Best French Films Ever.
Top Rated French Movies: popular, classic, famous "must watch" Cinema Fançais

7. La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast)

Although we think we are all familiar with fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast, there is much more to them than we ever learned in the Nursery.

Jean Cocteau's version of Beauty and the Beast is very far away from the nursery version, so don't expect an anodyne Walt Disney style film. Think rather, sparkling surrealism and magical special effects achieved while the supporting technology was still at its most basic.

An old man sets out one night in the fog to go home. He finds himself on the property of the Beast, a half-human creature, possessed of magic powers, .

The Beast captures the old man when he picks a rose from the Beast's garden, but lets him go on condition that he brings one of his daughters to take his place.

Bella, who is a Cinderella figure to her two sisters, and for whom her father had picked the rose, agrees to go, and arrives at the Beast's castle, where she takes up residence.

In time she realises that despite his Bestial appearance and magical powers, her new custodian has a human heart within - more than usually gentle, and more than usually tortured.

Bela returns home to visit her ailing father, an event which triggers unforeseen consequences and the eventual denouement.

The film is famed not only for its graceful story, but also for the sets and atmosphere. It is entirely in tune with the original dark folk tales that we have so often converted into children's stories.

A genuine World classic, though the very end might seem a little too Holywwod fairy tale for some.