The French film industry is on a roll. Last year saw the massive international success of such high-profile, award-winning French co-productions as Flow and Emilia Perez, and domestic box office giants like comic thriller How to Make a Killing and the animated crowd-pleaser Pets on a Train. Then 2026 opened strong with the theatrical release of the goofy comic murder mystery A Private Life, directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, in which Jodie Foster wowed American audiences with her flawless French (and crackling chemistry with Daniel Auteuil). With French films up 6% in international markets, this streak does not seem to be slowing any time soon, and a flood of other French cinematic treasures is on its way.
Here are the top 10 most exciting French films coming out in 2026.
1. Young Mothers (dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
The brilliant directing team Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne began making documentaries in the 1970s, before turning to raw, socially driven narrative film in 1996 with the brutal La Promesse, and the 1999 Palme d’Or-winner Rosetta. (They won Cannes’s top prize again in 2005 for L’Enfant, and the Grand Prix for The Kid with the Bike in 2011.) The Belgian brothers’ unvarnished, compassionate, often devastating portraits of working-class Belgians rip open the socioeconomic fabric of society, revealing profound, often unsettling truths. The stunning, Cannes Best Screenplay-winning Young Mothers follows four teenage mothers and mothers-to-be in a group shelter in Liège. Pregnant Jessica (Babette Verbeek) obsesses over the mother who gave her up at birth. Perla (Lucie Laruelle) tries desperately to build a life with her baby’s uninterested father. Recovering drug addict Julie (Elsa Houben) is committed to raising her child with her loving boyfriend, but is paralyzed by her fear of relapsing. Dreaming of a better life for her daughter, Ariane (Janaïna Halloy Fokan) considers giving her up for adoption. In the background of these gnarled, emotionally rich lives lie questions about cycles of poverty and abuse, asking whether a person who was parented badly can find a path to safely, lovingly raise a child. The jury is still out for these young women, but the film cautiously offers reason to hope.
Young Mothers is screening in New York and Los Angeles theaters with a national expansion to follow.
2. Arco (dir. Ugo Bienvenu & Gilles Cazaux)
The tagline for this environmentally-minded animated film, conceived by comic book writer-turned-director Ugo Bienvenu, is “What if rainbows were people from the future traveling in time?” It is fitting, then, that the story begins with a 10-year-old boy from a utopian future in the clouds snagging his sister’s rainbow robe to time travel to the era of the dinosaurs. Unfortunately, he crash-lands instead into 2075, in a version of Earth devastated by extreme weather events, where robots perform most essential tasks. Discovering Arco (Oscar Tresanini) in the forest, Iris (Margot Ringard Oldra), a girl his age, takes him in and vows to get him home, with the help of Mikki, the nanny bot who cares for Iris and her baby brother. While their adventure takes place in a world where people live in fireproof domes to fend off near-constant wildfires, the story of Arco and Iris is an optimistic one, and their friendship ultimately accomplishes miracles. A dubbed English-language version features the voices of Natalie Portman (who produced the film), Mark Ruffalo, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Andy Samberg, and Flea.
Arco opens in New York and Los Angeles on January 23, with a nationwide rollout to follow.
3. Sirāt (dir. Oliver Laxe)
The French co-production Sirāt has been called “astonishing,” “a spiritual odyssey,” and “the year’s most terrifying movie.” The winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, directed by French-born Spanish director Oliver Laxe, has been flooring people at festivals in Toronto, New York, San Sebastián, Denver, and beyond (and during its one-week Oscar-qualifying run last November). Sirāt is a survival story set in the Moroccan desert, where a father (Sergi López) drags his young son Esteban (Brúno Nuñez) and their dog to an illegal rave to search for his daughter, who has gone missing. The Arabic title means “path,” or, in Islamic scripture, a narrow bridge that connects Paradise and Hell, and that is where this desperate family lands. Along their path, they collide with a group of Euro-revelers, played by non-actors, who reluctantly let them tag along. The arrival of a convoy of military vehicles rounding up EU citizens, radio reports of people gathering at borders, and general Mad Max vibes hint that something bigger is going on, a global economic collapse or, perhaps, the apocalypse. Balancing doom and peril with bodies moving ecstatically to music, a message emerges about a community of strangers holding each other up on the eve of destruction.
Sirāt will be released in theaters on February 6.
4. Alpha (dir. Julia Ducournau)
Director Ducournau follows her Palme d’Or winning Titane with this hallucinatory coming-of-age body horror film about rebellious, troubled teenager, Alpha (Mélissa Boros). When the 13-year-old comes home with a homemade tattoo that might have been done with a dirty needle, her Moroccan-French physician mother (Golshifteh Farahani) fears she has contracted a mysterious disease that is slowly turning victims into marble statues. As Alpha navigates bullying and puberty, her mother treats patients fighting this strange plague and remembers scenes of her emaciated heroin addict brother (Tahar Rahin) wasting away years earlier. Set in the 90s, Alpha joins a recent sci-fi trend around AIDS allegories, revisiting the trauma of that health crisis, when fear of contracting the disease led to homophobia, public shame, and the heartbreak of whole swaths of society wiped out in the face of political indifference.
Alpha will be released in theaters on March 27.
5. The Stranger (dir. François Ozon)
In a faithful black-and-white adaptation of Albert Camus’ classic existentialist novel, L’Étranger, rising star Benjamin Voisin (The Quiet Son, Lost Illusions) plays nihilist antihero Meursault, who inexplicably kills a man on the beach days after his mother’s funeral. Meursault famously doesn’t cry at the funeral, displaying a chilling indifference and lack of compassion that play a larger role in his sentencing than his crime. The film, which won Lumière Awards for Best Film, Actor, and Cinematography, took a notable departure from the novel that has been debated since its Venice Film Festival premiere. Camus’ masterpiece was published in 1942, two decades before Algeria was liberated from French rule. In a postcolonial context, Ozon modifies the presentation of Meursault’s victim, a young Algerian man (Abderrahmane Dehkani), and Algerians in general, showcasing the poor treatment of the local Arab population by French Algerians. More boldly, Ozon gives Meursault’s formerly anonymous victim a name and creates a sister for him, who visits his grave, reminding us that this man is more than the nameless Arab from the novel (or the song by The Cure). He is a human being.
The Stranger will be released in theaters in April.
6. The Fence (dir. Claire Denis)
The release of a new Claire Denis movie always makes a splash. However The Fence, a quiet, theatrical film that returns to the renowned auteur’s early themes of colonialism and racial tensions, might make only a quiet ripple. At the fence surrounding a remote construction site in the West African desert, a black man (Denis regular, Isaach de Bankolé) arrives to claim the body of his brother, who was killed in a mysterious accident at the site. The white foreman, Horn (Matt Dillon), clearly uncomfortable on the other side of fence, says the driver will be punished for the horrible incident, but does not recover the body. The conversation wears on, tense and unrelenting, over the course of a long night in a stagy work based on Bernard-Marie Koltès’ 1979 play, Black Battles with Dogs. We can tell that Horn is lying, but catch only glimpses of the truth among scenes of Horn’s new, inappropriately dressed young wife (Mia McKenna-Bruce) arriving from London, champagne bottles popped and consumed, and arguments with Horn’s shady second in command, Cal (Tom Blyth), always returning to the showdown between two men on opposite sides of the literal and metaphorical fence between them.
The Fence will be released in theaters on April 8.
7. The Marching Band (dir. Emmanuel Courcol)
When acclaimed Parisian conductor Thibaut (Benjamin Lavernhe) is diagnosed with leukemia, he reaches out to his sister for a bone marrow transplant, only to learn from a DNA test that she isn’t his sister. In fact, he was adopted—and has a brother. Thibaut hightails it to Lille in Northern France to meet the brother he didn’t know he had, Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), a cook at a local school. Turns out, Jimmy also inherited the family talent for music—he has perfect pitch and plays trombone for a local marching band—and the brothers bond over their shared passion. When Jimmy’s band loses its conductor, it’s no surprise that Thibaut steps in to help. This heartfelt drama with fantastic performances, a healthy dose of humor, and rousing tunes takes on tropes like two worlds colliding, and the unexpected connections that enrich our lives. The rousing tearjerker became a smash hit in France, and will undoubtedly warm American hearts as well.
The Marching Band will be released in theaters this Spring.
8. Sacré Coeur (dir. Sabrina & Steven Gunnell)
While certainly not everyone’s tasse de thé, this documentary by devoutly Catholic husband and wife team Sabrina and Steven Gunnell has become a cultural phenomenon in France. Released with the subtitle “His Reign Will Have No End,” the film introduces audiences to the Sacred Heart Devotion, a Catholic practice that focuses on Jesus’ heart as a symbol of his love for humanity. Through dramatic reenactments and testimonies from a diverse range of modern believers, we learn about Christ’s 17th century appearances to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, through visions she had in Paray-le-Monial, a historical town in Burgundy. Despite some early bans, the film has attracted unbelievable crowds—over 500,000 people have seen it—packing theaters across the country, breaking records for a Christian film, and triggering an uptick in pilgrimages to the Chapel of Apparitions in Paray-le-Monial. In a time of global anxiety and political unrest, violence, and divisions, the film attempts to offer a message of hope and love. Whether or not American audiences buy in is yet to be seen.
Sacré Coeur will be released in theaters on June 12.
9. A Magnificent Life (dir. Sylvain Chomet)
Fans of Marseille-born novelist and playwright-turned-filmmaker Marcel Pagnol will be delighted with this animated biopic directed by Sylvain Chomet, the talented animator who brought us The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist. Told mainly in flashbacks, the film begins in 1956 Paris, where Pagnol is asked by a magazine editor to write his memoirs. He is fretting about his failing memory, when his younger self magically appears to help him out. Scenes from his life materialize: his childhood in Marseille; his mother’s death; his early flops that ultimately lead to a thriving career as a playwright, then filmmaker; his marriage to the actress Jacqueline Bouvier and the devastating loss of their young daughter. Some critics complain that the inclusion of so many biographical moments stifle the film’s pacing—and magic—but no one can argue with the great beauty and whimsicality of Chomet’s hand-drawn animation, which brings this legend of a beloved master storyteller to life.
A Magnificent Life is expected to be released in the United States in 2026.
10. 13 Days, 13 Nights (dir. Martin Bourboulon)
Based on the memoir 13 jours, 13 nuits dans l’enfer de Kaboul, by Commander Mohamed Bida of the French National Police, The Three Musketeers director Martin Bourboulon tells the action-packed true story of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover, which began on August 15, 2021. With American troops pulling out, Taliban insurgents seizing power in Kabul, and thousands of residents scrambling to find safety, the French embassy is preparing to evacuate. Then Commander Bida (Roschdy Zem) witnesses the desperation of hundreds of people terrified for their lives outside the embassy gates, and invites them inside, hatching a nearly impossible plan to transport them all to the airport. The rousing big-budget thriller tells the story of this 13-day effort on the part of 10 police officers who risked their own lives to get these abandoned citizens to freedom.
13 Days, 13 Nights is expected to be released in the United States in 2026.
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.
