The film series Rendez-Vous with French Cinema is a Francophile’s dream. Every year, Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center partner up to premiere a selection of exciting new films français from both the hottest emerging directors and those auteurs whose work we already love. The annual event gives French film lovers the opportunity to spend 10 days taking in the best of new French cinema. Now in its 30th year, the beloved festival offers 23 spanking new films running from March 6-16. Jump online to buy tickets here.
The films range from upbeat to devastating, from political to personal to a little of both, from star-studded to zinging with captivating performances from non-actors you’ll want to see again. There are thrillers, dramas, love stories, true stories, silly surreal comedies. Many mix genres to tell poignant stories with new perspectives that expand our understanding of the issues throwing our world off balance today. There are themes and images and tropes snatched from the zeitgeist to appear in more than one film: tortured souls coping with trauma, immigrant stories, political violence, ghosts of lost loved ones, prison visits. Throughout there is much to discover and discuss. Here are 11 highlights from Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2025, ranked.
11. Visiting Hours, directed by Patricia Mazuy
Alma (Isabelle Huppert), a wealthy one-time ballerina/bored wife, meets Mina (Hafsia Herzi), a struggling mother of two who works in a dry cleaning facility, in the waiting room of the prison where both of their husbands are serving time. The two women connect and Alma invites Mina and her kids to move into her lovely home, to cut down on Mina’s long weekly commute to the prison. She also helps Mina find a job at the hospital where her husband was a brain surgeon. Despite their class differences, they become close—though when Alma hosts a cocktail party, her friends mistake Mina for the maid and swoon cringeably over her “adorable” (read: brown) children. When Mina is threatened by a violent acquaintance involved in the robbery that sent her husband to prison, we see where this is heading. With layered, compelling performances by Huppert and Herzi, the film works best as a story of disparate worlds colliding, and the ways people can overcome superficial differences to build friendship and trust. Maybe what these two women share is more powerful than the forces that divide them.
10. Meeting with Pol Pot, directed by Rithy Pahn
In 1978, three French journalists (Irène Jacob, Grégoire Colin, and Cyril Gueï) travel to Cambodia to interview its dictator, Pol Pot. For Lise (Jacob), this is a truth-seeking mission, but it quickly becomes clear that she and her colleagues are being sold a sanitized version of the regime, based on egalitarianism and universal contentment. They visit an art workshop, where workers paint smiling portraits of their beloved leader, and interview villagers who claim to live perfect lives. Based on journalist Elizabeth Becker’s nonfiction book When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, the story presents an early version of a post-truth world, in which the press is manipulated by a government advertising its own version of reality. Cambodian-born director Rithy Panh has made it his professional goal to reveal the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. His Oscar-nominated 2013 film The Missing Picture used dioramas featuring clay figurines instead of live reenactments to represent atrocities, a technique he uses again here, layered with shocking archival footage that reveals the murder, torture, and mass graves behind the lies.
Strand Releasing acquired North American rights to Meeting with Pol Pot and will release the film in spring of 2025.
9. Being Maria, directed by Jessica Palud
One of the festival’s buzzier films, director Palud’s timely biopic about Last Tango in Paris star Maria Schneider could be pulled from today’s headlines about consent and post-#MeToo cancel culture. After a breakthrough role as a college student seeking an illegal abortion in Audrey Diwan’s stunning film Happening, Anamaria Vartolomei here portrays another young woman whose innocence is shattered, provoking anger and resistance as she bucks up against a misogynistic system unwilling to shield women from abuse at the hands powerful men. In 1972, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci (Giuseppe Maggio) plucked Schneider from obscurity to star in his controversial film alongside Marlon Brando. All goes well until the notorious butter scene, which Schneider claimed she never consented to. The film was banned for obscenity, and Schneider’s reputation tarnished. Speaking openly to the press about feeling violated made her film biz poison, and her life spiraled. Being Maria bravely explores the public and private fallout of Schneider’s trauma, and gives voice to an early victim of sexual violence in the film industry.
Kino Lorber acquired the North American rights to Being Maria for a 2025 release.
8. And Their Children After Them, directed by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma
It’s summertime in the small fictional town of Heillange, and awkward 14-year-old Anthony (Paul Kircher) and his buddy are bored. Naturally, they steal a canoe and paddle to the “nude beach” where no one is nude, but they meet two pretty girls who invite them to a party too far to get to by bike, forcing Anthony to steal his dad’s prized motorbike. His dream girl blows him off, but still, what a night! Until Moroccan immigrant Hacine (Sayyid El Alami) turns up with a friend and the host kicks them out. It’s not clear why Anthony trips Hacine on his way out, but the act sets a series of events in motion. Based on Nicolas Mathieu’s 2018 bestselling, Prix Goncourt-winning novel, the story unfolds against a backdrop of 90s deindustrialization that drives rage and discontent among blue collar workers like Anthony’s abusive, alcoholic father (Gille Lellouche). It’s no surprise the motorbike is gone when the boys leave the party. No surprise that Anthony’s response is, “I’m dead.” The feud between the two boys exposes class and racial tensions. The hot flashes of male violence punctuating the often-melodramatic story offer insight into the political upheaval striking countries beyond France, including our own. Sweet, aimless Anthony is one of many disaffected young men seeking a life with purpose, only to nurse vague dreams of getting the girl and escaping the death throes of his town, dreams that seem forever out of reach.
7. The Quiet Son, directed by Delphine and Muriel Coulin
Since the death of his wife, Pierre (Vincent Lindon) has devoted himself to his sons. Fus (Benjamin Voisin) is a local soccer star and technical college student, while brainy little brother Louis (Stephan Crepon) is heading to the Sorbonne. Their affection and support for each other is palpable. In one scene, Fus gets home late and lovingly takes off his sleeping dad’s shoes before climbing the stairway railing like a monkey. But when Pierre learns that Fus is hanging out with a group of far-right thugs, he blows his top. An old-school leftist railroad worker, he can’t understand. He won’t. He feels betrayed, lays down the law, rages, but Fus won’t listen. He isn’t blindly giving into “France for the French” fervor. He believes that rising unemployment has left few options for guys like him. Like many homes in this political moment, theirs becomes a battleground, politics a wedge wrenching them apart. When Fus gets badly beaten at a protest, we think his fervor might cool, but the film—which won three awards at the Venice Film Festival, including Best Actor for Lindon—refuses to satisfy audience expectations. No one tells a righteous young man with a bruised ego what to do. He will rage until his anger is appeased.
6. Three Friends, directed by Emmanuel Mouret
There’s a French rom-com sub-genre that gets me every time. Soapy yet satisfying treasures like My Sex Life…or How I Got into an Argument (Arnaud Desplechin) and L’Auberge Espagnole (Cédric Klapisch) explore the intertwining love lives of an urban group of friends incessantly debating the intricacies of relationships. The characters are typically attractive, highly educated, cultured headcases who spend their time drinking wine, perusing museums, and sneaking off for illicit weekends in gorgeous countryside auberges. Rendez-Vous’ opening night film takes place in Lyon, where Joan (India Hair), a soft-spoken teacher, has fallen out of love with her husband. Her bestie Alice (Camille Cottin) claims she married a man she was never crazy about because more passionate early relationships made her crazy. Meanwhile, dizzy Rebecca (Sara Forestier), who gets all the funniest lines, is folle amoureuse with her secret lover, Monsieur X. With a Woody Allen vibe that recalls Hannah and her Sisters and Husbands and Wives, this crowd pleaser washes over you like a fine Cognac, while exploring the comic potential of infidelity, heartbreak, and questions around the existence of true love.
5. Holy Cow, directed by Louise Courvoisier
When we meet 18-year-old party boy Totone (Clément Faveau), he’s in his comfort zone: wasted and doing an impromptu striptease at the town fair, while his buddies cheer him on. Then his father dies unexpectedly and the reckless slacker is forced to step up to take care of his little sister and figure out how to save the family farm. After a stint working at a neighboring dairy farm, where he picks a fight with the farmer’s sons and falls for his daughter (Maïwene Barthelemy), Totone decides to learn how to make cheese himself and win a 30,000€ prize for best Comté in the Jura region, where he lives. While he specializes in getting drunk, screwing up, and pissing people off, it turns out Totone is also a hard worker who does whatever it takes to achieve his goals—even lying, cheating, and stealing from the people he cares about. There’s humor in watching Totone make a mess of things, but a deeper satisfaction in witnessing him learn from his mistakes and take baby steps toward adulthood, the selfishness of childhood evolving into a moral code. Director Courvoisier’s first film, with its cast of non-actors, won the Youth Award in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes and Best Debut Film at the 2025 César Awards, as well as Best Female Revelation for Barthelemy.
Holy Cow is a Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber, and will open in theaters on March 28.
4. Suspended Time, directed by Olivier Assayas
In a thinly fictionalized version of his actual Covid lockdown experience at his family’s country home in Chevreuse, the brilliant Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep, Personal Shopper) gives audiences a peek into a moment when life stood still. Interspersed with segments in which Assayas himself narrates memories of childhood summers at the house, his stand-in, Paul Berger (Vincent Macaigne) shelters in place with his rock journalist brother Etienne (Micha Lescot) and their respective partners. Much of the abundant humor comes from the brothers’ clashing lockdown styles. Neurotic Paul, obsessed with masks, hand sanitizer, and Covid guidelines, insists on leaving groceries outside for four hours, constantly orders clean, new stuff from Amazon, and watches a YouTube video on how to wash his hands, while Etienne makes fun of him. Etienne indulges his serious crepe habit and keeps his emotions bottled up until they come out screaming like steam from a kettle. Etienne is itchy to get out, while Paul appreciates the languid time playing tennis and having elaborate meals in the garden with the people he loves. Diehard fans will appreciate this glimpse into the private life of a beloved filmmaker, while others might find the film slight or even masturbatory. I love, love, loved it, but I live for stories of navel-gazing artists, especially smart, insightful, hilarious ones like this. I’ll take boredom, petty arguments, and exposition by Oliver Assayas over just about anyone else’s high speed chase scene any day.
3. Ghost Trail, directed by Jonathan Millet
When we meet Syrian refugee Hamid (Adam Bessa), he’s being dumped in the desert to die. Two years later he’s in Strasbourg working in construction. Somehow he survived. We learn that Hamid is working with an anonymous group hunting for escaped Syrian war criminals, and that he is obsessed with finding Harfaz, the man who tortured him in prison—as if finding him will relieve the loss and pain that haunts him. While the other members of the group focus on Berlin, Hamid becomes convinced his tormentor is posing as Sami Hamma (Tawfeek Barhom), a chemistry postgrad at the local university. The genius of the tense, gripping thriller, the opening night film at Cannes’ Critics’ Week and a nominee for Best First Film at this year’s César Awards, is that no one trusts anyone. Everyone is suspicious, everyone lies. We know Hamid isn’t who he says he is, but is he a seeker of truth and justice—or a vigilante driven by vengeance for the losses he has suffered? Bessa’s electric and immensely moving performance, which earned him a nomination for Best Male Revelation at the 2025 César Awards, reveals the complex layers of trauma, the sadness that comes on in waves, the need to know, the desire to rip this guy’s head off. It’s the story that pulls us in and Bessa’s performance that keeps us there, praying for redemption.
Ghost Trail opens in New York on Friday, May 30, followed by a national expansion.
2. When Fall is Coming, directed by François Ozon
With its fairy tale village backdrop and exquisite depictions of everyday life, the latest from provocateur adoré François Ozon might remind you of a Mike Leigh film—until the main character inadvertently poisons her bitchy daughter with the wild mushrooms she foraged that morning. Then we know we’re in Ozon territory. In a César-nominated role, Hélène Vincent plays Michelle, an upbeat, generous, and kind retiree who spends her languid days with her longtime best friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko). When the film opens, Michelle is eagerly awaiting a weeklong visit with her beloved grandson, Lucas (Garlan Erlos). Once her bitchy daughter (Ludivine Sagnier) has her stomach pumped, though, she announces her son can’t stay—Michelle is clearly dangerous. From there, this preternaturally happy woman turns dark and wistful, until fate intervenes. Impediments are removed and dreams come true, leaving the audience feeling warm and swoony. It’s a story about the sins of mothers visited upon their children—but what if they’re only perceived as sinful by ungrateful children? It’s like a fairy tale where the witch goes up in a poof of smoke, and it’s as charming as it is twisted, just as we expect from Ozon.
When Fall is Coming will premiere at the Film Forum in New York on Friday, April 4.
1. Souleymane’s Story, directed by Boris Lojkine
Waiting for his asylum interview, Guinean immigrant Souleymane (Abou Sangare) rubs a drop of blood off his crisp white shirt. We flash back to his life as a food delivery guy in Paris. He’s on a bike whizzing through traffic, dodging cars like a pro. You, the viewer, hold your breath. Every second is an accident waiting to happen. Souleymane picks up a pizza, drops it off, each time requiring someone to scan a link, type in a code. As he swerves, rings a bell, begs someone to dépêchez-vous, SVP!, we learn he isn’t even using his own delivery account. He’s renting someone else’s for a fee, an unpleasant guy who sometimes refuses to pay. Souleymane needs the cash from this guy to pay another guy who’s getting him the necessary documents for his interview and quizzing him on his story. This guy doesn’t thinks Souleymane’s isn’t strong enough, and comes up with a sexier one involving prison, torture, and political passions. Souleymane races to jump on the bus that takes him to a shelter. In the middle of the night an alarm reminds him to reserve a bed for the next night. Eventually he does have an accident, gets questioned by cops, misses his bus, and every second counts. First-time actor Sangare’s riveting performance won the 2025 César for Best Male Revelation, along with the César for Best Editing and Original Screenplay. The chaos leads us to the moment when Souleymane tells his story—to an immigration worker (Best Supporting Actress winner, Nina Meurisse), who actually seems to care. All we can do is pray for this incredibly sympathetic, determined, and capable man, whose story couldn’t matter more.
Andrea Meyer has written creative treatments for commercial directors, a sex & the movies column for IFC, and a horror screenplay for MGM. Her first novel, Room for Love (St. Martin’s Press) is a romantic comedy based on an article she wrote for the New York Post, for which she pretended to look for a roommate as a ploy to meet men. A long-time film and entertainment journalist and former indieWIRE editor, Andrea has interviewed more actors and directors than she can remember. Her articles and essays have appeared in such publications as Elle, Glamour, Variety, Time Out NY and the Boston Globe.
