Top 10 French films
Posted by Admin 17.07.2010 | 1 Comment
1. Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages Of Fear) (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953): Yves Montand stars as one of four men transporting supplies of nitroglycerine to a remote South American oil field in an incredibly tense and influential action film.
2. Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959): Bresson’s minimalist movie, which follows a young man who takes up pickpocketing as a means of expressing himself, is a stone cold classic.
3. Bout de Souffle (Breathless) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960): By general consensus the key film of La Nouvelle Vague, Godard has never been as invigorating.
4. La Peau Douce (François Truffaut, 1964): Truffaut fashions a sleekly modern film, following middle-aged Jean Desailly’s affair with a younger hypnotic woman, played by the late Françoise Dorléac.
5. Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967): Another landmark film, in which Catherine Deneuve’s bored housewife decides to become a prostitute during her afternoons to escape her passionless marriage.
6. Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967): Perhaps the most iconic French film, Melville’s masterpiece stars Alain Delon as a perfectionist assassin who is fatefully witnessed performing a killing.
7. Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981): A dazzling array of styles combine to fashion a cult crime flick that came to define 1980s French cinema.
8. Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources (Claude Berri, 1986): Strictly two films but viewed as one entity, Berri assembled an impressive cast for his unique and emotional tale set in rural France between the wars.
9. La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995): Hugely influential, Kassovitz’s film perfectly utilises a documentary look to capture the anger of three youths involved in riots on a suburban Parisian estate.
10. De Battre mon Coeur s’est Arrêté (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) (Jacques Audiard, 2005): A remake of the classic.
Interesting choices - I''d agree with the directors of 4 and 5 but swap the films for Jules et Jim and Un chien andalou respectively, and for modern classics I''d choose Amélie directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Jacques Audiard''s Un Prophète which is brilliant. E
Eleanor
Comment posted 4.08.10 @ 08:35