Best French Films Ever.

Top rated French Movies: popular, classic, famous "must watch" Cinema Fançais — great pictures old and new 31-40.

In French the word Paradis denotes not only paradise but also the seats in a theatre known in English as "the gods". A better English translation of the title might therefore have been Children of the Gods.

A group of friends repeatedly meet in order to eat together and are thwarted each time.

Surreal black comedy.

La Haine is an angry, anti-authoritarian film. It centres on three young men (a Jew, an Arab, and a black man) who take on the police after a friend is brutally beaten. Famed for its edge and rawness.

Shot in black and white.

The violence including an interrogation scene that incorporates torture is graphic.

There are gritty observations of wayward youths hanging out on the fringes of Paris, but not that much by way of insight,

Adele (Vanessa Paradis) is an attractive but unlucky 22 year old woman. We are introduced to her and her weakness for men in a long gently humorous introduction captured in a single shot using several cameras.

Her life is so empty that she contemplates suicide one night. She teeters on a bridge over the River Seine River. A man called Gabor (Daniel Auteuil) takes an interest in her. As he ademits he frequents such bridges in search of women with nothing to lose. He offers work to them in his circus act.

Together, they travel along the northern shore of the Mediterranean through France, Monaco, Italy, Greece and Turkey with their dangerous act. There is a powerful erotic charge between them and we are introduced to some interesting if unlikely ideas, Together they experience fantastic good fortune, seemingly in control of all aspects of hazard and chance.

In romanic comedies the characters discover that they are made for each other in the last scene. Here they know it early on, but for various reasons that are only partially stated explicitly, they will not simply settle down together. They are like two halves of a torn bank note - each worthless without the other half.

Adele falls in love with a newly-wed groom and takes off with him to Greece, while Gabor is stuck on a ship to Turkey. Luck deserts them both, and Gabor spirals downward in Istanbul until he too reaches the depths of dispair.

This is a good, if slightly unsettling film. It is really a two-hander, with all other parts incidental. Vanessa Paradis with her gap teeth is perfect and gives a stunning performance, sexually incontinent, sensual and innocent all at the same time. If you ever wondered how anyone could find danger erotically exciting then this film will explain it for you.

The film is beaufifully shot in black and white. It is atmospheric with gentle touches of humour, and a great selection of music for the soundtrack. A moden classic.