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Please recommend some good French films?

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I'm currently having French lessons and am really keen to improve; can anyone recommend some good French films that I can watch in my own time? I think this is an enjoyable way of absorbing the accent and language. Merci.

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  1. La Haine

    13 Tzameti

    Amelie

    Etre et Avoir

    And my favorite film... C'est arrivé près de chez vous

    That last one might be a bit extreme though, also, it's from Belgium but it's in French.

    NOTE.. I find a lot of French films melodramatic and drawn out, the films I have listed are contemporary and fun.


  2. Banlieue 13

    Un long dimanche de fiancailles

    Amélie!

    Etre et Avoir

    Les Choristes

    All fairly different but all in French!

  3. Hi,

    You don't say how old you are or what level of French you have at the moment but here are a few suggestions based on what my children (who are both French, like their mother) enjoyed when they were teenagers:

    Comedies:

    Les Visateurs - very funny slapstick about time travelling medieaval knight and his servant arriving in the 20th century.  You won't understand a lot of the language but that's ok as it's a pastiche on medieaval French.  Imagine a Frenchman trying to understand Chaucer in the original pronunciation!

    La Cité de la Peur: a totally unsophisticated comedy which is full of witty moments.  

    Amélie Poulain: if you've seen it in English you've only had half the fun, it's a wonderful film.

    Asterix and Cleopatre: the first Asterix film was a big yawn.  This one is pretty good.

    Drama

    La Haine is recommended elsewhere and it a good film but quite hard to follow for a beginner.

    Le Pantalon: a soldier in the First World War faces execution for refusing to obey an order (to take a dead man's trousers to replace his own non-uniform ones).  An amazingly sad film that helps to show the horror of the trenches from the French point of view  - and let's remember that more French soliders died in WW1 than from all the rest of the Allied nations combined!

    Joyeux Noel - another WW1 film, this time about the famous Christmas truce.  I must confess I missed it at the cimema but I'm told it's great.

    Les Choristes: a middle-aged music teacher uses choral singing to teach discipline to a group of wild boys in the 1940s.  Sentimental but the music is fantastic and the film is easy to follow.

    Diva: an old film now and available on DVD but one of the coolest films of the early 1980s.  A motorbike messenger boy makes a bootleg tape of an opera singer (the Diva of the title) and is pursued across Paris by various factions who want the tape.  Sounds dull but it isn't.

    Pretty much any film with Jean Reno is likely to please although of course a lot of his recent films are in English!

    Another idea - go on eBay.fr or Amazon.fr in France and buy British and American films that you've enjoyed but with a French soundtrack.  Often UK DVDs don't have French but all films that were originally in English will retain the English soundtrack and add a French one, so you can watch scenes again to check your understanding.  

    Hope that helps.  Bonne chance!

  4. 'breathless' & 'a band apart' both directed by jean luc godard (french w/ subtitles)

    if you want a film that was only filmed in france, check out 'last tango in paris'

  5. District 13. The free ruinning is brilliant too.

  6. RIDICULE (very intriguing), AU REVOIR MES ENFANTS (really sad), EUROPA EUROPA, L'APPARTEMENT, LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG....

  7. try "cyrano de bergerac"

    i guarantee you will enjoy it

    its all about french language  the written and the spoken word

    so exactly what your looking for

    if you have an ounce of romance in your soul it will mesmerise you  

    the dvd has subtitles which you can switch off too.

  8. pink panther

  9. Les Miserables with Gérard Depardieu . It's excellent.

  10. My personal favorite is Cyrano de Bergerac starring the famous French actor Gerard D.

    For more modern, Les Choristres. Chou chou is a famous film that is often quoted by French youth despite it being older than them.

    If you like action with a good plot watch Taxi 1-4. One film recommended to me by some friends in Nantes was <<je vous trouve tres beau.>> It's a wonderful film and leaves you feeling good after you watch it.

    Finally, stand-up comedians are a great way to learn French because they are so visual, especially Gad Emeleh (I think that is how it's spelled.) He's Morrocan/Francophone and does such a good job on stage, not to mention he uses good idioms and no vulgarity.

    I can't leave you without mentioning Astericks and Obelix, the films in French are great and often with little dialog you'll have time to breath and try and figure out what he said by simply watching.

    Bon courage!

  11. Three Colours Trilogy

    C.R.A.Z.Y.

    Taxi

    Taxi 2

    Love Me If You Dare (Jeux D'enfants)

    Hate (La Haine)

    Amelie

    Chocolat

  12. Le diner de cons is one of the best to learn French.

    La Haine

    Le grand bleu

    Amélie ...

  13. La femme Nikita is an excellent movie. 100% percent better than the american crapfest remake with Bridget Fonda.

    Les Visiteurs is another good one.

    Le Diner de Cons is absolutely hilarious.

  14. Le diner des cons

    Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain (aka Amelie)

    Jean de Florette

    Manon des sources (aka Manon of the spring)

    Diabolique

    Un homme et une femme

    Les parapluies de Cherbourg

    Les demoiselles de Rochefort

    Huit (8) femmes

    La chevre

    etc etc etc

    Email me if you want more suggestions.  I have quite an extensive collection!!

  15. Jules et Jim

    Les Quatre Cents Coups

    À bout de souffle

    L'année dernière à Marienbad

    Hiroshima Mon Amour is

    Vivre sa Vie: Film en Douze Tableaux

    L'Amour l'après-midi

    Le Chagrin et la pitié

    La Cage aux Folles

  16. "The Officers Club," it's a cracking film about soldiers who suffer facial disfigurements as a result of injuries incurred during the First World War.

  17. Le's vagabuam i think I'm spelling it right it has Isabella jenny in it. you cant go wrong at the vid store picking a french movie. they make some great movies.

  18. Try Jule et Jim a real classic from 1962 about two guys who fall for the same woman

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_and_J...

    Also Les Visiteurs, a time travelling comedy with Jean Reno and Christian Clavier

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Visiteu...

    Finally La Cage Aux Folles; very g*y, very funny

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cage_aux...

  19. jean de florette is considered a classic. There is a follow up to it as well, manon de source.

  20. You already have some excellent suggestions, here are some more of my favourites:

    Ne le dis à personne (thriller)

    La vie est un long fleuve tranquille (comedy)

    Je vais bien ne t'en fais pas (drama)

    Je vous trouve très beau (drama/romance)

    Angel-A (romance/comedy)

    La gloire de mon père / Le château de ma mère (drama/comedy)

    La tourneuse de pages (drama)

    Nathalie (drama)

    La doublure (comedy/romance)

  21. the french connection

  22. hors de prix (~priceless)

    tais-toi!

    the long engagement (sorry, forgot the title in french)

  23. This isn't a film or anything, but you should listen to Camille. She's a French pop singer. She rocks!!

    Buy some  of her songs on iTunes

  24. We studied Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources for a-level French, they are both available on dvd and come on tv sometimes. Both star Gerard Depardieu and Emanuelle Beart. There is als a film version of Madame Bovary and La Femme Nikita. Not seen these but I am sure that you will find the first 2 helpful. The books are fairly good too, worth a read but they are fairly advanced so it depends on what sort of stage you are at with your French. I also listened to French radio but can't remember the frequency and bought French newspapers. All helped me get French A-Level and got me by in France 3 years ago (8 years after finishing the studying). Good luck, it is a beautiful language to learn but unfortunately, if you go to France, the people are very impatient if you try to converse with them and sometimes rather rude!

  25. Le Retour de Martin Guerre

    La Belle et la Bête

    Manon Des Sources

  26. I would say Amelie it is really good! You said that you wanted to improve your french accent, the best thing to do is to fly to the country and blend in the the french people you'll pick it up trust me! The nowerdays are cheap! The best time to go is during school time when all the children are at school!

    Goodluck with your french!

  27. Please don't miss "Le dinner de cons" it's the best comedy a saw. Other excellent movie is "l'appat" of Bertrand Tavernier, it's 1995 movie,more or less like "le dinner de cons". And other one is " Ma mere" it's a new one 2 years ago more or less.

    The problems is that many directors that work in france (as Roman Polanski) makes their movies in english, but see in internet movies of his wife Emanuelle Seigner, them must be good and absolutely in french.

    Other think that you can do, is watch french or american movies an put the dvd subtitles in french, doesn't help with the accent of course but helps a lot with the vocabulary and gramma.

    And other excelent thing for practise french is chatting in french salles (like french yahoo) i did and my french was very improved,a very good experience by the way : )

    The last thing , there is a small book called Assimil that comes wwith cd's and in 3 levels for french learning,it's excelent and very cheap,i really recommend you.

    Au revoir, mademoisselle!!

  28. grand illusion

    last year at marienbad

  29. Amelie     great movie in french

  30. Taxi 1, 2 & 3. As with most triologies they aren't as good as the first but they make a nice continuation.

    District 13 (or sometimes known as B13)

  31. amelie encore...

    la boum

    l auberge espqgnole

    watch americain movies in french!!
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