Films de France

Cinema · History · Reviews

The best of French cinema

Reviews of the films that made French cinema, the 100 best French films, and guides by decade and genre, written in English for viewers who watch with subtitles.

The 100 best French films →A short history

Illustration of a young woman in a striped top on a Paris street, in blue and red print

The 100 best

Our ranking of the hundred French films everyone should see, from Méliès to the 2020s.

See the full ranking
01Les Enfants du paradisMarcel Carné · 1945theatre, love and Arletty in 1830s Paris.02La Règle du jeuJean Renoir · 1939a country-house weekend on the eve of war.03L'AtalanteJean Vigo · 1934newlyweds, a barge and Michel Simon.

Landmarks of French cinema

All reviews
Silent historical epicNapoléonAbel Gance · 1927 Romantic dramaL'AtalanteJean Vigo · 1934 War dramaLa Grande IllusionJean Renoir · 1937 Satirical comedy-dramaLa Règle du jeuJean Renoir · 1939 Romantic dramaLes Enfants du paradisMarcel Carné · 1945 ThrillerLe Salaire de la peurHenri-Georges Clouzot · 1953 Psychological thrillerLes DiaboliquesHenri-Georges Clouzot · 1955 Prison dramaUn condamné à mort s'est échappéRobert Bresson · 1956 Coming-of-age dramaLes Quatre Cents CoupsFrançois Truffaut · 1959 Crime dramaÀ bout de souffleJean-Luc Godard · 1960 Musical romanceLes Parapluies de CherbourgJacques Demy · 1964 Crime thrillerLe SamouraïJean-Pierre Melville · 1967

The terrible thing in this world is that everyone has their reasons.

Guides to French cinema

HistoryA short history of French cinemaFrom the Lumière brothers to the Palmes d'Or of the 2020s.GenreThe best French comediesFrench audiences love comedy more than any other genre. These are the comedies that also work for viewers watching with subtitles.GenreThe best French thrillersFrance has a crime film tradition of its own, the policier, with its own heroes, its own style and a debt to Hollywood that it repaid many times over.GenreThe best French love storiesFrench cinema has a reputation for romance. These films earn it, and few of them end the way Hollywood would.GenreThe best French war filmsFrance fought, lost, was occupied and resisted. Its war films reflect all of that, and few of them are about battles.GenreThe best French fantasyThe country of realism has also produced some of cinema's great dreamers, from Méliès to Cocteau and Jeunet.

About this guide

Toujours le cinéma

France invented cinema as a public show, when the Lumière brothers projected their first films to a paying audience in Paris in December 1895, and it has never stopped making films that the rest of the world watches. Films de France is a guide to that cinema for people who watch it in English, with subtitles, and want to know where to start, what to see next and why a film matters.

Each review covers one film: what it is about, who made it, how it was made and how it looks today, with full credits and no spoilers for the endings that deserve to be kept. Our lists group films by decade, from Louis Feuillade's serials of the 1910s to the present, and by genre, from comedies to policiers. If you only want one page, start with the 100 best French films. If you want the background, read our short history of French cinema.

All film reviews