The 100 best French films: 50-41

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1927)

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer

Dreyer's most universally acclaimed masterpiece remains one of the most staggeringly intense films ever made. It deals

Histoire(s) du cinéma (1998)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Naked Childood (L'enfance nue) (1968)

Director: Maurice Pialat

Among the seismic innovations of the French New Wave, it’s easy to gloss over the unsentimental approach of a movie like

Série noire (1979)

Director: Alain Corneau

Although the setting is changed from Big City USA to the dismal, wintry Paris suburbs, this neo-noir retains the outline of Jim

Plein soleil (1960)

Director: René Clément

René Clément and Chabrol's collaborator Paul Gégauff got hold of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley decades before Wim

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)

Director: Jacques Audiard

Remaking James Toback's 1978 Fingers, director Jacques Audiard (Read My Lips) has turned the story of Tom (Duris), a petty

Maine Océan (1986)

Director: Jacques Rozier

My Night with Maud (Ma nuit chez Maud) (1969)

Director: Eric Rohmer

From Time Out LondonSix months after the death of Eric Rohmer at the age of 89, the BFI is re-releasing a good-looking new print

Silken Skin (La peau douce) (1964)

Director: François Truffaut

Those whose knowledge of French nouvelle vague linchpin François Truffaut begins with ‘The 400 Blows’ and ends with ‘Jules

Mouchette (1967)

Director: Robert Bresson

Adapted from a Georges Bernanos story, Mouchette describes the life and tribulations of a poor, barely mature peasant girl