The Top 100 French New Wave Movies of All Time
by k-11654 | created - 7 months ago | updated - 4 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Samurai (1967)
GP | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After professional hitman Jef Costello is seen by witnesses his efforts to provide himself an alibi drive him further into a corner.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier
Votes: 57,168 | Gross: $0.04M
2. The 400 Blows (1959)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama
A young boy, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier, Guy Decomble
Votes: 128,079
3. Breathless (1960)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama
A small-time crook, hunted by the authorities for a car theft and the murder a police officer, attempts to persuade a hip American journalism student to run away with him to Italy.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Van Doude, Jean-Luc Godard
Votes: 87,931 | Gross: $0.34M
4. Army of Shadows (1969)
Not Rated | 145 min | Drama, War
An account of underground resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied France.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret
Votes: 25,853 | Gross: $0.74M
5. The Red Circle (1970)
Not Rated | 140 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After leaving prison, master thief Corey crosses paths with a notorious escapee and an alcoholic former policeman. The trio proceed to plot an elaborate heist.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volontè, Yves Montand
Votes: 28,164 | Gross: $0.37M
6. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A young woman separated from her lover by war faces a life-altering decision.
Director: Jacques Demy | Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel
Votes: 31,344 | Gross: $0.03M
7. Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Horror
A surgeon causes an accident which leaves his daughter disfigured and goes to extreme lengths to give her a new face.
Director: Georges Franju | Stars: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Alexandre Rignault
Votes: 35,145 | Gross: $0.05M
8. Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.
Director: Alain Resnais | Stars: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff, Françoise Bertin
Votes: 24,885 | Gross: $0.06M
9. Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
Not Rated | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A self-assured businessman murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin
Votes: 28,643 | Gross: $0.11M
10. Jules and Jim (1962)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Romance
Decades of a love triangle concerning two friends and an impulsive woman.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre, Vanna Urbino
Votes: 44,416
11. Pierrot the Fool (1965)
Not Rated | 110 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina, Graziella Galvani, Aicha Abadir
Votes: 36,942
12. Band of Outsiders (1964)
Not Rated | 95 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Two crooks with a fondness for old Hollywood B-movies convince a languages student to help them commit a robbery.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Anna Karina, Claude Brasseur, Danièle Girard, Louisa Colpeyn
Votes: 27,065 | Gross: $0.04M
13. Vivre sa vie (1962)
Not Rated | 85 min | Drama
Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, André S. Labarthe, Guylaine Schlumberger
Votes: 34,997
14. Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Not Rated | 90 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
Cleo, a singer and hypochondriac, becomes increasingly worried that she might have cancer while awaiting test results from her doctor.
Director: Agnès Varda | Stars: Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray, Dorothée Blanck
Votes: 27,296
15. Day for Night (1973)
PG | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Valentina Cortese
Votes: 24,786 | Gross: $0.02M
16. Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Romance
A French actress filming an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a married Japanese architect as they share their differing perspectives on war.
Director: Alain Resnais | Stars: Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Stella Dassas, Pierre Barbaud
Votes: 35,896 | Gross: $0.09M
17. La Jetée (1962)
Not Rated | 28 min | Short, Drama, Romance
The story of a man forced to explore his memories in the wake of World War III's devastation, told through still images.
Director: Chris Marker | Stars: Étienne Becker, Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich
Votes: 37,064
18. Night and Fog (1956)
TV-14 | 32 min | Documentary, Short, History
The history of Nazi Germany's death camps of the Final Solution and the hellish world of dehumanization and death contained inside.
Director: Alain Resnais | Stars: Michel Bouquet, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler
Votes: 21,464
19. The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)
G | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
Two sisters leave their small seaside town of Rochefort in search of romance. Hired as carnival singers, one falls for an American musician, while the other must search for her ideal partner.
Director: Jacques Demy | Stars: Catherine Deneuve, George Chakiris, Françoise Dorléac, Jacques Perrin
Votes: 12,030 | Gross: $0.09M
20. Contempt (1963)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Romance
A French writer's marriage deteriorates while working on Fritz Lang's version of "The Odyssey", as his wife accuses him of using her to court favor with the film's brash American producer.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli, Giorgia Moll
Votes: 36,037 | Gross: $0.04M
21. Bob the Gambler (1956)
PG | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After losing big, an aging gambler decides to assemble a team to rob a casino.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Roger Duchesne, Isabelle Corey, Daniel Cauchy, Guy Decomble
Votes: 13,358 | Gross: $0.02M
22. Shoot the Piano Player (1960)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A pianist helps his brother escape from two gangsters, who retaliate by abducting their kid brother.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Charles Aznavour, Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger, Michèle Mercier
Votes: 20,630
23. My Night at Maud's (1969)
GP | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A devout Catholic man's rigid principles are challenged during a one-night stay with Maud, a divorced woman with an outsize personality.
Director: Éric Rohmer | Stars: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Françoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault, Antoine Vitez
Votes: 14,547
24. Alphaville (1965)
Not Rated | 99 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A U.S. secret agent is sent to the distant space city of Alphaville where he must find a missing person and free the city from its tyrannical ruler.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff, Valérie Boisgel
Votes: 27,613 | Gross: $0.05M
25. A Woman Is a Woman (1961)
Not Rated | 84 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An exotic dancer is desperate to become a mother and accepts her reluctant boyfriend's suggestion that she be impregnated by his best friend.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Henri Attal
Votes: 19,191 | Gross: $0.10M
26. The Informer (1962)
Not Rated | 108 min | Crime, Thriller
A burglar betraying other criminals prepares for a big heist with a trusted friend who might be as untrustworthy as he.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, René Lefèvre
Votes: 11,992 | Gross: $0.08M
27. Masculine Feminine (1966)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Romance
A romance between young Parisians, shown through a series of vignettes.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Chantal Goya, Marlène Jobert, Michel Debord
Votes: 17,328 | Gross: $0.20M
28. Weekend (1967)
Not Rated | 105 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A surreal tale of a married couple going on a road trip to visit the wife's parents with the intention of killing them for the inheritance.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Yves Afonso
Votes: 15,789
29. Claire's Knee (1970)
GP | 105 min | Drama, Romance
On lakeside summer holiday, a conflicted older man is dared to have a flirt with two beautiful teenage half-sisters despite his betrothal to a diplomat's daughter and the fact that the girls have boyfriends.
Director: Éric Rohmer | Stars: Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Béatrice Romand, Laurence de Monaghan
Votes: 12,496 | Gross: $0.04M
30. Stolen Kisses (1968)
R | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
After being discharged from the army, Antoine Doinel centers a screwball comedy where he applies for different jobs and tries to make sense of his relationships with women.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, Delphine Seyrig, Michael Lonsdale
Votes: 15,101
31. Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Unrated | 193 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives preempted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality.
Director: Jacques Rivette | Stars: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier
Votes: 6,359 | Gross: $0.03M
32. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Not Rated | 112 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
In an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring
Votes: 45,424
33. Happiness (1965)
Not Rated | 80 min | Drama, Romance
François, a young carpenter, lives a happy, uncomplicated life with his wife Thérèse and their two small children. One day he meets Emilie, a clerk in the local post office.
Director: Agnès Varda | Stars: Jean-Claude Drouot, Marie-France Boyer, Marcelle Faure-Bertin, Manon Lanclos
Votes: 9,526
34. Lola (1961)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Romance
A bored young man meets with his former girlfriend, now a cabaret dancer and single mother, and soon finds himself falling back in love with her.
Director: Jacques Demy | Stars: Anouk Aimée, Marc Michel, Jacques Harden, Alan Scott
Votes: 7,529
35. Love in the Afternoon (1972)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Though he has an adoring wife, a bourgeois man is still tempted to pursue other women.
Director: Éric Rohmer | Stars: Bernard Verley, Zouzou, Françoise Verley, Daniel Ceccaldi
Votes: 9,341
36. Murmur of the Heart (1971)
R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama
As France is nearing the end of the first Indochina War, an open-minded teenage boy finds himself torn between a rebellious urge to discover love, and the ever-present, almost dominating affection of his beloved mother.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux, Daniel Gélin, Michael Lonsdale
Votes: 10,849 | Gross: $0.35M
37. The Collector (1967)
Not Rated | 86 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A womanizing art dealer and a painter find the serenity of their Riviera vacation disturbed by a third guest, a vivacious bohemian woman known for her long list of male conquests.
Director: Éric Rohmer | Stars: Patrick Bauchau, Haydée Politoff, Daniel Pommereulle, Alain Jouffroy
Votes: 9,792
38. Second Wind (1966)
Not Rated | 150 min | Crime, Drama
A gangster escapes jail and quickly makes plans to continue his criminal ways elsewhere, but a determined inspector is closing in.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Raymond Pellegrin, Christine Fabréga
Votes: 6,637
39. The Bride Wore Black (1968)
Unrated | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves the town. She will track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Claude Brialy, Michel Bouquet, Charles Denner
Votes: 10,145 | Gross: $0.55M
40. The Wild Child (1970)
G | 83 min | Biography, Drama, History
In a French forest in 1798, a child is found who cannot walk, speak, read or write. A doctor becomes interested in the child and patiently attempts to civilize him.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: François Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Cargol, Françoise Seigner, Paul Villé
Votes: 8,893 | Gross: $1.81M
41. The Butcher (1970)
Unrated | 93 min | Drama, Thriller
An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.
Director: Claude Chabrol | Stars: Stéphane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia, Pascal Ferone
Votes: 9,386 | Gross: $0.47M
42. The Mother and the Whore (1973)
210 min | Drama, Romance
The chauvinist Alexandre balances relationships with several women in the post-1968 intellectual scene of Paris.
Director: Jean Eustache | Stars: Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Françoise Lebrun, Isabelle Weingarten
Votes: 6,694
43. The Fire Within (1963)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama
Depressed Alain Leroy leaves the clinic where he was detoxified. He meets friends, acquaintances and women, trying to find a reason to continue living. Will this help him?
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Maurice Ronet, Léna Skerla, Yvonne Clech, Hubert Deschamps
Votes: 10,465
44. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
Not Rated | 87 min | Comedy, Drama