Coming up with a list of the best films of the 21st century is a difficult task, no matter what the parameters. When you’re looking at France, a country with an unrivaled cinematic history and endless pool of filmmaking genius, it feels almost impossible. First, you must consider the great filmmakers—Olivier Assayas, Jacques Audiard, Arnaud Desplechin, Claire Denis, François Ozon, Leos Carax, Catherine Breillat—as well as towering foreign talents like the Austrian Michael Haneke, whose films are largely produced in France, and in French. Then, évidemment, are the great works by New Wave directors still shooting at the beginning of this century, including Jean-Luc Godard and Agnès Varda. Finally, you have the exciting young talents like Céline Sciamma and Mia Hansen-Løve, whose work has been invited easily into the canon. There are also, of course, a few stand-alone films that audiences have fallen for, hard.
How We Selected the Best Films
While Frenchly has covered many recent masterworks that could easily have made this list, including such dazzling films as Other People’s Children, Paris 13th District, The Worst Ones, Full Time, The Taste of Things, Last Summer, On the Adamant, Close, and One Fine Morning, we made the decision to focus on films that have already stood the test of time. (With one exception—the universally acclaimed Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet.) By the time we publish another edition of 21st century’s bests, we’ll find out just which of these spectacular films has made the cut.
24. The Intouchables (2011), directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano
One of the biggest French-language box office hits of all time, this heartwarming crowd-pleaser is based on the true story of Philippe (François Cluzet), a rich quadriplegic who hires ex-con Driss (Lupin’s Omar Sy) to be his caregiver. Even though Driss has no idea how to do the job, which he only took so he could continue collecting his government benefits, the odd couple become unlikely friends. Philippe teaches Driss about art and culture, while Driss offers Philippe a breath of fresh air by refusing to treat him like an invalid. Instead, Driss playfully makes fun of him, zooming him around in his wheelchair, in time convincing him there’s more to life than sitting around feeling sorry for himself. This big-time tearjerker was nominated for nine César awards, with Sy taking home the award for Best Actor.
Stream on Plex, or rent on Prime, Google Play or YouTube.
23. The Artist (2011), directed by Michel Hazanavicius
The world was floored in 2011, when a French film was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won five, becoming the first French-produced film to win Best Picture. The film takes place in 1927, when a young unknown dancer, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Béjo), literally bumps into silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin). Their starry-eyed meet-cute is photographed, and Peppy takes advantage of the free PR to audition for a movie. With Valentin’s help, she launches a successful film career. Two years later, talkies are taking over, and silent film is on the outs. Valentin’s star crashes and burns, while Peppy’s rises. At the depths of his despair, Peppy comes to his rescue. A love letter to classic Hollywood silent films, featuring gorgeous cinematography by Guillaume Schiffman that perfectly captures 1920s Hollywood, this unrepentant crowd-pleaser charmed audiences worldwide.
Stream on Pluto or rent on Apple TV.
22. I Lost My Body (2019), directed by Jérémy Clapin
This poetic and eerie creation was the first animated film to win the Nespresso Grand Prize at Cannes. Told from the point of view of a severed hand escaped from a lab, the movie follows the adventures of the hand in its hopes of being reunited with the young man, Naoufel, to whom it was once attached. Along the way, the hand creeps like a spider through Paris, as flashbacks reveal its backstory: Naoufel’s childhood in Morocco, falling in love with a woman named Gabrielle whom he’s never seen, getting a job with Gabrielle’s uncle as a carpenter’s apprentice, heartbreak, and regret. Both the hand and its body experience romantic dreams of longing and connection, along with disappointment and isolation, in a film as strange and singular as it is wistful and profound.
Stream on Netflix.
21. Certified Copy (2010), directed by Abbas Kiarostami
In the great Iranian director Kiarostami’s Before Sunset-esque tale, Juliette Binoche plays an unnamed antiques dealer who meets a British writer (William Shimmell) in Tuscany. The film follows the two as they wander the Italian streets together, practically living out an entire relationship over the course of a day, despite starting out as strangers arguing about the importance of authenticity in art. When a waiter assumes they are married, they slip into a “let’s pretend we’re married” game without discussion. They act as if they have strolled these streets together before, even visiting a nearby hotel for their “honeymoon,” then shifting into the frustrations and fights that come with longterm relationships. It’s a slippery tale of possibility between people meeting for the first time, and Kiarostami never answers the questions he poses, never tells us what is real and what lives in the imagination of two attractive strangers sizing each other up. The ambiguity puzzles some audiences but enchants many more, making it a regular on many “best of” lists, and its charms earned Binoche the award for Best Actress at Cannes.
20. 8 Women (2002), directed by François Ozon
The fabulous king of French camp is famous for his sly Hitchcockian thrillers (See the Sea, Swimming Pool, Under the Sand) and melodramas à la Sirk and Fassbinder (Water Drops on Burning Rocks, Peter von Kant). It’s also hard to ignore the insane speed with which he’s knocked out about a film a year since his 2007 debut. For 8 Women, the cinematic trickster throws eight of the greatest actresses to grace the screen—Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux, Ludivine Sagnier, and Firmine Richard—into an isolated mansion one stormy Christmas in 1950s France. When someone sticks a dagger in the back of the house patriarch, the film turns into a cheeky whodunit. Throw in some deep dark secrets, a parade of musical numbers, a splash of hanky-panky, and voilà! Simmer, stir, and wait to see what kind of deliciousness the master is cooking up in his pot.
Buy on Amazon.
19. Fat Girl (2001), directed by Catherine Breillat
While on vacation in the sleepy seaside town of Les Mathes, chubby 12-year-old Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) tags along after her gorgeous older sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida), whom Anaïs resents as much as she adores. When they meet Fernando, a seductive Italian law student who wants to get into Elena’s pants, it’s only minutes before Elena is making out with him in a café, while Anaïs gorges on a banana split. Back in their room, the younger girl watches Fernando and Roxane’s sexual encounters with a mixture of fascination and disgust. Breillat is a provocative filmmaker who uses this film as a vehicle to make a point about women falling into sexual acts that have more to do with male expectations than consent or desire. She takes this concept to the ultimate point, inserting an act of brutality so shocking, it turns everything that has come before—and realism itself—on its head. Though Fat Girl was banned in several countries for its provocative content, it earned much critical success, as well as awards at the Berlin and Cannes film festivals.
Stream on Max.
18. Tell No One (2006), directed by Guillaume Canet
Based on the thriller by bestselling American author Harlan Coben, Tell No One is the story of widowed doctor Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet), whose wife was murdered by a serial killer. One day he receives an email that seems to be from his dead wife, along with surveillance footage that shows her very much alive, and includes the message: “Tell no one.” This happens just as the police begin re-investigating her murder, with Alexandre now the prime suspect. He does what any sane person would do and takes off. Tense action sequences keep the adrenaline pumping, but the heart of this twisty tale—which won four César awards, including Best Director and Best Actor—lies in its hero’s humanity, his longing to uncover the truth, and his love for the wife whose life has become a mystery to him.
17. Anatomy of a Fall (2023), directed by Justine Triet
When novelist Sandra Voyter’s (Sandra Hüller) husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) is found dead outside their home in the French Alps, having possibly been hit with a heavy object before falling from the attic window, Sandra becomes the prime suspect. But this film is as much the story of a marriage as it is a murder mystery. During a highly publicized trial, the couple’s personal lives come under fierce scrutiny. The judge, public, film audience—and, most heartbreakingly, Sandra’s young son—take in the evidence, looking for answers. Along the way, we learn that truth is as slippery as a fish in your hands. The film refuses to offer easy answers, and its drama, in both the marriage and courtroom, is captivating throughout—so much so that the film won the 2023 Palme d’Or at Cannes, was nominated for five Oscars (including Best Picture), and won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. It was also nominated for eleven Césars and won six, including Best Film, as well as a flurry of other international awards.
Stream on Hulu.
16. Goodbye to Language (2014), directed by Jean-Luc Godard
The late great French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, considered a god by many cinephiles, was awarded the Cannes Jury Prize for this revolutionary 70-minute visual essay he created at the age of 84. The film is a sort of 3D collage of haunting—often overlapping—imagery, music, and literary allusions, with special attention given to the wanderings of his own dog Roxie, who won the coveted Palm Dog award at Cannes. (This special award celebrates exceptional canine acting.) There are narrative and thematic threads woven throughout, for example: an adulterous couple seems to be heading for a violent end. But the film is best regarded as a poetic and poignant reverie, a contemplation on modern life and media to be taken in rather than read too literally. Godard was never one for following rules, and here again he has created something wholly rich, evocative, and new.
Stream on Plex or rent on Apple TV.
15. Blue is the Warmest Color (2013), directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
In Abdellatif Kechiche’s sexual coming-of-age about the enduring power of first love, Adèle Exarchopoulos plays 15-year-old Emma, still recovering from her breakup with her first boyfriend when she falls for a blue-haired older woman (Léa Seydoux). The film charts the drama—the early passion, the inevitable complacency, the challenges, and the unraveling—of the central relationship between the two women over several years. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for both its director and its two stars, and Exarchopoulos won the César for Most Promising Actress. Despite the claim by some that the lesbian sex scenes (directed by a straight man) were needlessly explicit, the film is considered one of the most captivating love stories of all time.
Stream on AMC+, YouTube, or Philo.
14. Things to Come (2016), directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
Hansen-Løve’s remarkable work generally integrates autobiographical elements, whether it’s the young relationship in Goodbye First Love, the DJ in the 90s club scene in Eden (based on Hansen-Løve’s brother), or the couple in Bergman Island working through writing and relationship challenges during a writing retreat on Faro Island (seemingly inspired by Hansen-Løve and her longtime partner, director Olivier Assayas). In a similar vein, Hansen-Løve fictionalizes her parents’ separation in the Berlin Silver Bear-winning Things to Come, with the story of Nathalie Chazeaux (Isabelle Huppert), a philosophy professor whose life falls apart when her mother dies and her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, Nathalie embraces the freedom she’s unexpectedly been granted. She reconnects with a socially active former student who reminds her of her younger self, and takes on the project of self-reinvention, marching confidently into a future that is wide open and full of possibility.
Stream on AMC+, Philo or YouTube.
13. Hidden (2005), directed by Michael Haneke
In an unsettling psychological thriller that creeps under your skin and settles there, Daniel Auteuil plays a popular TV host Georges, who is trying to figure out who is sending him videotapes surveilling the outside of the house he shares with his wife, Anne (Juliette Binoche), and their young son. The videotapes keep coming, followed by violent, childlike drawings and anonymous phone calls—escalating the tension and chipping away at the couple’s marriage—until the cracks in their privileged life reveal childhood secrets suggesting that an incident in Georges’ past has come back to haunt them. The film, which won three awards at Cannes, including Best Director, has been called both confounding, and an allegory for the collective guilt surrounding France’s involvement in the Algerian War. It is unquestionably haunting.
Rent or buy on Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, or Google Play.
12. A Christmas Tale (2008), directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Desplechin’s big, messy, and supremely entertaining films churn with amusingly neurotic characters, family dysfunction, and troubling events no one is capable of leaving in the past where they belong. A Christmas Tale brings the sprawling Vuillard clan together for the holidays. What’s different this year is that matriarch Junon (Catherine Deneuve) has terminal cancer. She is seeking a bone marrow donor, and her son Henry (Mathieu Amalric), long ago ousted from the family, is the only viable candidate. The rambunctious rhythm of the chaos, the virtuosity of the dialogue, and the sophistication and moral complexity of the characters’ interactions elevate Desplechin’s work, making masterpieces of family squabbles. Also starring Deneuve’s real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni, Desplechin regular Emmanuelle Devos, and Melvil Poupaud, the film was nominated for nine César awards, with Jean-Paul Roussillon winning the award for Best Supporting Actor.
Stream on AMC+, IFC Films, or Philo.
11. 35 Shots of Rum (2008), directed by Claire Denis
Widowed train engineer Lionel (Alex Descas) has been raising his daughter, college student Joséphine (Mati Diop), alone for years. Their unusually close relationship exists in a loving and protective cocoon. They live in an apartment building in a Parisian suburb, where they’ve formed almost familial bonds with their neighbors Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue), a cab driver who once had a fling with Lionel, and Noé (Denis regular Grégoire Colin), a directionless young man harboring a crush on Joséphine. On a fateful night in an empty bar, Noé’s feelings for Joséphine become clear, and Lionel realizes that his daughter has become a woman who will someday leave him for a life of her own. In other hands, the film would be a rom-com or family melodrama, but with her episodic style and intense focus on bodies and faces, Denis has created a bittersweet masterpiece about the forces that bring joy and love into our lives—and sometimes take them away.
Stream on MUBI.
10. L’Enfant (2005), directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
The Belgian Dardenne brothers started making movies together in the 1970s, and broke out with their stellar film, The Promise, in 1996. Their next film, Rosetta, took home the Palme d’Or. The Dardennes’ rigorously naturalistic films tap into their documentary background, presenting gritty, realistic, portraits of desperate people in hard circumstances, who often make stupid, selfish, decisions in the interest of survival. L’Enfant stars Dardenne regular Jérémie Renier as Bruno, a 20-year-old surviving on welfare checks and petty crime when his girlfriend (Déborah François) gets pregnant. For Bruno, a baby represents simply another way to make some quick cash. What follows is heartbreaking, yet inevitable, showcasing the Dardenne brothers’ dedication to depicting reality. The film won the uncompromising directors their second Palme d’Or.
Buy or rent on YouTube, Prime, Apple TV, or Google Play.
9. The Class (2008), directed by Laurent Cantet
Cantet’s adaptation of François Bégaudeau’s semi-autobiographical book about his struggles as a middle school teacher in a working-class Paris neighborhood won the Cannes Palme d’Or, the César for Best Adaptation, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Critics and moviegoers swooned over the unsentimental treatment of a familiar trope, where an optimistic young teacher, played by Bégaudeau himself in the film, with dreams of changing hearts and minds, crashes hard into the limitations of reality. The film’s no-nonsense take on the French educational system, and its naturalistic, vérité style, feels fresh, with tension and comedy knocking against each other in a film that reflects real life. While the focus is on François’s negotiations with the kids—his frustration, humor, ingenuity, and tenderness toward the students, many with rough backstories and home lives—the film takes a critical stance about the system, as well. Instead of the clichéd triumphant, celebratory narrative arc, with kids learning life lessons from a kind teacher and taking over the world, there are daily wins and tragic losses. François’s commitment to his vocation and these kids shines throughout as heroic and life-affirming.
Rent or buy on Prime, YouTube, or Google Play.
8. Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), directed by Olivier Assayas
In this gorgeously layered, sexy drama from the prolific director of such eclectic and beloved films as Irma Vep, Summer Hours, and Personal Shopper, Juliette Binoche stars as Maria, an acting legend who reluctantly accepts a role in a new production of the play that launched her career. Only this time she’ll play the older lover of Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz), the obnoxious starlet/drama-magnet playing the younger role that made Maria a star. Suddenly lacking confidence and questioning her life decisions, Maria leans on her personal assistant (Kristin Stewart), with whom she shares distracting sexual tension. With its breathtaking visuals of the Swiss Alps, and a complex story of one woman’s middle-aged yearning for self-acceptance, the film won the Prix Louis Delluc for Best Film at Cannes, and was nominated for six César awards, including Best Film, and won Best Supporting Actress for Kristen Stewart.
Stream on AMC+, YouTube, or Roku.
7. Holy Motors (2012), directed by Leos Carax
Poetic provocateur Leos Carax never holds back. His enigmatically electrifying films are packed with gushingly gorgeous, grotesque, mind-boggling images unlike anything you’ve seen before. In Holy Motors, he tells the bonkers story of Mr. Oscar (Denis Lavant), a sort of performance artist who wears costumes and inserts his “characters”—a rich businessman, a beggar, a gangster, the eccentric “Monsieur Merde”—into actual scenes in Paris over the course of a day…but there’s no camera or crew capturing it on film. There are musical numbers and beguiling cameos by Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue. Nominated for nine Césars, and winner of the Award of the Youth at Cannes, the film might be a metaphor for cinema—or for the colorful, unpredictable, ever-evolving, and surprising banquet of life itself.
Stream on YouTube, Tubi, or Pluto TV.
6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), directed by Julian Schnabel
Esteemed artist Julian Schnabel turned his considerable talents to adapting the 1997 memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a fashion magazine editor who lived life with unbridled energy and passion, until he suffered a debilitating stroke at 45, and became a prisoner in his own body. With his mind intact, but his entire body—except for his left eye—paralyzed, Bauby dictated the book using his eyelid. With Mathieu Amalric in the starring role, Schnabel and his cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List), created a look that simulated Bauby’s locked-in point of view, breaking out to include the memories and fantasies that fill his head with beauty, poignancy, and imagination, rather than the self-pity and despair many would fall into were they in his position.
Rent or buy on Prime, Apple TV, or Google Play.
5. A Prophet (2009), directed by Jacques Audiard
Jacques Audiard’s thrilling movies—Read My Lips, Rust and Bone, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Paris 13th District, and the upcoming, Cannes Jury prize-winning Emilia Perez—have been grabbing and holding tight to audiences’ psyches for 30 years. While it’s hard to choose one that rises above the others, his searing crime drama A Prophet hits many critics and fans the hardest with its graphic, high-stakes story of a young French-Algerian man’s transformation in prison. Flung into prison at 19, Malik (Tahar Rahim) lands under the wing of a Corsican mob boss (Niels Arestrup). While Malik learns what he must do to survive, including killing at his master’s whim, he is torn between the protection provided by this dangerous alliance, and his Muslim roots and conscience. Audiard does not romanticize but instead shows us with terrifying realism what the violence of this world looks and feels like for a man transformed into a monster under the weight of daily horrors. The viewer can only look on, appalled and praying for redemption. The film won the Cannes Grand Prix and nine César awards, including Best Film.
Rent or buy on Prime, Apple TV, or YouTube.
4. Amour (2012), directed by Michael Haneke
The Austrian director who took the world by storm with such shocking, often socially conscious films as Funny Games, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher, and The White Ribbon, turns his piercing camera on the meaning of love. When Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) suffers a debilitating stroke, her husband Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) cares for her, even though their daughter (Isabelle Huppert) would prefer to put her into a facility. When a second stroke leaves Anne unable to speak, Georges must decide what to do. Just as love drives their relationship, it also guides him in determining what it means to to be with someone who is suffering. The devastating film won Haneke’s first of two Palme d’Ors at Cannes, and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also nominated for 10 César Awards, and won five, including: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress.
Rent or buy on Prime, YouTube, GooglePlay, Fandango at Home, or Apple TV.
3. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), directed by Céline Sciamma
Lauded director Sciamma’s (Tomboy, Petite Maman) visually and emotionally stunning love story stars Adèle Haenel as Héloïse, an 18th-century heiress on a remote island in Brittany, who is reluctant to marry the Italian nobleman who’s been promised her hand. When her mother hires Marianne (Noémie Merlant) to paint her marriage portrait, the fast friends tumble into a life-changing romance that both women know can’t last. Sciamma was the first female director to win the Queer Palm at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where she also took home the prize for Best Screenplay.
Stream on Hulu.
2. Faces Places (2017), directed by Agnès Varda and JR
The great Agnès Varda, who died in 2019 at the age of 90, is famous for her poignant documentaries (masterpieces Jacquot de Nantes, The Gleaners and I) and hard-hitting documentary-like narrative films (Vagabond, Happiness, Cleo from 5 to 7), as well as her deeply personal, open-hearted, humanity. Here the “grandmother of the French New Wave” joins forces with street photographer JR to roam the countryside, taking larger-than-life photographs of small-town strangers (who quickly become friends), and pasting them on local walls, changing the lives of the individuals who appear in them. Along the way, they discuss memories past and in the making, and how to live our days in a way that embraces humanity, and satisfies our souls in the face of life’s impermanence. As always with Varda’s films, this one is hilarious, moving, profound, and life-affirming. The film also brings communities together and forms a unique bond between these two creators of different generations, who share a similar longing to touch the world with their art. The film was nominated for an Oscar and two Césars, and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Stream on Prime.
1. Amélie (2001), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Mathieu Kassovitz once told me that Amélie—in which he plays the love interest—is a perfect movie. I’d have to agree. The Oscar-nominated and César Best Film-winning fairy tale about a Montmartre waitress (Audrey Tautou) who dreams up clever ways to improve the lives of everyone around her while neglecting her own happiness, is a marvel. In the assured hands of whimsical evil genius Jeunet (Delicatessen), the film’s unequaled sweetness, charm, playfulness, and style is balanced by its inventiveness, dark comedy, and emotional nuance. The hilariously brave and bittersweet story of a woman driven by love to allow herself to play the starring role in her own life, is one of the few French films ever to become a massive worldwide critical and commercial sensation—and for good reason. It’s about the magic of Paris, the magic of love, and the magic you can discover all around you, if you have the drive, smarts, and mischievousness to unleash it.
Stream on Prime. Rent on Apple TV or YouTube.
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.
