French Films - The Essential Guide to the Cinema of France

French movies have always had an enormous global appeal, and few countries can match La Belle France for the diversity and quality of its cinema. This guide - one of the biggest of its kind - was created over twenty years ago to increase awareness of French cinema and help people like you discover the amazing cinematic jewels that France has given us over the past 100 years.

This site contains thousands of original articles that will guide you through France's rich legacy of film, and also keep you up to date with recent releases. One way to get to know another nation is through its cinema. Hopefully, this site will help achieve that, bridging the gap between the English and French-speaking worlds, whilst promoting cultural diversity. Bienvenue dans le monde fabuleux du cinéma français!

French cinema's main attraction is its remarkable diversity. It offers not only a cornucopia of auteur masterpieces, which explore complex themes and push back the boundaries of film art, but also a dazzling array of commercial movies catering for just about every taste.

The history of France since 1895, the year in which cinema is reputed to have been born, is vividly reflected in the country's 'moving picture' output, which sheds some valuable insights on the psyche of the nation across a turbulent and traumatic century.

Explore the work of some of the world's great filmmakers, many of whom just happen to be French...

Who were the artistic visionaries who made cinema such an enduring and popular art form?

Discover the great luminaries of La Nouvelle Vague......

Rediscover the work of some of France's finest and most famous actors:

And who can resist the great actresses that have graced French cinema over the decades?:

Of course, France does not hold the monopoly on great cinema and it would be a crime to omit those magnificent pieces from other countries, be they timeless Hollywood classics or astonishing works of art from such legendary cineastes as Sergei Eisenstein, Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray.