Entertainment
The Best French Movies That Are Absolute Masterpieces
Artistic cinematography, romantic stories, and creative directing have made French films a favorite all over the world. The best French movies ever made feature characters seeking adventure and falling in love. This is a list of the top French masterpieces including everything from The City of Lost Children to The 400 Blows to Blue is the Warmest Color.
What other classics will you find on this list of the greatest French movies of all time? The offbeat romance Amélie won over audiences with its story of a quirky young lady who finds love in the most unexpected of places. It was nominated for a total of five Academy Awards in 2001. Jules and Jim is another beloved French film. In 2011, the French silent film The Artist made an international splash and took home the Oscar for best picture. Other good movies featured on this best French films list include The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Grand Illusion, and The Intouchables.
Do you have a favorite film from France? Give the best movies a thumbs up and add some of them to your queue with our list of the best French movies on Netflix.
list ordered by
- The story of a gentle-hearted beast in love with a simple and beautiful girl. She is drawn to the repellent but strangely fascinating Beast, who tests her fidelity by giving her a key, telling her ...more
- Breathless is a 1960 French film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard about a wandering wrong doer and his American girlfriend. It was Godard's first feature-length work and represented Belmondo's ...more
- In the South American jungle, supplies of nitroglycerine are needed at a remote oil field. The oil company pays four men to deliver the supplies in two trucks. A tense rivalry develops between the ...more
- The 400 Blows is a 1959 French drama film, the debut by director François Truffaut; it stars Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, and Claire Maurier. One of the defining films of the French New Wave, it ...more
- Le Samouraï is a 1967 French-Italian crime film directed by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, starring Alain Delon as Jef Costello.
- Amélie is a 2001 romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Written by Jeunet with Guillaume Laurant, the film is a whimsical depiction of contemporary Parisian life, set in Montmartre. It ...more
- Two Men in Town is a 1973 Franco-Italian film directed by José Giovanni.
- Three Colors: Blue is a 1993 French drama film written, produced, and directed by the acclaimed Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski. Blue is the first of three films that comprise The Three ...more
- Orpheus is a 1950 French film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais. This film is the central part of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, which consists of The Blood of a Poet, Orpheus and ...more
- Three Colors: Red is a 1994 film co-written, produced, and directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski. It is the final film of The Three Colors Trilogy, which examines the French ...more
- Purple Noon is a 1960 film directed by René Clément, based on the 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Alain Delon in his first major film, along with then famous ...more
- Belle de Jour is a 1967 French drama film directed by Luis Buñuel. A frigid young housewife (Catherine Deneuve) decides to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute.
- Les Diaboliques, released as Diabolique in the United States and variously translated as The Devils or The Fiends, is a 1955 French black-and-white psychological thriller feature film directed by ...more
- A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin), grapple with their own class differences after being ...more
- Jean de Florette is a 1986 French period drama film directed by Claude Berri, based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol. It is followed by Manon des Sources. The film takes place in rural Provence, where two ...more
- The Intouchables is a 2011 French comedy-drama film directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano. After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from ...more
- Michel (Martin La Salle) takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques (Pierre ...more
- Garde à Vue is a 1981 French film directed by Claude Miller, based on the novel Brainwash by John Wainwright. A police inspector (Lino Ventura), suspecting an attorney (Michel Serrault) of two child ...more
- Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is riddled with guilt after an accident that he caused disfigures the face of his daughter, the once beautiful Christiane (Édith Scob), who outsiders believe is dead. ...more
- In Roman Polanski's first English-language film, beautiful young manicurist Carole (Catherine Deneuve) suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and ...more
- Army of Shadows is a 1969 French film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. It is a film adaptation of Joseph Kessel's 1943 book of the same name, which blends Kessel's own experiences as a member of the ...more
- When renowned French sculptor Auguste Rodin (Gérard Depardieu) notices the raw sculpting talent of the beautiful and precocious Camille Claudel (Isabelle Adjani), the two artists begin a scandalous ...more
- La veuve Couderc is a 1971 action-drama film directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre.
- Selfish pop singer Cléo (Corinne Marchand) has two hours to wait until the results of her biopsy come back. After an ominous tarot card reading, she visits her friends, all of whom fail to give her ...more
