What is the best French movie of all time?

From the New Wave's radical rule-breaking to contemporary Cannes contenders, French cinema has produced some of the world's most emotionally devastating films. Cast your vote!

1. 1
   The Grand Illusion

   Jean Renoir's 1937 anti-war masterpiece set in a German POW camp, celebrating human solidarity across class and national divides — the first non-English film nominated for Best Picture.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The 400 Blows

   François Truffaut's semiautobiographical 1959 New Wave classic following a misunderstood Parisian boy's drift into petty crime, ending on the iconic freeze-frame at the ocean.
   825pts
3. 3
   La Haine

   Mathieu Kassovitz's explosive 1995 black-and-white portrait of three young men from the Paris suburbs in the 24 hours following a riot, searing in its urgency and relevance.
   562pts
4. 4
   Army of Shadows

   Jean-Pierre Melville's crushing 1969 portrait of the French Resistance — grim, procedural, and morally merciless — suppressed for decades before rediscovery.
   562pts
5. 5
   Rififi

   Jules Dassin's 1955 heist noir featuring the definitive 28-minute silent robbery sequence, the template for virtually every heist film that followed.
   375pts
6. 6
   Eyes Without a Face

   Georges Franju's 1960 horror poem about a surgeon who disfigures young women to restore his daughter's destroyed face, hauntingly beautiful and deeply unsettling.
   375pts
7. 7
   A Prophet

   Jacques Audiard's visceral 2009 prison epic charting a young Arab man's brutal self-education inside a French jail, widely seen as one of the defining crime films of its era.
   225pts
8. 8
   Blue Is the Warmest Colour

   Abdellatif Kechiche's Palme d'Or-winning 2013 coming-of-age love story following a young woman's intense relationship across years, praised for its emotional rawness.
   1pts
9. 9
   Au Revoir les Enfants

   Louis Malle's autobiographical 1987 wartime drama about the friendship between a French schoolboy and a Jewish child hiding in a Catholic boarding school during the Occupation.
   1pts
10. 10
    Portrait of a Lady on Fire

    Céline Sciamma's 2019 period romance about a painter and her subject falling in love on an isolated Breton island, shot in natural light with exquisite restraint.
    1pts
11. 11
    The Intouchables

    Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano's 2011 feel-good hit about an unlikely friendship between a quadriplegic aristocrat and his street-smart caretaker, France's highest-grossing film for years.
    1pts
12. 12
    Playtime

    Jacques Tati's 1967 architectural comedy-ballet — filmed on a giant set nicknamed Tativille — a meditative satire on modern urban life shot entirely in 70mm.
    1pts
13. 13
    Amélie

    Jean-Pierre Jeunet's whimsical 2001 romantic comedy about a shy Montmartre waitress who secretly orchestrates happiness for others, becoming France's most beloved modern export.
    1pts
14. 14
    Breathless

    Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 New Wave landmark about a small-time crook on the run, revolutionizing cinema with jump cuts, improvised dialogue, and Belmondo's magnetic charm.
    1pts
15. 15
    The Rules of the Game

    Jean Renoir's razor-sharp 1939 social satire set at a country estate, considered by critics one of the greatest films ever made and a brutal X-ray of class hypocrisy.
    1pts