Paste's 100 Best French Films of All Time
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French language cinema covers vast swathes of history, geography and genre. The best French movies aren’t simply the product of a French person working strictly with a French team, they represent film as entelechy—a century of directors rooting around within the source code of this particular form of storytelling, pushing it into realms equally transcendent and horrifying. For its own sake. Because it is right to do so.
If there is anything unifying the films in the following list—besides the French language—it might be that there exists a current of fundamental innovation throughout the many years surveyed. Auteurist visions care of Belgium, Greece, Poland, Denmark, Taiwan, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Senegal course through and inform the prelapsarian innards of French cinema, transforming the country into a hub for international film. This is foundational stuff.
With the following we’re trying to provide a primer on French language film from an English-speaking perspective, exploring the schools of thought and exotic taxonomies that have defined what French filmmaking has been since George Méliès first set a moon cackling like a creep in 1902, and what it can be, skin-flaying, cannibalistic Grand Guignol nightmares and all. The Nouvelle Vague—both those of the Left Bank (Agnès Varda, her husband Jacques Demy, Alain Resnais and Chris Marker) and the Cahiers du cinéma crew (Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol)—the erotic French thriller, the mind-bending (and bowel-emptying) horror of the New French Extremity, the colorful musical, the social farce, the sprawling crime film, the experimental vérité, the personal and unflinching documentaries: Even as so many films on this list have irrevocably altered our ideas of what filmmaking can mean, what it can do, so do they exist on the fringes, at the limits, willing to test the boundaries of taste, logic and (in the case of Chantal Akerman) time in order to question and then pull apart the systems and expectations that stagnate art and oppress artists.
Pssst, want to check out the Paste's 100 Best French Films of All Time list in our new look?
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92 new
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
2001 — a.k.a. Amélie, in 27 top lists Check -
27 new
Les quatre cents coups
1959 — a.k.a. The 400 Blows, in 26 top lists Check -
91 new
Persepolis
2007, in 9 top lists Check -
50 new
La haine
1995 — a.k.a. La Haine, in 15 top lists Check -
44 new
À bout de souffle
1960 — a.k.a. Breathless, in 29 top lists Check -
21 new
Trois couleurs: Bleu
1993 — a.k.a. Three Colors: Blue, in 19 top lists Check -
52 new
Trois couleurs: Rouge
1994 — a.k.a. Three Colors: Red, in 20 top lists Check -
1 new
La passion de Jeanne d'Arc
1928 — a.k.a. The Passion of Joan of Arc, in 27 top lists Check -
4 new
La jetée
1962 — a.k.a. La Jetée, in 19 top lists Check -
8 new
Le salaire de la peur
1953 — a.k.a. The Wages of Fear, in 29 top lists Check -
88 new
Les triplettes de Belleville
2003 — a.k.a. The Triplets of Belleville, in 11 top lists Check -
23 new
Les diaboliques
1955 — a.k.a. Diabolique, in 21 top lists Check -
96 new
Le voyage dans la lune
1902 — a.k.a. A Trip to the Moon, in 14 top lists Check -
93 new
Un chien andalou
1929 — a.k.a. An Andalusian Dog, in 25 top lists Check -
26 new
Caché
2005, in 15 top lists Check -
74 new
Amour
2012, in 15 top lists Check -
79 new
Un prophète
2009 — a.k.a. A Prophet, in 10 top lists Check -
40 new
La double vie de Véronique
1991 — a.k.a. The Double Life of Véronique, in 12 top lists Check -
61 new
Pierrot le fou
1965 — a.k.a. Pierrot le Fou, in 16 top lists Check -
53 new
La grande illusion
1937 — a.k.a. The Grand Illusion, in 30 top lists Check -
3 new
Jules et Jim
1962 — a.k.a. Jules and Jim, in 21 top lists Check -
15 new
Hiroshima mon amour
1959 — a.k.a. Hiroshima Mon Amour, in 17 top lists Check -
36 new
Belle de jour
1967 — a.k.a. Belle de Jour, in 21 top lists Check -
11 new
La règle du jeu
1939 — a.k.a. The Rules of the Game, in 24 top lists Check -
49 new
Du rififi chez les hommes
1955 — a.k.a. Rififi, in 18 top lists Check -
62 new
Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
1972 — a.k.a. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, in 21 top lists Check -
48 new
Holy Motors
2012, in 11 top lists Check -
33 new
Trois couleurs: Blanc
1994 — a.k.a. Three Colors: White, in 10 top lists Check -
16 new
Playtime
1967, in 19 top lists Check -
45 new
La belle et la bête
1946 — a.k.a. Beauty and the Beast, in 26 top lists Check -
87 new
La cité des enfants perdus
1995 — a.k.a. The City of Lost Children, in 4 top lists Check -
18 new
Le mépris
1963 — a.k.a. Contempt, in 17 top lists Check -
6 new
Au revoir les enfants
1987 — a.k.a. Au Revoir les Enfants, in 13 top lists Check -
35 new
Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux
1962 — a.k.a. Vivre Sa Vie, in 12 top lists Check -
65 new
Les enfants du paradis
1945 — a.k.a. Children of Paradise, in 21 top lists Check -
2 new
Les parapluies de Cherbourg
1964 — a.k.a. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, in 18 top lists Check -
10 new
Nuit et brouillard
1956 — a.k.a. Night and Fog, in 17 top lists Check -
12 new
Z
1969, in 17 top lists Check -
46 new
Bande à part
1964 — a.k.a. Band of Outsiders, in 13 top lists Check -
30 new
L'armée des ombres
1969 — a.k.a. Army of Shadows, in 18 top lists Check -
9 new
Les yeux sans visage
1960 — a.k.a. Eyes Without a Face, in 14 top lists Check -
34 new
La planète sauvage
1973 — a.k.a. Fantastic Planet, in 10 top lists Check -
7 new
Cléo de 5 à 7
1962 — a.k.a. Cleo from 5 to 7, in 15 top lists Check -
41 new
C'est arrivé près de chez vous
1992 — a.k.a. Man Bites Dog, in 12 top lists Check -
98 new
Martyrs
2008, in 7 top lists Check -
89 new
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud
1958 — a.k.a. Elevator to the Gallows, in 10 top lists Check -
70 new
Pickpocket
1959, in 20 top lists Check -
17 new
La nuit américaine
1973 — a.k.a. Day for Night, in 19 top lists Check -
13 new
Au hasard Balthazar
1966 — a.k.a. Au Hasard Balthazar, in 18 top lists Check -
94 new
Mon oncle
1958 — a.k.a. My Uncle, in 17 top lists Check
Last updated on Jan 26, 2019 by Panunzio; source