Best French Films

Send nominations for films you would like to see to ajs@fivenine.co.uk

Some movies to help you understand France

(with acknowledgement to http://www.understandfrance.org/France/FrenchMovies.html)

To understand certain aspects of France and French society, nothing like a good movie; preferably a French movie (to avoid American movies reproducing stereotypes, decade after decade). Among them, il you want to understand better :

• The royal court, just before the Revolution : Ridicule (1994), directed by Patrice Leconte, starring Jean Rochefort, etc...
• French men : movies starring Yves Montand , directed by Claude Sautet like Vincent, François, Paul et les autres (1974) (men with their friends) or César et Rosalie (1978) (love in middle-age)
• The French health system : Sicko (2007), by Michael Moore
• Life in occupied France WW II : Lacombe Lucien (1974), directed by Louis Malle
• The French sense of panache : Cyrano de Bergerac (1985), directed by Jean Paul Rappeneau, starring Gérard Depardieu. You'll learn a lot about the French if you watch this (excellent) movie, or read the play (Edmond Rostand, 1897).
• The French Revolution : La Révolution Française (Part One : Les Années Lumières, Part Two : Les Années Terribles) (1989), directed by Alexandre Mnouchkine, staring Jane Seymour etc...
• Life in French small towns : any film by Claude Chabrol...
• Social and racial tensions in the outskirts of French cities : La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz (1994)
• Life in a French colony in Africa in the 1930s: Coup de torchon (1975), directed by Bertrand Tavernier, starring Philippe Noiret, Stéphane Audran (read about colonies)
• European students in an Erasmus program (in Barcelona) : L'auberge espagnole by Cedric Klapish (1995)
• World War I : Paths of Glory (1957), directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Kirk Douglas etc...
• World War II : Le Chagrin et la Pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity) (1969), directed by Marcel Ophüls, interviews and documents
• About the community of the "pieds noirs" : La vérité si je mens (1997), directed by Thomas Gilou
• About war in Algeria : "La bataille d'Alger" (1966) an Italian-Algerian film by Gillo Pontecorvo, with Yacef Saâdi playing his own role
• About French humour : some movies come again and again on French TV, always with the same success, even for those who have seen them ten times : among them Les Tontons Flingueurs (Georges Lautner, 1963) or La grande Vadrouille (Gérard Oury, 1964) ; if you enjoy them 1/ your French is very good, 2/ you really understand this country!

Best French Films Ever.

With acknowledgement to http://www.topfrenchfilms.info/

Top Rated French Movies: popular, classic, famous "must watch" Cinema Français
Great Movie Pictures Old and New