Top 10 French movies to watch next weekend

I have often been asked for a list of the best French movies to watch. This is a selection of 10 popular movies, easy to watch who have been seen by any French person you would meet. Hope you will enjoy this selection 🙂

Comment this article with the name of YOUR favorite French movie.

1. Intouchables (The Intouchables)

An irreverent, uplifting comedy about friendship, trust and human possibility, The Intouchables has broken box office records in its native France and across Europe. Based on a true story of friendship between a handicap millionaire (Francois Cluzet) and his street smart ex-con caretaker (Omar Sy), The Intouchables depicts an unlikely camaraderie rooted in honesty and humor between two individuals who, on the surface, would seem to have nothing in common.

2. Les Choristes (The Chorus)

Les Choristes, inspired by the 1947 film La Cage aux Rossignols. Wildly successful orchestra conductor Pierre Morhange (Jacques Perrin) returns home when his mother dies. He recollects his childhood inspirations through the pages of a diary kept by his old music teacher Clément Mathieu (Gérard Jugnot). Back in the late ’40s, little Pierre (Jean-Baptiste Maunier) is the badly behaved son of single mother Violette (Marie Bunel). He attends a dreary boarding school presided over by strict headmaster Rachin (François Berléand). New teacher Mathieu brightens up the place and organizes a choir, leading to the discovery of Pierre’s musical talents.

3. Amélie

“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 invokes his incomparable visionary style to capture the exquisite charm and mystery of modern-day Paris through the eyes of a beautiful ingenue.

4. Le Dîner de cons (The dinner game)

Le diner de cons, about a competition among a group of friends to see who can find the stupidest person to bring to dinner (as indicated by the original French title, since “con” means someone who’s a total dumbbell). The dinners are held each Wednesday night, and French publisher Pierre Brochant (Thierry Lhermitte) has found a world class nincompoop — Finance Ministry accountant Francois Pignon (Jacques Villeret) who uses matchsticks to build small-scale replicas of monuments. Things quickly go awry after Pierre wrenches his back at golf. He nevertheless makes an effort to attend the dinner with his prize dunce. Francois arrives at Pierre’s luxury apartment, but Pierre is in such pain they never exit the apartment for the dinner. Instead, Pierre is trapped in a situation where Francois’ stupidity turns his life into a comic hell.

5. L’Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment)

Xavier (Romain Duris) is a French university student who moves to Barcelona, Spain, to learn Spanish in order to score a desirable job. Residing in a house with other young Europeans of varied nationalities, Xavier has a life-altering experience living in such an international environment. After a visit by his girlfriend, Martine (Audrey Tautou), Xavier realizes that she may not be the one for him, and starts to fall for a friend’s wife, the lovely Anne-Sophie (Judith Godrèche).

6. Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement)

Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) is told that her fiancé (Gaspard Ulliel) has been killed in World War I. She refuses to believe this, however, and begins trying to find out what actually happened on the battlefield the night he was supposedly killed, enlisting the help of a private investigator. During her search, she stumbles across evidence of the inhumane and morally bankrupt system used by the French to deal with deserters, and hears from other men who were sentenced to extreme punishment.

7. Jeux d’enfants (Love me if you dare)

Part romantic comedy and part black comedy, director Yann Samuell’s 2003 feature film debut Jeux d’Enfants (Love Me if You Dare) follows the exploits of two young would-be lovers as they go from childhood to adulthood with themselves as the greatest hurdle to their own happiness. Julien and Sophie first meet at the age of eight when both are undergoing great trauma: Julien is watching his mother die and Sophie has become the focus of intense hazing at the hands of some fellow schoolmates. On one fateful day, Julien decides to stick up for Sophie and pulls a practical joke on her tormentors. Henceforth, the two embark on a close friendship that revolves around daring each other to pull increasingly audacious practical jokes, rather than on the seemingly obvious intimate relationship they seem dangerously close to discovering at any moment. Jeux d’Enfants was selected for inclusion into the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival as well as that same year’s Telluride International Film Festival.

8. Qu‘est-ce qu’on a fait au bon Dieu? (Serial (Bad) Weddings)

French comedy directed by Philippe de Chauveron about a wealthy Catholic couple (Christian Clavier) and (Chantal Lauby) who are dismayed when three of their daughters marry outside their religion and ethnicity. The couple holds out hope that their only unmarried daughter will someday marry a Catholic and “save” the family’s honor. When she does indeed get engaged to a Catholic, her parents are at first overjoyed until they discover he is a black man from the Ivory Coast. While the couple struggles to come to terms with their racist tendencies, the fiancé’s family comes for a visit, harboring their own feelings of prejudice and snobbery.

9. Je vais bien, ne t‘en fais pas (Don’t worry, I’m fine)

Lili, 19 years old, returning from holiday, learns that Loïc, her twin brother, has quit the house after a violent dispute with their father. The weeks pass with no news and Lili is so concerned that she lets herself go. Refusing to eat, she is hospitalised when a letter arrives from her brother. Living off small jobs, he judges their father responsible for their little lives and renounces him forever. Reassured, Lili recovers, leaves hospital and sets out to find Loïc. What she discovers is beyond her understanding and will make a woman of her

10. Bienvenue Chez Les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks)

Dany Boon wrote, directed and costars in this rousing rural comedy about a man born and raised on France’s Southern coast who is exiled to the Northern territories. Philippe (Kad Merad) helps run a small-town post office in France. His wife Julie has been down in the dumps, so he hatches a plan to move to the Cote d’Azur. But Philippe fails to secure a transfer and is relocated to Bergues, a village in Northern France where the language is unfamiliar and the culture is strangely foreign.