The Devil’s Manor (1896)
The Devil Causes Mischief
An early Georges Melies whimsy only a few minutes long in which The Devil appears and causes mischief
French Cinema
The history of French Cinema is the history of the beginnings of cinema – from the very first films made by the Lumiere Brothers, which screened in Paris in 1895, to some of the first science-fiction and fantasy films by Georges Melies who pioneered most of the major special effects techniques.
France has produced a steady stream of films since. Its next major wave of genre output came during the French New Wave of the 1950s and 60s, which produced a series of experimental films that broke with Hollywood narrative and technique, creating a series of surrealistic, sometimes extraordinary, often baffling and pseudo-intellectual works.
France has its steady output of films that are light comedies, popular thrillers and action films, as well as a strong output of drama and independent works that usually defy a Hollywood norm. From the 1980s onwards, one of the major producers of genre cinema has come from Luc Besson who operates in the action, science-fiction and fantasy genres.
The other major intersection with genre material came during the so-called French Extremism movement of the mid-late 2000s involving a series of horror films that pushed gore, sadism and blood-letting to unbearably brutal levels.
Regular genre contributors from France include Alexandra Aja, Olivier Assayas, Enki Bilal, Alexandre Bustillo, Leos Carax, Marc Caro, Helene Cattet, Sylvain Chomet, Rene Clair, Jean Cocteau, Marina de Van, Claire Denis, Julia Ducournau, Quentin Dupieux, Bruno Forzani, Abel Gance, Christophe Gans, Xavier Gens, Jean-Luc Godard, Michel Gondry, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rene Laloux, Pascal Laugier, Louis Malle, Chris Marker, Julien Maury, Georges Melies, Dominik Moll, David Moreau, Gaspar Noe, Michel Ocelot, Francois Ozon, Xavier Palud, Pitof, Thierry Poiraud, Jean-Marie Poire, Jean Renoir, Alain Resnais, Jean Rollin and Roger Vadim.
A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Expedition to the Moon/Comedy
Often misidentified as the first science-fiction film, Georges Melies’s short is a whimsy involving comedic exploits on the Lunar surface. Hardly serious as SF but an undeniably iconic work made with enormous sophistication for the day
An Impossible Voyage (1904)
Train Journey Into Space
Georges Melies’ successor to A Trip to the Moon featuring a journey to the sun by astronauts aboard a combination train-submarine-dirigible. A charming whimsy with remarkably technically accomplished effects for the era
J’Accuse (1919)
Anti-War Film
Extraordinary filmmaking from Abel Gance made at the height of the silent era. Gance was deeply affected by World War I and makes an epic anti-war parable that stuns you with its cinematic craft
L’Atlantide (1921)
Lost World/Immortal Queen
The first and best film version of a classic story about an expedition finding the city ruled by an immortal queen in the desert. This was shot in the real locations and comes with a stunning sense of expansiveness
The Crazy Ray (1925)
Paris Frozen in Time
An experimental silent film from the great Rene Clair that depicts a group of people who remain unaffected as all of Paris around them has been frozen in time by a ray experiment
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
Silent Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
Early silent adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story that treats the story liberally, drops Poe’s mood of desolation and despair for one more of melancholy, but holds an undeniable style
Un Chien Andalou (1928)
Surrealism
Famous surrealist short film made as a collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, full of the shock juxtapositions and symbolism you associate with either
L’Age d’Or (1930)
Surrealism
This collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali is not much more than a plotless series of surrealistic images, which are frequently calculated to outrage
The Blood of a Poet (1930)
Surrealism
Early film from Jean Cocteau that consists of a progression of surreal situations. Dreamy and occasionally interesting
The Devil’s Envoys (1942)
The Devil Tempts Innocent Lovers
Beautifully pure-hearted French Wartime allegory set during the Middle Ages about The Devil who has sent out envoys to tempt mortals into damnation via affairs of the heart
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Fairy-Tale
Jean Cocteau makes one of the greatest of all fantasy films and the finest of all fairytale adaptations, elaborating the original story out with a visual magic that still manages to dazzle audiences today
Orphee (1950)
Modernised Greek Myth
Jean Cocteau’s beautiful modernisation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice updated to post-War France
Beauties of the Night (1952)
Daydreamer's Fantasies
Delightful and completely charming Rene Clair comedy about a daydreamer. A much better version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty than either of the official film adaptations
Les Diaboliques (1955)
Psycho-Thriller
Classic French psycho-thriller that is gripping in its psychological games before reaching an unforgettable twist ending. It has been twice remade and its plot much imitated by others but never bettered
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1956)
Deformity/Historical Romance
Largely overlooked, this is the first version of the story in colour and has a lavishness that the previous versions lacked. On the minus side, Anthony Quinn’s Quasimodo is no more than a simpleton lacking in pathos
The Testament of Dr Cordelier (1959)
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Adaptation
Jean Renoir is considered one of the greatest of all film directors – this is his only venture into genre material, a version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Though Renoir seems disinterested in making a horror film, he offers up the most faithful interpretation of the story on screen to date
Eyes Without a Face (1959)
Mad Killer Surgeon
Classic French thriller about a mad surgeon who abducts women to graft their faces onto his disfigured daughter. The film has a rare visual poetry combined with moments of horror that are still effective decades later
The Hands of Orlac (1960)
Possessed Hands
The third film and least version of the classic horror story about a pianist who receives hands transplanted from a murderer and is driven mad believing they are possessing him
Blood and Roses (1960)
Lesbian Vampire/Carmilla Adaptation
Roger Vadim conducts a very sofctore adaptation the classic vampire story Carmilla but this seems pallid and bloodless in contrast to the Hammer Films of the same period, not to mention their later adaptations of the same story
The Testament of Orpheus (1960)
French Existentialism/Meta-Fictional Autobiography
Jean Cocteau’s follow-up to his earlier Orpheus becomes an opportunity where Cocteau makes an autobiographical films, revisiting his own life and works
Last Year in Marienbad (1961)
French New Wave/Time and Memory
An extraordinary work from the French New Wave filled with incredible visuals as lovers drift through an ornate hotel where memory and time itself seems to shift
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961)
Deathdream
Famous short film adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce short story that patented the twist ending in which someone discovers that have been dead all along
The Trial (1962)
Bureaucratic Nightmare World/Kafka Adaptation
Orson Welles’s adaptation of the Frank Kafka novel about a man caught in a nightmare bureaucracy is one of the most visually stunning black-and-white films ever shot
La Jetee (1962)
French New Wave/Time Paradox
Chris Marker’s celebrated 28 minute time paradox film, an experimental work that was made at the height of the French New Wave. This later became the basis of Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys
Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1965)
Comic-Book Character
The second in a duo of live-action French-language adaptations of Herge’s famous comic-book character, which gets the resemblance to the characters almost perfect
Alphaville (1965)
French New Wave/Intergalactic Detective
Surrealistic cinematic joke from French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard that mashes up film noir and SF where hard-boiled detective travels to another planet represented by contemporary Paris
Attack of the Robots (1966)
Spy Film/Mind-Controlled Assassins
The title is misleading as the film doesn’t feature any robots but a group of mind-controlled assassins. An entry in the mid-1960s spy film fad from cult exploitation director Jess Franco
The Diabolical Dr Z (1966)
Mind-Controlled Femme Fatale
An early film from Jess Franco in which an exotic dancer is turned into a mind-controlled assassin who lures and kills victims with her six-inch long fingernails as part of a revenge scheme
Weekend (1967)
French New Wave/Downfall of Civilisation
Jean-Luc Godard’s classic of the French New Wave where a couple’s journey into the countryside for the weekend becomes increasingly more surreal and anarchic
The Rape of the Vampire (1968)
Arty Vampire Erotica
Director Jean Rollin gained a cult following with his erotically fetishised, strikingly poetic vampire films, of which this was the first. Viewing the film today, one has more than a few problems with the title
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1968)
Edgar Allan Poe Anthology
Trilogy of Edgar Allan Poe tales from three European directors. Roger Vadim’s opening episode drags but both Louis Malle and Federico Fellini deliver standout works in their respective segments
Barbarella (1968)
Softcore Space Opera
Charmingly capricious and silly adaptation of the comic-strip with a wide-eyed Jane Fonda as the spacegoing heroine. Filled with some wonderfully naughty gags and a production and costume design scheme that goes to a gorgeously deranged excess
Je T’aime, Je T’aime (1968)
French New Wave/Time Travel
French New Wave SF film from director Alain Resnais about a time machine. The idea of a protagonist travelling at random through his own memory is predictive of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five
Donkey Skin (1970)
Absurdist Fairytale
Eccentric French fairytale filled with appealingly absurdist and surreal touches and with visuals that remind of the extravagance of a Barbarella. Charming and visually engaging
The Blood Rose (1970)
Continental Gothic/Mad Surgery
Influenced by the classic Eyes Without a Face, this is a work of French Gothic about an aristocrat trying to find the right woman to use her face for his disfigured wife
The Naked Vampire (1970)
Arty Vampire Erotica
The second in the works of arty vampire erotica that gained French director Jean Rollin a cult following. The surreal visuals and in particular the costuming make for mind-boggling visuals
Viva La Muerte (1971)
Sadism and Surrealism
Obscure film in which director Fernando Arrabal depicts a series of vignettes from his childhood depicting the sadism and cruelty of the Spanish Fascists
Le Frisson des Vampires (1971)
Arty Vampire Erotica
One of the early films of French director Jean Rollin who gained a cult following for his vampire films that offer a near-plotless blend of artily surreal imagery and erotica
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil (1971)
Two Girls Cause Mischief and Malice/Devil Worship
A film that was the cause of much censorship controversy when it came out where two teenage girls decide to become devil worshippers and engage on a spree of cruel and malicious acts
Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (1972)
Comic-Book Character/Animation
Animated adaptation of the Tintin character that gets the look and details of the characters just right but is ruined by bad dubbing of some of the voice parts and allowing a slapstick element to take over
The Daughter of Dracula (1972)
Lesbian Vampire Film
Prolific exploitation director Jess Franco makes an entry in the early 1970s fad for lesbian vampire films. This has more softcore erotic content than other entries, although the Dracula part of the title is a misnomer
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
Surrealism
An Academy Award winning film from the great iconoclast Luis Buñuel, a series of surreal vignettes as a group of friends set out to dinner but always end up being prevented in strange ways
Requiem for a Vampire (1972)
Arty Vampire Erotica
The fourth of the works of arty vampire erotica from cult director Jean Rollin. Rollin has discovered more in the way of plot by this point, while the film has a beautifully dreamy fairytale-like quality
The Bare-Breasted Countess (1973)
Vampire Erotica
Another of the films from cult exploitation director Jess Franco. This is a vampire film made with a mix of arty erotica with Lina Romay as Countess Irina Karlstein who drains men and women’s lifeforce during sex
Fantastic Planet (1973)
Bizarre Alien Planet/Animation
The first film from French animator Rene Laloux, a trippily surreal vision and one of the few portraits of a genuinely alien world on film
Themroc (1973)
Reversion to Barbarism Satire
Anarchic French film entirely without dialogue as a group of people in an apartment begin to revert to pre-civilised behaviour
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
French New Wave/Mysterious House
Vastly over-praised French New Wave film that is a ghost story of sorts. Three hours plus of tediously protracted happenings that don’t seem to be about anything at all
Tender Dracula (1974)
Comedy About a Horror Actor
An obscure French comedy in which Peter Cushing plays a vampire or more correctly plays a horror actor used to playing vampires. Assorted extremely unfunny shenanigans running around his castle ensue
Immoral Tales (1974)
Erotic Anthology/Countess Bathory Story
One of the key films from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a quartet of exquisitely photographed and art directed erotic tales, including one about Countess Bathory
Lancelot du Lac (1974)
Arthurian Legends
French director Robert Bresson’s take on the Arthurian legends, stripped of nobility and magic. I’m not part of the critical cult around Bresson. Films that are dull and lifeless are not about spiritual yearning just dull
The Beast (1975)
Erotic Fairy-Tale
An exquisitely dreamlike erotic fairytale from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a variant on Beauty and the Beast involving the liaison between a girl and a beast.
Black Moon (1975)
French New Wave Surrealism
Louis Malle’s one and only venture into the French New Wave – a baffling work set around social collapse as a young girl wanders a farmhouse encountering unicorns, talking animals and various surreal happenings
Dracula, Father and Son (1976)
Dracula Parody
Almost certainly this is the one Christopher Lee Dracula film you will never have heard about. This was a French comedy made not long after Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, spoofing the Dracula film
Spermula (1976)
Erotica/Women Alien Visitors
Rather of an oddity – a French adult film about women from the future that in the aftermath of Star Wars was re-edited to become a film about alien women visitors come to kill off the human species via sex. Often directed with an artiness that proves far more than you expect
The Tenant (1976)
Apartment Block Paranoia/Identity Exchange
One of Roman Polanski’s least recognised films in which he both directs and plays the lead as a mousy man driven to a state of paranoia and the point he loses his identity by the neighbours in a Parisian apartment building
The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976)
Animation/Comic-Book Character
Animated film based on the popular comic-books co-directed by the comic-book’s creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo,. This is disappointingly weak animation that substitutes slapstick cartoon gags for the comic’s more sophisticated humour
Providence (1977)
Meta-Fiction
Alain Resnais meta-fiction with John Gielgud as an aging writer sits in bed writing a story that is based on the people around him
Pesticide (1978)
French Zombie Film
One of the films from cult director Jean Rollin. This is a zombie film, clearly influenced by Night of the Living Dead, but with a uniquely French spin – the zombies are caused by drinking toxic wine
Perceval le Gallois (1978)
Arthurian Legends
From Eric Rohmer, a director of the French New Wave, an adaptation of stories from the Arthurian legends, made in a decidedly eccentric style
The Gendarme and the Extra-Terrestrials (1979)
Alien Visitors Slapstick Comedy
An entry in a popular series of French slapstick comedies with Louis de Funes as a comic gendarme. In this, the series sole genre entry, he goes up against alien visitors
Fascination (1979)
Erotic Horror/Blood-Drinking Lesbians
One of the films from cult French director Jean Rollin whose works always contained an arty mix of horror and erotica. This concerns mysterious blood-drinking rituals among a group of women at a chateau
The King and the Mockingbird (1980)
Animation/Fairytale
A classic French animated film that remained unseen for over thirty years. A fairytale about a cruel king and two lovers aided by a mockingbird, it emerges with an impressively epic sweep
Deathwatch (1980)
Future Media Obsession with a Dying Woman
Quietly understated French SF film set in a future where all illness has been abolished and a woman becomes a media sensation when she is diagnosed with a terminal condition
Quest for Fire (1981)
Prehistory/Caveman Adventure
Beautifully shot directorial debut from Jean-Jacques Annaud that sets out to dispel all the cinematic cliches about cavemen and dinosaurs and offers up an anthropologically realistic prehistoric film
Dr Jekyll and His Women (1981)
Erotic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Adaptation
Retelling of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from cult Euro erotica director Walerian Borowczyk. Not quite the erotic retelling one expects, this nevertheless conducts some radical revisions
Malevil (1981)
Nuclear War
An entry in the spate of early 1980s nuclear war films about the residents of a French village who are sheltered in a wine cellar when the bomb drops and their efforts to survive in the aftermath
Zombies’ Lake (1981)
Nazi Zombies
One of the original Nazi zombie films. From cult director Jean Rollin, known for his arty vampire erotica
The Time Masters (1982)
Animation/Planetary Adventure
Rene Laloux, the animator who made Fantastic Planet, collaborates with cult fantasy artist Moebius and the result is a planetary adventure filled with trippily exotic backgrounds and creatures
The Living Dead Girl (1982)
Girl Returns from the Dead
Another entry from the oeuvre of cult French director Jean Rollin – a film about the bond between a girl and her zombified friend that sits between some gore amateurish effects and a poetic subtlety
Chronopolis (1982)
Animation/City of All-Powerful Beings
More of an abstract art short than a film. Dialogueless, almost plotless, this concerns the lone human in a city inhabited by inscrutable beings that amuse themselves by rearranging matter
Le Dernier Combat (1983)
Mute Post-Holocaust
Luc Besson made his directorial debut with this remarkable film. At a time when everybody was making copies of Mad Max 2, Besson demonstrates a poetry in depicting a post-apocalyptic world where people have lost the ability to speak
The Prize of Peril (1983)
Future Human Hunting TV Gameshow
French film about a tv gameshow where contestants are pursued by armed hunters. Much of this was copied by the subsequent The Running Man but this conducted the idea first and better
Dream One (1984)
Adventures in Dreamland/Characters from Fiction
Head-scratchingly odd fantasy film produced by John Boorman and family where a young boy is transported to a world where he mingles with characters from fiction
Hail Mary (1984)
Modern Day Immaculate Conception
A controversy-laden Jean-Luc Godard film that offers an irreverent modern-day retelling of the Immaculate Conception. An amusing idea that vanishes under Godard’s pretensions
Gwendoline (1984)
Lost City Quest/Softcore Fetishism/Comic Strip Adaptation
From the director of Emmanuelle, this is an adaptation of an adult comic-book that replays the lost city adventure with the addition of a mind-boggling softcore fetishism
Asterix vs Caesar (1985)
Animation/Comic-Book Character
One of the sillier among the animated Asterix films maintained at a high-level of slapstick and with badly dubbed voices that do not suit the characters
Mauvais Sang (1986)
Near-Future Romance
The second film from Leos Carax, a near-future set romance that bursts with freshness and originality
Asterix in Britain (1986)
Animation/Comic-Book Character
One of several animated films based on the popular comic-book characters Asterix and Obelix made by Dargaud Films
Kamikaze (1986)
Device That Can Kill People by TV
An early film written/produced by Luc Besson concerning a scientist driven crazy by tv announcers who invents a device that can kill people as they appear live on tv
Terminus (1987)
Future Truck Race
Very strange French SF film about a futuristic truck race
Faceless (1987)
Mad Surgeon
Cult exploitation director Jesus Franco pays homage to the mad surgeon films of his heyday. Essentially one of Franco’s Dr Orloff films by way of the sadistic despatches of the giallo film
Gandahar (1988)
Animation/Planetary Adventure
The final film of French animator Rene Laloux, a planetary adventure set on a world where Laloux delights in creating exotically trippy aliens and landscapes. Released in English as Light Years with an Isaac Asimov script
Bunker Palace Hotel (1989)
Near-Future Civil War
The first film from Enki Bilal set in a decaying luxury bunker where the elite of the future take shelter from a civil war. A film that creates a fascinating world – in which nothing interesting ends up happening
If the Shoe Fits (1990)
Modernised Cinderella
A modernised retelling of the Cinderella story that is set in the Paris fashion world starring with Jennifer Grey as a lowly seamstress falling for self-important fashion designer Rob Lowe
Dr Petiot (1990)
True Life French Serial Killer
French film about true-life serial killer Marcel Petiot, a respectable doctor who operated a lifeline for Jewish refugees during WWII only to kill them
Baby Blood (1990)
Woman Impregnated by a Blood-Drinking Parasite
A wildly deranged and gore-drenched ride. Imagine Rosemary’s Baby with an Alien chesburster where a woman is impregnated by a parasite that maintains a monologue as it urges her to kill and drink blood to feed it.
Mister Frost (1990)
The Devil in an Asylum
Fine film that deserves wider recognition with Jeff Goldblum as a man in an asylum who claims to be The Devil
Delicatessen (1991)
Strange Apartment Building/Gonzo Comedy
In their debut, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro make an hilariously eccentric and unclassifiable film about the inhabitants of a strange apartment building
The Plague (1992)
Plague Outbreak/Albert Camus Adaptation
An incredibly dull version of Albert Camus’s novel about a city infected by plague. Camus wrote the original as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of France but this talks itself to death
L’Atlantide (1992)
Lost City
The sixth film version of a classic lost world story about explorers finding Atlantis and its immortal queen in the desert. This is a more mundane version that waters down the fantastic elements
Olivier, Olivier (1992)
Child's Mysterious Disappearance
Agnieszka Holland drama about the sudden return of a boy who went missing several years earlier, although may well be an impostor. Contains minor fantasy elements
Arizona Dream (1993)
Occasionally Surreal Desert Happenings
This English-language debut from Emir Kusturica should have been a hit going by its cast that includes a young Johnny Depp romancing a 50+ Faye Dunaway, but is a plotless piece of improv of occasional surreal interludes
The Visitors (1993)
Time-Travel Comedy
Hilarious French comedy where a filthy Mediaeval knight and his servant are transported into the present-day
Little Buddha (1993)
The Story of Buddha
Bernardo Bertolucci directs a biopic of the Buddha, which is interspersed with a modern story where a Western boy learns that he is the reincarnation of a revered abbot
I Can’t Sleep (1994)
French Serial Killer
Claire Denis makes a film loosely based on the activities of a true-life drag performer/serial killer. However, she seems uninterested in developing plot or suspense
La Machine (1994)
Psychiatrist Swaps Bodies with a Serial Killer
French thriller where psychiatrist Gerard Depardieu tests a device that allows him to swap bodies with a serial killer – only for the killer to get free and steal his life
A Pure Formality (1994)
Police Interrogation/Deathdream
Gerard Depardieu is being interrogated by police inspector Roman Polanski over a murder he cannot remember. Solid, well constructed drama that is turned on its head with a surprise ending
Molom, A Legend of Mongolia (1995)
Buddhist Journey
Gentle affecting film about a boy learning Buddhist life lessons as he journeys across Mongolia with an old man
The City of Lost Children (1995)
Mad Scientist/Clones/Gonzo Comedy
The almost indescribable second film from Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet of Delicatessen fame, a Dicekensian street urchin fantasy that takes place in a stunningly designed almost-familiar world filled with eccentric characters