Zombies’ Lake (1981)
Nazi Zombies
One of the original Nazi zombie films. From cult director Jean Rollin, known for his arty vampire erotica
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.
Zombi Child (2019)
Voodoo Film
An extraordinary French film that has nothing at all to do with flesh-eating zombies but delves into voodoo religion that expands out to makes contrasts with French colonialism with striking results
Wrong (2012)
Gonzo Surrealism
Quentin Dupieux’s follow-up to the hilariously culty Rubber, an absurdist film about a man setting out to find his missing dog. You keep expecting something as mind-bendingly hilarious as Rubber but this is more of a mild amusement in the David Lynch-ian deadpan surrealist vein
The Woman in the Fifth (2011)
Mysterious Femme Fatale
European arthouse film that feels like it should have been a horror film. This starts well but when it veers into genre territory, its big twist has been done by too many genre films of recent and holds nothing interesting in its treatment
With a Friend Like Harry (2000)
Sinister Houseguest
French psycho-thriller where Sergi Lopez gives an unnervingly charming performance as a psychopathic schoolfriend who inserts himself into Laurent Lucas’s life
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 Warriors Gate (2016)
Videogamer Transported to Ancient China
Luc Besson written/produced effort where a videogamer kid is transported to Ancient China. A blatant copy of The Forbidden Kingdom that manages to be fundamentally implausible on every level and one of the worst attempts to pander to the Chinese box-office
The Vourdalak (2023)
Vampire Film
Adaptation of a classic Aleksei Tolstoy story set in Eastern Europe as a family awaits the return of the patriarch who has been turned into a vampire
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
The Visitors (1993)
Time-Travel Comedy
Hilarious French comedy where a filthy Mediaeval knight and his servant are transported into the present-day
The Visitor from the Future (2022)
Time Travel Comedy
A French film about a time traveller come to prevent the catastrophic explosion of a nuclear power plant. A low expectation film that turns out to be a comedy that sparkles with wit and inventivity
Vincent (2014)
Man with Superpowers
The peculiar story of a man who gains super-strength and various other powers whenever he is in water, this essentially plays out as a superhero film but in a more low key way without any costumes. Quirky, charming and rather likeably appealing
Vidocq (2001)
Dark Historical Fantasy
A film based on the real-life figure of Francois Vidocq, who became the world’s first detective, which the film uses as the stepping off point to create an exquisite dark fantasy
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Space Opera/Comic-Book Adaptation
It was a box-office bomb but this is one of the most breathtaking and completely designed SF work to ever cross the screen. In terms of effects, sets and costuming, Luc Besson gives us a work that is an overwhelming treat for the eyes
Under the Rainbow (2013)
Romantic Comedy/Modernised Fairytales
No relation to the disastrous Chevy Chase film, a French romantic comedy that has modernised retellings of various fairytales wound into the plot, often being deflated or turned on their head
Under Paris (2024)
Killer Shark in the Seine
Xavier Gens makes an undeniably entertaining big-budget film about killer shark amok in the Seine
U (2006)
Animation/Talking Animal Frolics
A likeable and colourful French animated film
Tykho Moon (1996)
Lunar Colony Noir
Film from Enki Bilal, a celebrated comic-book creator in France, about the noirish goings-on and in-politics on a lunar colony
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
Trouble Every Day (2001)
Sex and Cannibalism
Acclaimed director Claire Denis makes a quite out there film in which people are obsessively driven to devour others during the act of sex
The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
Gonzo Animation
Splendidly original and completely off the wall work of stylised animation from Sylvain Chomet
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
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
Tokyo! (2008)
Anthology of Surreal Japan-set Tales
Directors Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon Ho make an anthology of strange and surreal tales that take place in Tokyo
Titane (2021)
Body Horror/Human-Machine Pregnancy
Julia Ducournau’s Cannes award-winning film is a challenging work that pushes boundaries into uncomfortable places. Not to mention comes with human and car sex scenes
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
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
Time of the Wolf (2003)
Social Collapse
Michael Haneke has risen to great acclaim in recent years; this is one of his earlier works – a slow Tarkovsky-esque work that seems set in a future that is collapsing at the edges. Haneke is a fascinating talent but this is a bit too vague and well free of anything actually happening for me
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
13 Tzameti (2005)
Russian Roulette Gambling
Starkly effective Georgian-made film about a young man in need of money being drawn into an underground gambling ring that bets on games of Russian Roulette
They Came Back (2004)
The Dead Return to Life
A French zombie film that is about as far removed from a zombie film as it possible to get – the dead inexplicably return to life not to eat the flesh of the living but calm and detached where society’s problem is how to let them return to their previous lives
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
Them (2006)
Mysterious Home Assault
French horror film that generates a reasonable level of tension as a couple are attacked in their home by mysterious strangers
The Theatre Bizarre (2011)
Horror Anthology
A horror anthology featuring episodes from seven different directors. As with other anthologies, the episodes vary in quality, ranging between the so-so, the mostly quite good and one standout segment
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
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
Terra Incognita 1901 (2024)
Animation/Steampunk Adventure
A very nicely animated French Steampunk film about an expedition aboard a steam airship to explore the secret entrance to an underground world in the Antarctic. A computer animated film all made by one person.
Terminus (1987)
Future Truck Race
Very strange French SF film about a futuristic truck race
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
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 Tall Man (2012)
Child Abducting Boogeymen/Conceptual Reversal Twister
Pascal Laugier returns with this fascinating effort about a small town subject to child abductions by a possible boogieman. A film that is as blatantly manipulative as it is ingenious in its way-out twists and turns where everything we assume is going on at the outset is eventually turned completely on its head
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
The Swarm (2020)
Woman’s Obsession with Raising Killer Locusts
Not the classic Irwin Allen bad movie but a work of disturbed psychology about a woman who develops an unhealthy obsession with feeding locusts blood and turning them into a killer swarm
Survive (2024)
Catastrophic Reversal of the Earth’s Poles
A French catastrophe film where the Earth’s poles abruptly reverse, transforming what was ocean into a desert. A survival film that is based on a premise that is fundamentally scientifically absurd
The Suicide Shop (2012)
Animation/Black Comedy
French animated film that is about as far from children’s entertainment as it is possible to get – a mordantly dark comedy that operates in similar territory to The Addams Family in its tale of a family that operates a shop selling items of despatch to the suicidally minded
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 Soul Eater (2024)
Police Procedural/Folk Boogeyman Killings
A French police procedural where detectives are plunged into a series of bizarre murders involving a child sacrifice cult and a folk boogeyman. From the directorial duo who started the whole French Extremism movement with Inside
Snow White (2009)
Fairy-Tale Ballet Adaptation
An amazing reinterpretation of the classical fairytale as modern ballet for adults. This does amazing things to reinvent the original and is visually extraordinary
Smoking Causes Coughing (2022)
Gonzo Deadpan Vignettes
Another of Quentin Dupieux’s hilariously gonzo comedies made up a series of deadpan surreal vignettes, including a witty parody of the modern superhero film
The Sleeping Beauty (2010)
Fairytale
Catherine Breillat, a director usually known for tackling issues of female sexuality, adapts the classic fairytale in a muddled effort that singularly fails to fly either as fairytale or deconstruction
Sheitan (2006)
French Backwoods Brutality
French Backwoods Brutality film heads in some admirably weird and gross directions but falls apart at the end
The Science of Sleep (2006)
Dreams and Wacky Surrealism
A Michel Gondry film that blurs the line between dream and reality with hilariously offbeat regard. Gondry indulges his eccentricities to the maximum with quite sublime results
Saint Ange (2004)
French Ghost Story
The first film from Pascal Laugier who has emerged as a leading French horror director since, a ghost story set at a girl’s boarding school, Laugier does produce some eerie jumps but the script is a frustrating tangle of narrative loose ends
Rubber (2010)
Killer Car Tire/Meta-Fictional Monster Movie Parody
The best killer car tire film ever – a monster movie spoof wound in so many layers of meta-fiction that it is positively side-splitting. The smartest and funniest monster movie in ages
The Room (2019)
House With a Room That Answers Wishes
Not to be confused with Tommy Wiseau’s bad movie classic. This comes from Christian Volckman who made an impressive debut a few years ago with the animated Cyberpunk film Renaissance. Moving to live-action, this creates an air of unspeakable dread as a couple buy a house that has a hidden room that can manifest anything they wish for
Revenge (2017)
Woman Takes Revenge on Men
Another woman takes revenge against men film. You would think that this being directed by a woman would be less exploitative than usual but oh boy this one goes off the rails into the demented
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
Renaissance (2006)
Animation/Futuristic Film Noir
Dazzling French animated Cyberpunk film shot in the performance capture animated process and then rendered in striking two-tone black-and-white
Reality (2014)
Gonzo Surrealism/Blurring of Dream and Fiction
A film from Quentin Dupieux that comes in a series of quirky intersecting stories where the dreams and films different characters are watching/making keeping blurring together in mind-boggling ways
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2011)
Ray Harryhausen Documentary
A documentary devoted to the life and films of stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen whose films, which include the Sinbad films and Jason and the Argonauts, have gained a cult following
Raw (2016)
Cannibalism
Undeniably shocking French film about a vegetarian girl who is required to eat raw animal meat during a university hazing ritual and thereafter becomes obsessed with eating human flesh
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
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
The Pyramid (2014)
Sinister Forces in an Egyptian Pyramid
A monster movie where the major distinction is that the monster is drawn from Ancient Egyptian mythology and the locale is an unearthed pyramid. The film is too conceptually slim to do much with such an interesting background but it does deliver some solid jumps
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
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
The Prodigies (2011)
Animation/Psychic Powered Kids Go Amok
French animated film about a group of kids with psychic powers going amok. Is okay at what it does but had much of its thunder stolen by the more recent and more spectacular Chronicle
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
Princess of the Sun (2007)
Ancient Egypt Adventure/Animation
Very nicely made French animated film based around the daughter of the pharaoh Akhenaton
Princes and Princesses (1999)
Animated Fairytale Anthology
From Kirikou director Michel Ocelot, an anthology of animated fairytales that prove quite delightful
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
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
Personal Shopper (2016)
Possible Ghost Story/Mystery Texter
Olivier Assayas’s high-profile but wildly critically divided work feels as though it has several competing plots circling around Kristen Stewart – a ghost story, one about a mystery texter and briefly a murder mystery – which feel incomplete and unfinished and only maybe intersecting with one another
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
Oxygen (2021)
Woman Imprisoned in a Cryogenic Capsule
Imprisonment thriller where Melanie Laurent wakes up trapped inside a cryogenic capsule, this expands out to become an excellent SF film
The Owners (2020)
Home Invasion/Sinister Occupants
Maisie Williams and an aging Sylvester McCoy in a film about house burglars who break in to a home to discover sinister things afoot
Outside Satan (2011)
Ambiguous Miraculous Visitor
In the vein of Pasolini’s Teorema, French director Bruno Dumont makes a film about an ambiguous visitor who may be capable of miracles. Slow, very opaque but eventually rewarding
Orphee (1950)
Modernised Greek Myth
Jean Cocteau’s beautiful modernisation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice updated to post-War France
1, 2, 3, Whiteout: The End of the Light Age (2007)
Experimental Film/Future Thought Experiments
Baffling SF film that lacks anything resembling a plot and seems mostly an experimental film about showing pretty light patterns
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
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 Ninth Gate (1999)
Quest for Occult Tome
Roman Polanski makes a return to Rosemary’s Baby territory in this work with Johnny Depp as a rare book collector on the trail of an occult tome. Polanski great a great sense of sinister forces surrounding Depp but the film reaches an unsatisfying ending
Night of the Hunted (2023)
Psycho Sniper
From an Alexandre Aja associate, a reasonably tight thriller about a woman taking shelter in a gas station from a psycho sniper outside
The Night Eats the World (2018)
French Zombie Film
The zombie genre has become creatively overused and exhausted in recent years but this French entry plays with an appealing originality, sort of like a low-key version of Dawn of the Dead where a man builds a Parisian apartment building into his own paradise
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
Mr. Nobody (2009)
Alternate Life Pathways
Jaco Van Dormael film that reaches for epic ideas in a story about multiple life pathways and a babble of ideas taken from physics but fails to assemble them in a way that makes much sense
The Most Assassinated Woman in the World (2018)
Real-Life Grand Guignol Theatre
A biopic of Paula Maxa, the real-life star of Paris’s Grand Guignol Theatre. The Grand Guignol specialised in plays depicting gory on-stage deaths and she was killed on stage an estimated 10,000 times during her career. Here the biopic elements are blended with a mystery in which she is targeted by a serial killer
Mood Indigo (2013)
Wackily Surreal Romance
After the disastrous misstep of The Green Hornet, Michel Gondry returns to the surreal whimsy of The Science of Sleep. A film where Gondry delights in scene after scene of visual nonsense and serving up all the appealingly capricious silliness he can muster – creativity for creativity’s sake alone
A Monster in Paris (2011)
Animation/Genteel Singing Monster
A charming French-made animated film about a genteel singing monster. Nothing profound but this is beautifully animated and sweetly appealing in all the right places
The Monk (2011)
Monk's Temptation by the Devil
The Monk is a sordid classic of 18th Century Gothic literature, filled with crazed lusts and Catholic guilt and damnation. However, in the hands of French director Dominik Moll, all the tortured sexuality has been watered down and the story stuffed as a costume drama
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
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
Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself (2023)
Michel Gondry Documentary
A documentary focused on the unique and distinctive French director Michel Gondry, tracing his emergence through music video and to the success of films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
Historical Epic
Luc Besson takes on the Joan of Arc story with then wife Milla Jovovich in the title role but in Besson’s hands it becomes a crazed historical action film that unquestioningly accepts Joan’s visions as real
The Melies Mystery (2021)
Georges Melies Documentary
A documentary that offers the best discussion of the life of Georges Melies to date. Much of the film is focused on the recent rediscovery of a complete trove of negatives of Melies’s film
Melies Cinemagician (2011)
Compilation of Georges Melies Shorts
Melies Cinemagician is a special screening of a selection of films from Georges Melies presented by Vancouver’s Vancity Theater to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth. The show was a live performance involving a score composed especially for the event, displays of conjuring tricks and a magic lantern show. The same year also saw […]
Meander (2020)
Mysterious Labyrinth
This may be the most claustrophobic film ever made about a woman trapped inside a labyrinth of narrow tunnels and crawlspaces that house a series of death traps
Me Two (2008)
French Bodyswap Comedy
Lightweight French bodyswap comedy where aging rocker Alain Chabat and mousy bureaucrat Daniel Auteuil end up sharing the same body
Mauvais Sang (1986)
Near-Future Romance
The second film from Leos Carax, a near-future set romance that bursts with freshness and originality
Martyrs (2008)
Imprisonment and Torture
Pascal Laugier makes one of the most horrific films to emerge from France in the 00s. Scenes of grim torture sit alongside a plot that messes with almost everything we take for granted