French Cinema

From the New Wave to poetic realism and cinéma vérité, French cinema takes many forms and offers endless delights.

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  • Love Rites

    When Hugo meets the enigmatic Myriam on the Paris Metro, he finds himself becoming increasingly obsessed with her. Following her back to her flat, Hugo sleeps with her, but finds that his obsession has grown until Myriam seems to have total control over his body and soul. The final film of cult f...

  • Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud

    Young and beautiful, Nelly is a spirited 25-year-old seeking refuge from her mounting debts and decaying marriage. Lost, she finds her way into the life of an older gentleman, Mr Arnaud, as he clears her debts and offers her work writing his memoirs. Shortly after, she divorces her leeching husba...

  • Alphaville

    In Godard's dystopian sci-fi, detective Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) travels to the soulless technopolis of Alphaville on a secret mission to capture the dictatorial Professor Von Braun and destroy the Alpha 60 computer that has outlawed human emotions. Love comes to his aid in the form of ...

  • Water Drops on Burning Rocks

    Fassbinder wrote the script for his first full-length play when he was 19, the same age as Franz (Malik Zidi) when he is picked up by the worldly Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau), and seduced into a relationship that soon sours. As Franz’s naïve fiancée Anna and Léo’s former lover Véra turn up at thei...

  • Baise-moi

    This film is a blunt, brash and blood-smeared revenge tale of two sex workers who decide to go on a killing spree through France. Co-directed by French feminist provocateur Despentes, and based on her book, Baise-moi does not care for cinematic slickness, instead using handheld visuals and raw la...

  • Max mon amour

    When British diplomat Peter Jones suspects his wife of infidelity, he is stunned to discover that the ‘other man’ is a chimpanzee. On a whim, he invites his hairy rival to move into the luxurious family home – more out of curiosity than jealousy – leading to uncomfortable dinner parties, ...

  • Les Revenants

    During daylight, an army of living dead begin pouring out of cemeteries around the world. At a local town council meeting in France, officials discuss the logistics of sheltering these refugees from beyond, many of whom end up in Red Cross tents. As the phenomena develops, unexpected reunions occ...

  • Themroc

    Prolific French star Michel Piccoli throws himself – quite literally in some scenes – into the role of Themroc, a factory labourer who, worn down by the relentless and brain-numbing tedium of his job, suffers a catastrophic meltdown. It causes him to regress to a neanderthal state, communicating ...

  • Le Mépris

    Based on Moravia’s novel, Jean-Luc Godard’s sardonic look at the world of filmmaking boasts superb performances by Michel Piccoli as a compromised writer, Brigitte Bardot as his bored wife, Jack Palance as a manipulative producer and Fritz Lang as himself, about to film Homer’s Odyssey in Cinecit...

  • Maléfique

    A devoted family man, Carrère’s life takes a crushing turn when he is arrested for financial fraud. Confined to a grimy cell with inmates guilty of far darker crimes, he soon discovers they all share a single desire: to escape. Hope emerges when the group uncover a book of black magic once wielde...

  • 5x2

    Five milestone scenes from a couple’s life – from that giddy first meeting through to marriage, birth, infidelity and annulment – are painfully played out in reverse chronological order in François Ozon’s examination of the theatrical nature of relationships. With the benefit of hindsight, the au...

  • Mr. Blake at Your Service!

    Recently widowed Andrew Blake decides to leave his business in England and return to France, the country where he first met his late wife. Hoping to reconnect with his past, he takes a job as a butler in a grand but eccentric estate. What begins as an attempt to escape his grief soon turns into s...

  • Irreversible

    Irreversible is perhaps one of the cruelest films ever made. Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) set off on a blind rage of revenge after the former’s girlfriend Alex (Monica Bellucci) is raped. The twist is that their revenge spools out in reverse. Noé structured his notorious s...

  • The Pornographer

    When the son of former porn filmmaker Jacques Laurent found out what his father did for living, he ran away from home and refused to have any contact with him. Laurent put an end to his career. Many years later, his financial problems meant he had to take up his old profession again. The professi...

  • Criminal Lovers

    A retelling of the Hansel and Gretel tale through a tacky tabloid lens and a distinct anti-authority vibe, this early Ozon film is sensationalistic by design. Teenage Alice (Régnier) convinces her boyfriend to murder her lover, but after the deed is done they're both trapped by a strange old man ...

  • Merci la vie

    When teenager Camille comes across Joëlle, a young woman who has just been dumped by her boyfriend, the two soon form a fast friendship. Guiding her new friend through the darker side of sex, Joëlle is also grappling with the unscrupulous Doctor Worms, who is using her as a sexual pawn in a cr...

  • Them (aka Ils)

    A French couple vacationing in an idyllic country house in Bucharest are targeted by mysterious assailants who lure them into a sadistic game of survival. One of the key films of the 'New French Extremity' movement of the early 00s, David Moreau and Xavier Palud's nerve-wracking shocker was appar...