Decade
The best French films of the 2000s
A decade that began with Amélie and ended with Un prophète, with prison dramas, classroom films and a record-breaking comedy in between.
By Eleanor Hale
The 2000s opened with a French film that conquered the world, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, and French audiences kept going to see their own films in large numbers. Jacques Audiard established himself as the leading director of his generation, Abdellatif Kechiche and Laurent Cantet brought realism and new faces to the screen, and Agnès Varda reinvented herself with digital cameras. Popular comedy broke all records with a film about the far north of France.
Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (Agnès Varda, 2000)
A documentary about people who glean what others throw away, from potato fields to city markets, filmed by Varda with a small digital camera. Personal, funny and moving.
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
A shy waitress in Montmartre decides to secretly improve the lives of those around her. Audrey Tautou in a worldwide hit.
Sur mes lèvres (Jacques Audiard, 2001)
A partially deaf secretary who can lip-read and an ex-convict she hires form a criminal partnership. Emmanuelle Devos and Vincent Cassel.
8 femmes (François Ozon, 2002)
Eight women snowed in at a country house, a dead man and a mystery, with songs. Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart and Fanny Ardant together.
Les Choristes (Christophe Barratier, 2004)
A music teacher forms a choir at a boarding school for difficult boys in 1949. A huge popular success.
Un long dimanche de fiançailles (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2004)
A young woman refuses to believe her fiancé died in the trenches of 1917 and investigates. Jeunet and Audrey Tautou again.
Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)
A television presenter receives anonymous videotapes showing his house, and a buried episode from his childhood comes back. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche.
De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté (Jacques Audiard, 2005)
A young man working in shady property deals dreams of becoming a concert pianist like his mother. Romain Duris in his best role.
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
The editor of Elle magazine, paralysed by a stroke, dictates a book by blinking one eye. Filmed partly from his point of view.
La Graine et le Mulet (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2007)
A laid-off shipyard worker in Sète tries to open a fish couscous restaurant on a boat. Long, warm and alive.
Entre les murs (Laurent Cantet, 2008)
A year in a classroom of a Paris secondary school, with a real teacher and real pupils. Palme d'Or.
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Dany Boon, 2008)
A post office manager from the south is sent to the far north, which he imagines as a frozen hell. It broke French box-office records.
Un prophète (Jacques Audiard, 2009)
A young, illiterate prisoner rises through the hierarchy of a prison run by Corsican gangsters. Tahar Rahim's debut.
Where to go next
Continue with the best French films of the 2010s, or go back to the 1990s.