French: your favourite films

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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby GriLtCheeZ » Thu Nov 16, 2017 12:50 am

I'll second La Haine. Mathieu Kassovitz who was the male lead in Amelie directed it.

A film called "Bye-Bye" About two brothers of Tunisian decent who moved from Paris to Marseille after their brother dies. I have the French DVD of it, and it has been uploaded to Vimeo I believe. The film reminds me of the song "Petite Frere" by French rap group IAM

Delicatessen, and City of Lost Children.

Anything by the Dardenne Brother's from Belgium. La Promesse, The Kid with a Bike, Rosetta, Two Days One Night, and most recently The Unknown Girl, and others.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby nooj » Sun May 27, 2018 7:47 pm

Un prophète is my favourite French film of all time.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby jeffers » Wed Jul 07, 2021 2:21 pm

A few of my favourite French films:

Le dîner de cons possibly the funniest film I have seen in any language.
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (to give it its full French title). Utterly charming and lovely film. I've watched it 4 or 5 times, and I even made an English/French parallel copy of the transcript and read it through.
Le Petit Nicolas and Les Vacances du Petit Nicolas I love the books, and I love the films. Many of the incidents in the films are taken right from the books, but they are done so well and the acting is spot on. There is a third one coming soon, hopefully it will be good as well, although the actors will all be different.


Among some of the "greats" of French cinema, I found the following to be quite enjoyable:
À bout de souffle (Breathless), quite an enjoyable film about a petty criminal in Paris and his American girlfriend.
Les Quatre Cents Coups a semi-autobiographical film by François Truffaut, quite a charming film.
Last edited by jeffers on Wed Jul 07, 2021 8:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby Le Baron » Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:30 pm

I watch a lot of films in French so hard to choose, but I'll pick a few that have made an impression upon me.

Les Valseuses (Bertrand Blier, 1974). First saw this many years ago on TV, when I was probably not old enough to be watching it. I kept asking my mother, 'what does that mean, what does this mean..' Anyway I've seen it a few times since and it still gives me a good laugh. I watched it again very recently. All three main stars: Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere, Miou-Miou put in excellent performances.

Juste Avant La Nuit (Claude Chabrol, 1971). I only saw this about 10 years ago. Excellent film with another morally ambiguous storyline. Stéphane Audran (Chabrol's wife) is very good in this, and I always like her languorous beauty.

Plein Soleil (René Clément, 1960). The first adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley. Alain Delon is superb in this. Charming, sinister, devious, innocent/guilty, amoral but with pangs of conscience. One of my favourite films in any language.

Borsalino (Jacques Deray, can't remember the year). A classic gangster romp with Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Deray's Flic Story is also good. Belmondo is good in so many films: L'Homme De Rio with the lovely Françoise Dorléac; Cartouche; Peur Sur La Ville; Le Casse with Omar Sharif; Le Professionel...

Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962). Probably the French film I've watched most. I taped this when it was on the telly. Bought it on VHS after wearing that one out. Then bought it on DVD later.

Violette Nozière (1978) another Claude Chabrol film. Isabelle Huppert's first major role. Fascinating film if a bit downbeat. The decor is excellent. It keeps turning up on You Tube now and again.

Le Corniaud (Gérard Oury, 1965) An absolute Bourvil/de Funès classic. From that opening scene where Bourvil's 2CV collapses. :lol: One of the best comedy-crime caper films of the 60s. Better than La Grande Vadrouille imo, even though that's also good. Other Bourvil films I like are Le Tracassin and his dramatic role with Delon in Melville's Le Cercle Rouge.

There are many others, but I think this list is quite long enough.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby badger » Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:15 am

Des hommes et des dieux - based on a true story about a community of Cistercian monks in Algeria during the civil war & featuring the rather wonderful Michael Lonsdale.

Loin des hommes - based on the Camus short story L'Hôte from the collection L'exil et le royaume

Incendies

37° 2 le matin (aka Betty Blue) - a classic

Monsieur Lazhar

Indigènes / Hors-la-loi

Un prophète

these are all relatively recent, but I'm just starting on some of the Nouvelle Vague stuff - Les Quatre Cents Coups, etc.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby Le Baron » Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:42 pm

badger wrote:Des hommes et des dieux - based on a true story about a community of Cistercian monks in Algeria during the civil war & featuring the rather wonderful Michael Lonsdale.

I have this one, but I've watched all of ten minutes of it. I recorded it from BBC2 some years ago (when I still had a telly). I should watch it.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:17 pm

Danielle Darrieux made several comedies with Albert Prejean in the 1930s. Of the ones I've seen I liked Quelle drôle de gosse enough to rewatch it afew times.

I also especially like another of her films, Occupe-toi d'Amélie (this is adapted from a stage play).
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby dedalus66 » Fri Jul 09, 2021 11:06 pm

La Bataille d'Alger - while it is technically an Italian film, much of the dialogue is in French. An absolute classic! Another one which I have not seen mentioned, incidentally also based in Algeria, would be Loin des Hommes, with Viggo Mortensen. Quite a gripping tale with some marvellous shots of the Algerian desert.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby Kraut » Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:33 am

annule
Last edited by Kraut on Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: French: your favourite films

Postby Kraut » Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:35 am

La Guerre du Feu
La Bete du Gevaudan
Un Sac de Billes 1975
Les Visiteurs
Monsieur Klein
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