunteer recruit, finds himself under Duplan’s command... [More...]

Monsieur Batignole (2002)

Gérard Jugnot

Paris 1942. With the French capital under Nazi control, Edmond Batignole struggles to make an honest living as a butcher. When he finds that meat has been stolen from his store, he accuses the owner of the apartment above his shop, a Jewish surgeon named Bernstein. The latter is in a hurry to flee with his family, but Batignole’s intervention results in their being arrested by the French police... [More...]

Monsieur Klein (1976)

Joseph Losey

Paris, January 1942. Robert Klein is an art dealer who has grown rich by trading in valuable art treasures sold by Jews who are desperate to raise cash to escape deportation to Nazi Germany. Klein has no scruples about what he does. He believes he is making an honest living, providing a service to people for whom he has no deep feelings... [More...]

Les Morfalous (1984)

Henri Verneuil

In 1943, during the Second World War, a battalion of the French Foreign Legion is tasked with the mission of removing a fortune in gold bullion from the vault of a bank in a North African town, before it falls into the hands of the Germany army. The Legionnaires arrives just in time to be all but wiped out by the German soldiers who surround the town... [More...]

Le Mur de l’Atlantique (1970)

Marcel Camus

In 1944, Léon Duchemin , a restaurant owner living in Normandy, leads a peaceful life. His restaurant is frequented by German officers, black marketers and members of the French Resistance, but his clients’ exploits hold no interest for him at all. That is until an English airman falls out of the sky and lands in his daughter’s bed... [More...]

Napoléon (1955)

Sacha Guitry

This film recounts the life of one of the most important figures in the history of France, Napoléon Bonaparte. Beginning with his arrival at a military academy, the film moves swiftly through Bonaparte’s rise to power as a great general and ultimately Emperor of France. We follow his great battle campaigns, and his personal life, particularly his courtship of Josephine and his many subsequent secret liaisons... [More...]

La Neige et le feu (1991)

Claude Pinoteau

June 1944. The allied troops have landed at Normandy and are on their way towards Paris. In the French capital, the impending liberation is eagerly anticipated by Michel, 17, and his friend Jacques, 19, who have taken their place on the barricades alongside other members of the French Resistance. Christine, a young nurse, tells Jacques that she is in love with him... [More...]

Noirs et blancs en couleur (1976)

Jean-Jacques Annaud

January, 1915. Far from the battlefields of Europe, a small group of French nationals live an uneventful life in a village on the Ivory Coast. These include the alcoholic Sergeant Bosselet, the penny-pinching grocer Paul Rechampot, a reluctant pair of Christian missionaries and an aloof student of geography, Hubert Fresnoy... [More...]

Nos résistances (2011)

Romain Cogitore

France, in the summer of 1944. François is a 19-year-old first aid worker whose most ardent desire is to spend the night with the girl he is in love with. One evening, he is about to realise this dream when a member of the French resistance turns up and asks for his help. To impress his girlfriend, François joins a resistance training camp and finds himself with a group of immature boys... [More...]

On a retrouvé la 7e compagnie (1975)

Robert Lamoureux

1940, during World War II, three French soldiers, Chaudard, Pithivier, Tassin, accidentally manage to liberate the seventh company from their German captors, with the aid of a breakdown tank. However, when they then go on to make a reconnaissance, the three soldiers are soon themselves captured and sent to a prison camp... [More...]

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