With the 2024 Paris Olympics just days away, it’s an excellent time to indulge in all the excellent things France has contributed to world culture — especially movies. We Americans tend to regard French films as a subset of our beloved, blockbuster-y pastime. We might occasionally try a French movie at an art-house theater or on the Criterion Channel, if we’re in the mood for entertainment that seems more artistic, intellectual or sexy in a grown-up way.
But a country’s cinematic imports also can be a fun, easy way to get to know that country. We love the French films listed here for those reasons. For one thing, they offer plenty of scenery: of the streets of Paris, the gorgeous countryside, cool cafes, beautiful salons or Alpine chalets.
But they also present compelling stories that show mostly chic, attractive people going about their daily lives or getting themselves into all sorts of human dramas. French films also deserve their due because some historians believe their early creators invented movies, starting with the Lumiere brothers and their Cinématographe in 1895, which allowed them to project onto a big screen a 49-second film of a train arriving at a station. By 1902, Georges Méliès had produced “A Trip to the Moon,” the first science-fiction film with special effects, while the world’s largest movie studio was soon operating in Paris.
Of course, Hollywood ultimately dominated global cinema, in part because France was overrun by two world wars..