French Cinema

Gaspar Noé’s psychedelic, unflinching journey through life and death, a defining work of New French Extremity set in neon-soaked Tokyo.

Claire Denis' fully formed debut offers a child’s-eye-view of racial and sexual tension that bubbles with unspoken desires.

A cash-strapped student becomes an escort exposing the stark realities of economic exploitation in this uncompromising gritty French drama.

Jacques Rivette’s biggest commercial hit is an exhilarating combination of theatricality, paranoia and ‘la vie parisienne’, around an entrancing examination of making and watching films.

A ménage à trois stirs passion and jealousy beside a secluded pool in this sultry, French cult-thriller.

Jean-Jacques Beineix’s story of a volatile, highly sexual relationship was one of the most successful French films of the 1980s.

Co-written with Céline Sciamma, Noémie Merlant’s bold film follows three friends as they dispose of the body of an abuser they’ve accidentally killed.

Bresson’s hugely influential study of a petty thief in late 50s Paris is one of his most widely acclaimed films.

Kristen Stewart plays a celebrity's personal shopper, who keeps receiving strange text messages from an unknown source.

Francois Ozon’s sly and seductive account of teenage girl’s dalliance with high-class prostitution.

A grieving man becomes convinced he is being framed for murder in Guillaume Canet’s gripping thriller, adapted from the Harlan Coben bestseller.

A salesman becomes obsessed by an icy prostitute against the backdrop of a hellish Paris, in this arthouse erotica from Walerian Borowczyk (The Beast)

Albert Serra’s hypnotic Palme d'Or-nominated drama about the greed and hypocrisy of colonial power in Tahiti.

An acclaimed conductor strikes up a relationship with a brother he never knew he had in this touching French drama with echoes of Brassed Off.

This rollicking take on Dumas’ swashbuckler, packed with lavish spectacle and high-stakes drama, slayed all Hollywood films at the French box-office.

An incontestable masterpiece of silent cinema, Carl Dreyer's moving biopic features one of the most powerful performances ever captured on film.

Shockingly explicit, Catherine Breillat’s critically acclaimed Romance is one of the most controversial films of modern cinema.

Ruth Rendell provides the source novel for this delicious tale of deception and identity, from the master of mischievous melodrama, François Ozon.

François Truffaut’s French New Wave landmark is one of the greatest movies about adolescence.

Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the 1940s, executed with typically Gallic cool.

Siblings find passion and peril online and in the real world, in this visually electric French drama.

Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic, nail-biting suspense thriller won both The Golden Bear and the Palme d'Or in 1953.

A director struggles to film a difficult sex scene with two actors who hate each other, in Catherine Breillat's exploration of intimacy coordination.

Jean-Jacques Annaud's powerful, intimate, and sensual adaptation of the best-selling novel by Marguerite Duras.

Six-year-old Cléo spends a final summer with her beloved nanny Gloria, in this profoundly moving story of chosen family, duty and innocence lost.

Georges Franju’s gorgeous, poetic horror film about a surgeon’s dark obsession with restoring his daughter’s disfigured face.

Happily married Bernard (Gérard Depardieu) has his life is thrown into turmoil when Mathilde (Fanny Ardant) - an old flame - moves into the house opposite.

Magical retelling of the Orpheus myth by poet, playwright, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.

Separated from Christine and uncertain about his latest relationship, Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) has finally written a novel inspired by his own experiences in this final chapter of François Truffaut’s series.

Gaspar Noé's retina-searing shocker about an assault and its revenge, told in reverse chronology and starring Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.

Jean Cocteau’s ravishingly restored 1946 film is a cinematic classic.

François Truffaut’s hugely popular classic depicts one of cinema’s most captivating love triangles

Catherine Deneuve shines as the director and lead actor of a Parisian theatre struggling to survive under the Nazi occupation in Truffaut's wartime drama.

Truffaut’s Palme d'Or-nominated account of an ill-starred adulterous affair boasts Hitchcockian precision and pitch-perfect performances.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s film of Jean Cocteau's controversial novel about a teenage brother and sister and their intense, closeted relationship.

Naively idealistic and largely inept both in his dealings with women and in any job, Antoine clumsily courts Christine while working for a private detective agency.

The first feature by Barbet Schroeder (Maîtresse, The Valley), More created a sensation when it was released in 1969, quickly becoming a cult classic and famed for its Pink Floyd soundtrack.

Jean Rollin’s hauntingly poetic horror about a man trying to solve the riddle of a tormenting childhood memory.

Bresson’s superb final film and Cannes winner is a Tolstoy adaptation relating how a prank with a forged bank note leads to tragedy.

Different worlds collide when a chic young diplomat's wife meets an intriguing adventurer and his hippy friends in Barbet Schroeder's striking second feature.

Gerard Depardieu plays the young innocent who falls for the mysterious maitresse Ariane (Bulle Ogier), a leather clad dominatrix, in Barbet Schroeder’s controversial film.