French movies to watch

Hey all!

For the learners out there looking to watch some French movies, here are my top 5:

  • Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (personal fan of Jean Pierre Jeunet)
  • Le Premier Jour du Reste de ma Vie (a bit old but really good)
  • L’Auberge Espagnol (so funny)
  • Intouchable (a true story and a bit more recent than the others)
  • Les Choristes (surprising and nice soundtrack)
    Bonus
  • Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (so colorful and cheerful!)

What are your personal favorite movies?

8 Likes

J’aime Amélie! It’s the typical French film but I think it helped me fall in love with the French language! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

2 Likes

Great suggestions! I’ve been meaning to check out L’Auberge Espagnol

My personal french favorites:

3 Likes

Hey !
My favourites of 2018 are:

  • Pupille” (the journey of a baby born under X until its adoption, with all the bureaucratic and human stages… with very moving but also very funny situations!!)
  • Les chatouilles” (adapted from a play. The staging is very original and powerful and allows to treat a very serious subject without pathos)
  • Dilili à Paris” (director Michel Ocelot is a magician of colours and here delivers a feminist tale in the Paris of the 1900s. If the story is rather simple, the aesthetics and atmosphere of the film are worth a look!)
    Vive le cinéma ! :film_projector:
3 Likes

@Amandine merci ! I’ve been meaning to watch “Pupille”, I heard so many good critics about it.

From 2018, I loved “Le Grand Bain” from Gilles Lelouche. It was a nice surprise and the actors were great.

2 Likes

Bonjour mes amis,

I wanted to suggest a Canadian movie to the community. One French-English Canadian movie that enjoyed great popularity in the country is certainly Bon Cop, Bad Cop.
The movie deals with the stereotypes that English and French Canadians have towards each other. The Quebec and Ontario Police have to deal with a homicide that happened right at the border of both provinces. The movie is partly in English and partly in French.
There is also a sequel which addresses Canadas relations with its southern neighbour.

6 Likes

I love watching movies in the original language, even if I don’t fully understand them, I try!
I love L’Auberge Espagnol! The actor, Romain Duris, is so great! His character is very authentic and creative :slight_smile:!

My favorite French movies are:

  • 8 femmes
  • Trois couleurs: Bleu, Blanc et Rouge
  • Le violon rouge
  • Ricky
  • Dialogue avec mon jardinier

Some are a bit old and kind of obscure, but really interesting :nerd_face:.

4 Likes

@stefanierambow if you liked L’Auberge espagnole, you should watch the next parts: Les Poupées russes et Casse-tête chinois :wink:

I also liked 8 femmes. Usually the film adaptations (it was initially a play) are quite good! You could also check: Le prénom, Le dîner de cons et Le Père Noël est une ordure. Those are 3 comedies which used to be plays and are now really funny movies.

5 Likes

@Laurena, I’ve watched them all! :tada:
I will keep an eye on those other three though! Thanks!
There is the exact same in German: Der Vorname! Very funny as well!

2 Likes

Bon Cop, Bad Cop is such a gem! If you liked this movie, you’ll probably enjoy Les Boys and Les doigts croches. :grin:

Xavier Dolan’s J’ai tué ma mère, Denys Arcand’s Les invasions barbares and Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. are also worth watching but, of course, they are a bit more serious than Bon Cop, Bad Cop. :wink:

4 Likes

One of my favourites is "Il a déjà tes yeux". It’s a comedic drama about a black couple in the process of adoption, and the racial bias they experience when they take up the opportunity to adopt a white baby. It’s both a serious commentary on racial discrimination and a heartfelt story of a couple experiencing the terror/hilarity of becoming new parents very suddenly. You might find yourself laughing one minute and in tears the next.

Lucien Jean-Baptiste (director and lead co-star of the film) is also in the process of making a TV series of the same name that follows the family a decade after the film takes place. It’s slated to be released in 2020.

6 Likes

@stefanierambow considering your French filmography, I think you’re ready for “Les Bronzés”. :beach_umbrella:

This is the absolute cult French film! Every single French person must have seen it at least a couple times. It’s a comedy and it’s quite an old movie but I think that some of the jokes will still be funny, some will be very stupid and maybe vulgar though (haven’t seen it in a long time so I’m not sure :woman_shrugging:)

5 Likes

Hi dear community !
Thanks for all the recommandation, looking forward to checking them out :slight_smile:
One of my favourite french speaking movies is called "La belle Verte" - telling the story of a woman coming from an utopian planet to visit the Earth, and discovering the french society with her very innocent eyes. I’ve read that this film is probably the only French movie of recent times that talks of nature, environment and importance of greenery in our daily existence. Funny and touching at the same time :four_leaf_clover:

3 Likes

Bonjour tout le monde !

Some time ago I talked to a person who was learning French to work as a doctor in a French environment. I then thought about three recent films directed by Thomas Lilti: Hippocrate, Un médecin de campagne and Première année. A very good, quite thorough yet light overview of today’s French medical field.
Thomas Lilti is not only a film director but has also worked as a family doctor!

5 Likes

I watched the first half of this last night and loved it! Not only is it (as you said) a fun but serious movie, but the dialog is also fairly easy for a novice (like me!) to follow along, with subtitles on.

I’m in the US, and this movie is available on Netflix. I found myself pausing the movie frequently to look up words, etc, which really helped.

3 Likes

I love watching lighthearted French movies whenever I fly internationally. Most recently I watched Un Peu Beaucoup Aveuglément (trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYYafHsTEmc) which has exactly the kind of ridiculous setup and comedy I look for in a long plane flight. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Salut à tout le monde!

Pour ceux qui sont un peu plus avancé, je recommande Le Père Noël est une Ordure. It’s definitely on the more adult and french side of comedy, but I remember watching around Easter with my parents every year. They for sure had a sense of humor, watching a Christmas movie for Easter.

2 Likes