25 French Themed Movies To Watch This year

Number 25 of 25 

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an American ex-GI who stays in post-war Paris to become a painter, and falls for the gamine charms of Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron). However, his paintings come to the attention of Milo Roberts, a rich American heiress, who is interested in more than just art.

Release date: November 11, 1951

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Music composed by: George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Saul Chaplin, Conrad Salinger, Johnny Green

Gaston (Louis Jourdan) is a restless Parisian playboy who moves from one mistress to another, while also spending time with Gigi (Leslie Caron), a precocious younger friend learning the ways of high society. The platonic relationship between Gaston and Gigi changes, however, when she matures, but the possibility of something lasting seems unlikely since he won’t commit to one woman. Gigi refuses to be anyone’s mistress, however, and Gaston must choose between her and his carefree lifestyle.

Release date: May 15, 1958 

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Experience Brigitte Bardot in this odd but beautiful vintage film. A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of “The Odyssey,” but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife (Brigitte Bardot).

Release date: December 18, 1964

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Music composed by: Georges Delerue, Piero Piccioni

Number 21 of 25

Delphine (Catherine Deneuve) and Solange (Françoise Dorléac) are twin sisters who each want to find romance and leave their small seaside town of Rochefort, France. Soon they befriend a couple of visiting carnival workers who frequent their lonely mother’s (Danielle Darrieux) café and hire the girls to sing in the carnival. Wanting a career as a songwriter, Solange falls for an American musician, Andy (Gene Kelly), while Delphine dumps her beau and searches Rochefort for her ideal man.

Release date: April 11, 1968

Director: Jacques Demy

Number 20 of 25

This movie will make you want to book a flight to Paris! A sequel to “Before Sunrise,” this film starts nine years later as Jesse (Ethan Hawke) travels across Europe giving readings from a book he wrote about the night he spent in Vienna with Celine (Julie Delpy). After his reading in Paris, Celine finds him, and they spend part of the day together before Jesse has to again leave for a flight. They are both in relationships now, and Jesse has a son, but as their strong feelings for each other start to return, both confess a longing for more.

Release date: July 2, 2004 

Director: Richard Linklater

Featured song: Just in Time

Film series: ‘Before’ Trilogy

Screenplay: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Richard Linklater

Number 19 of 25 

In the 1920s, actor George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a bona fide matinee idol with many adoring fans. While working on his latest film, George finds himself falling in love with an ingenue named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) and, what’s more, it seems Peppy feels the same way. But George is reluctant to cheat on his wife with the beautiful young actress. The growing popularity of sound in movies further separates the potential lovers, as George’s career begins to fade while Peppy’s star rises.

Release date: November 23, 2011

Director: Michel Hazanavicius

Screenplay: Michel Hazanavicius

Number 18 of 25

Young Coco Chanel (Audrey Tautou) works as a seamstress by day and a cabaret entertainer by night, then she meets a wealthy heir (Benoît Poelvoorde) and becomes his lover and fashion consultant. Tired of the flowery hats, tight corsets and yards of lace that define women’s fashion, Coco uses her lover’s clothing as a starting point to distill an elegant and sophisticated line of women’s clothing that propels her to the top of Parisian haute couture.

Release date: September 25, 2009

Director: Anne Fontaine

Based on: Chanel and Her World; by Edmonde Charles-Roux

Heavy but painfully beautiful. After 19 years as a prisoner, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is freed by Javert (Russell Crowe), the officer in charge of the prison workforce. Valjean promptly breaks parole but later uses money from stolen silver to reinvent himself as a mayor and factory owner. Javert vows to bring Valjean back to prison. Eight years later, Valjean becomes the guardian of a child named Cosette after her mother’s (Anne Hathaway) death, but Javert’s relentless pursuit means that peace will be a long time coming.

Release date: December 25, 2012

Director: Tom Hooper

Story and Novel: Victor Hugo

Music composed: Claude-Michel Schönberg

Number 16 of 25

In this melancholy French social satire, André (Roland Toutain) is having an affair with Christine (Nora Gregor), whose husband, Robert (Marcel Dalio), himself is hiding a mistress. Meanwhile Christine’s married maid, Lisette (Paulette Dubost), is romantically entangled with the local poacher. At a hunting party, trusted friend Octave (Jean Renoir) also confesses his feelings for Christine, as the passions of the servants and aristocrats dangerously collide.

Release date: April 8, 1950

Screenplay: Jean Renoir, Carl Koch

Number 15 of 25

Mystic, maiden, martyr – whatever you choose to call her, it is difficult to dispute that Joan of Arc led a remarkably accomplished life for a peasant girl who never went to school … and never saw her 20th birthday. It all began in 1429, when a teenage girl from a remote village in France stood before the world and announced she would defeat the world’s greatest army and liberate her country.

Release date: October 18, 1999 

Director: Luc Besson

Number 14 of 25

Number 13 of 25

Although the original Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn is superb. This flawless remake with Julia Ormond as Sabrina Fairchild is a HIT! Sabrina Fairchild is a chauffeur’s daughter who grew up with the wealthy Larrabee family. She always had unreciprocated feelings for David (Greg Kinnear), the family’s younger son and playboy. But after returning from Paris, Sabrina has become a glamorous woman who gets David’s attention. His older, work-minded brother Linus (Harrison Ford) thinks their courtship is bad for the family business.

Release date: December 15, 1995 

Director: Sydney Pollack

Featured song: Moonlight

Music composed by: John Williams

Number 12 of 25

Pierre Lavasseur (Daniel Auteuil), a wealthy tycoon, faces disaster when a paparazzo snaps a picture of him with his longtime mistress (Alice Taglioni). Since Pierre’s wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) owns a majority share of their corporation, Pierre must avoid a divorce at all costs. At his lawyer’s suggestion, Pierre hires Francois Pignon (Gad Elmaleh), a parking attendant who is also in the photograph, to pose as his lover’s “real” boyfriend and thus hide the affair from his wife.

Release date: April 20, 2007

Director: Francis Veber

Screenplay: Francis Veber

Number 11 of 25

In this romantic comedy, Brigitte Laurier (Brigitte Bardot), the beautiful daughter of the French premier, falls for the womanizing Michel Legrand (Henri Vidal), one of her father’s aides, and attempts to get him to settle down with her. When Michel can’t curb his flirtations with other women, Brigette makes a play to seduce the married Prince Charles (Charles Boyer), resulting in an entertaining battle of the wills between the gorgeous girl of privilege and her beau.

Release date: July 30, 1958

Director: Michel Boisrond

Story by: Henry Becque

Number 10 of 25

When aging womanizer Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson) and his young girlfriend, Marin (Amanda Peet), arrive at her family’s beach house in the Hamptons, they find that her mother, dramatist Erica Barry (Diane Keaton), also plans to stay for the weekend. Erica is scandalized by the relationship and Harry’s sexist ways. But when Harry has a heart attack, and a doctor (Keanu Reeves) prescribes bed rest at the Barry home, he finds himself falling for Erica — who, for once, may be out of his league.

Release date: December 12, 2003

Director: Nancy Meyers

Screenplay: Nancy Meyers

Number 9 of 25

When Kate (Meg Ryan) learns that her fiance, Charlie (Timothy Hutton), has become smitten with a young Parisian woman, she boards a plane for France. She is seated next to Luc (Kevin Kline), a small-time crook who uses her to smuggle a stolen necklace, leading Luc to the hotel where she’s staying to confront Charlie. As Kate and Luc get to know each other, their sarcastic rapport grows warmer, and Kate must decide where her heart truly lies as Charlie tries to win her back.

Release date: May 5, 1995

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

Screenplay: Adam Brooks

Music Composed: James Newton Howard

Number 8 of 25

“Amélie” is a fanciful comedy about a young woman who discretely orchestrates the lives of the people around her, creating a world exclusively of her own making. Shot in over 80 Parisian locations, acclaimed director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Delicatessen”; “The City of Lost Children”) invokes his incomparable visionary style to capture the exquisite charm and mystery of modern-day Paris through the eyes of a beautiful ingenue.

Release date: November 2, 2001

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Music composed by: Yann Tiersen

Number 6 of 25

Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre (Jean Sorel). When her lovestruck friend Henri (Michel Piccoli) mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais (Genevieve Page), Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients (Pierre Clémenti) grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.

Release date: April 10, 1968 

Director: Luis Buñuel

Number 4 of 25

A great story told superbly. An all-star cast includes: Glenn Close, Stockard Channing, Sam Waterston  Leslie Caron, Thierry Lhermitte. Story: Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) flies to Paris to visit her pregnant stepsister Roxeanne (Naomi Watts). However, her arrival coincides with her brother-in-law, Charles, walking out to live with his Russian mistress. Isabel, forced to stay in Paris, falls in love with the city and begins an ultimately unsatisfying adulterous affair with an older man.  An unexpected awesome movie ending. 

Release date: August 8, 2003

Director: James Ivory

Screenplay: James Ivory, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala