Silent era 's
La Sortie des usines Lumière (1895)
Les frères Lumière released the first projection with the
Cinematograph, in Paris on 28 December 1895, with first public showing in the
Eden Theatre, La Ciotat. The French film industry in the late
19th century and early 20th century was the world's most important.
Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the
cinématographe and their ''
L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat'' in Paris in 1895 is considered by many historians as the official birth of cinematography. French films during this period catered to a growing middle class and were mostly shown in cafés and traveling fairs. The early days of the industry, from 1896 to 1902, saw the dominance of four firms:
Pathé Frères, the
Gaumont, the
Georges Méliès company, and
the Lumières. Méliès invented many of the techniques of cinematic grammar, and among his fantastic, surreal short subjects is the first
science fiction film A Trip to the Moon (
Le Voyage dans la Lune) in 1902. In 1902,
the Lumières abandoned everything but the production of film stock, leaving Méliès as the weakest player of the remaining three. (He would retire in 1914.) From 1904 to 1911, the
Pathé Frères company led the world in film production and distribution. During the period between World War I and World War II,
Jacques Feyder and
Jean Vigo became two of the founders of
poetic realism in French cinema. They also dominated
French impressionist cinema, along with
Abel Gance,
Germaine Dulac and
Jean Epstein. In 1931,
Marcel Pagnol filmed the first of his great trilogy
Marius,
Fanny, and
César. He followed this with other films including ''
The Baker's Wife''. Other notable films of the 1930s included
René Clair's
Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Jean Vigo's ''
L'Atalante'' (1934), Jacques Feyder's
Carnival in Flanders (1935), and
Julien Duvivier's
La belle equipe (1936). In 1935, renowned playwright and actor
Sacha Guitry directed his first film and went on to make more than 30 films that were precursors to the
New Wave era. In 1937,
Jean Renoir, the son of painter
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, directed
La Grande Illusion (
The Grand Illusion). In 1939, Renoir directed
La Règle du Jeu (
The Rules of the Game). Several critics have cited this film as one of the
greatest of all-time, particularly for its innovative camerawork, cinematography and sound editing.
Marcel Carné's (
Children of Paradise) was filmed during World War II and released in 1945. The three-hour film was extremely difficult to make due to the
Nazi occupation. Set in Paris in 1828, it was voted Best French Film of the Century in a poll of 600 French critics and professionals in the late 1990s.
Post–World War II 1940s–1970s During the post-War period, one of the most prominent actors was
Gérard Philipe, who rose to fame during the later period of the poetic realism movement of French Cinema in the late 1940s. His best-known credits include
Such a Pretty Little Beach (1949),
Beauty and the Devil (1950),
Fanfan La Tulipe (1952),
Montparnasse 19 (1958) and
Les liaisons dangereuses (1959). During his career in 1940s and 1950s French cinema, he performed with some of the most famous French leading ladies of the era including
Jeanne Moreau,
Michèle Morgan,
Micheline Presle,
Danielle Darrieux and
Anouk Aimée. with
Louis Jourdan and
Maurice Chevalier on the set of
Gigi (1958). After World War II, the French actress
Leslie Caron and the French actor
Louis Jourdan enjoyed success in the United States with several
musical romantic comedies, notably
An American in Paris (1951) and
Gigi (1958), based on the 1944 novella of the same name by
Colette. In the magazine , founded by
André Bazin and two other writers in 1951, film critics raised the level of discussion of the cinema, providing a platform for the birth of modern
film theory. Several of the
Cahiers critics, including
Jean-Luc Godard,
François Truffaut,
Claude Chabrol,
Jacques Rivette and
Éric Rohmer, went on to make films themselves, creating what was to become known as the
French New Wave. Some of the first films of this new movement were Godard's
Breathless (
À bout de souffle, 1960), starring
Jean-Paul Belmondo, Rivette's
Paris Belongs to Us (
Paris nous appartient, 1958 – distributed in 1961), starring
Jean-Claude Brialy and Truffaut's
The 400 Blows (
Les Quatre Cent Coups, 1959) starring
Jean-Pierre Léaud. Later works are
Contempt (1963) by Godard starring
Brigitte Bardot and
Michel Piccoli and
Stolen Kisses starring Léaud and
Claude Jade. Because Truffaut followed the hero of his screen debut,
Antoine Doinel, for twenty years, the last post-New-Wave-film is
Love on the Run in which his heroes Antoine (Léaud) and Christine (Jade) get divorced. was known as much for his beauty as for his acting career and holds an enduring status as a leading man in French cinema. Many contemporaries of Godard and Truffaut followed suit, or achieved international critical acclaim with styles of their own, such as the
minimalist films of
Robert Bresson and
Jean-Pierre Melville, the Hitchcockian-like thrillers of
Henri-Georges Clouzot, and other New Wave films by
Agnès Varda and
Alain Resnais. The movement, while an inspiration to other national cinemas and unmistakably a direct influence on the future
New Hollywood directors, slowly faded by the end of the 1960s. was one of the most famous French actresses in the 1960s. During this period, French commercial film also made a name for itself. Immensely popular French comedies with
Louis de Funès topped the French box office. The war comedy
La Grande Vadrouille (1966), from
Gérard Oury with
Bourvil, de Funès and
Terry-Thomas, was the most successful film in French theaters for more than 30 years. Another example was
La Folie des grandeurs with
Yves Montand. French cinema also was the birthplace for many subgenres of the
crime film, most notably the modern
caper film, starting with 1955's
Rififi by American-born director
Jules Dassin and followed by a large number of serious, noirish heist dramas as well as playful caper comedies throughout the sixties, and the "polar," a typical French blend of
film noir and
detective fiction. In addition, French movie stars began to claim fame abroad as well as at home. Popular actors of the period included
Brigitte Bardot,
Alain Delon,
Romy Schneider,
Catherine Deneuve,
Jeanne Moreau,
Simone Signoret,
Yves Montand,
Jean-Paul Belmondo and still
Jean Gabin. Since the Sixties and the early Seventies they are completed and followed by
Michel Piccoli and
Philippe Noiret as character actors,
Annie Girardot,
Jean-Louis Trintignant,
Jean-Pierre Léaud,
Claude Jade,
Isabelle Huppert,
Anny Duperey,
Gérard Depardieu,
Patrick Dewaere,
Jean-Pierre Cassel,
Miou-Miou,
Brigitte Fossey,
Stéphane Audran and
Isabelle Adjani. During the Eightees they are added by a new generation including
Sophie Marceau,
Emmanuelle Béart,
Jean-Hugues Anglade,
Sabine Azema,
Juliette Binoche and
Daniel Auteuil. In 1968, the May riots shook France.
François Truffaut had already organised demonstrations in February against
Henri Langlois's removal as head of the
Cinémathèque française and dedicated his film
Stolen Kisses, which was being made, to Langlois. The Cannes Film Festival is cancelled – on the initiative of Truffaut, Godard and Louis Malle. Jean-Luc Godard no longer works in the commercial film business for years. Political films such as
Costa-Gavras'
Z celebrate success. Chabrol continues his vivisection of the bourgeoisie (
The Unfaithful Wife) and Truffaut explores the possibility of bourgeois marital happiness (
Bed and Board). While Godard disappears from cinema after the Nouvelle Vague except for a few essays, Truffaut and Chabrol remain the leading directors whose artistic aspects remain commercially successful. Other directors of the 1970s in this effect are
Bertrand Tavernier,
Claude Sautet,
Eric Rohmer,
Claude Lelouch,
Georges Lautner,
Jean-Paul Rappeneau,
Michel Deville Yves Boisset,
Maurice Pialat,
Bertrand Blier,
Coline Serreau and
André Téchiné in purely entertainment films, it is
Gérard Oury and
Édouard Molinaro. The 1979 film
La Cage aux Folles ran for well over a year at the
Paris Theatre, an
arthouse cinema in New York City, and was a commercial success at theaters throughout the country, in both urban and rural areas. It won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and for years it remained the most successful foreign film to be released in the United States.
1980s (pictured in 2008) was a French centenarian, who had one of the longest careers in French cinema, spanning eight decades
Jean-Jacques Beineix's
Diva (1981) sparked the beginning of the 1980s wave of French cinema. Movies which followed in its wake included
Betty Blue (
37°2 le matin, 1986) by Beineix,
The Big Blue (
Le Grand bleu, 1988) by
Luc Besson, and
The Lovers on the Bridge (
Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, 1991) by
Léos Carax. Made with a slick commercial style and emphasizing the alienation of their main characters, these films are representative of the style known as
Cinema du look.
Camille Claudel, directed by newcomer
Bruno Nuytten and starring
Isabelle Adjani and
Gérard Depardieu, was a major commercial success in 1988, earning Adjani, who was also the film's co-producer, a
César Award for best actress. The
historical drama film
Jean de Florette (1986) and its sequel
Manon des Sources (1986) were among the highest grossing French films in history and brought Daniel Auteuil international recognition. According to
Raphaël Bassan, in his article «
The Angel: Un météore dans le ciel de l'animation,»
La Revue du cinéma, n° 393, avril 1984. ,
Patrick Bokanowski's
The Angel, shown in
1982 at the
Cannes Film Festival, can be considered the beginnings of contemporary animation. The masks erase all human personality in the characters.
Patrick Bokanowski would thus have total control over the "matter" of the image and its optical composition. This is especially noticeable throughout the film, with images taken through distorted objectives or a plastic work on the sets and costumes, for example in the scene of the designer.
Patrick Bokanowski creates his own universe and obeys his own aesthetic logic. It takes us through a series of distorted areas, obscure visions, metamorphoses and synthetic objects. Indeed, in the film, the human may be viewed as a fetish object (for example, the doll hanging by a thread), with reference to
Kafkaesque and
Freudian theories on
automata and the fear of man faced with something as complex as him. The ascent of the stairs would be the liberation of the ideas of death, culture, and sex that makes us reach the emblematic figure of the angel.
1990s at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival Jean-Paul Rappeneau's
Cyrano de Bergerac was a major box-office success in 1990, earning several
César Awards, including best actor for
Gérard Depardieu, as well as an
Academy Award nomination for best foreign picture.
Luc Besson made
La Femme Nikita in 1990, a movie that inspired remakes in both United States and in Hong Kong. In 1994, he also made
Léon (starring
Jean Reno and a young
Natalie Portman), and in 1997
The Fifth Element, which became a cult favorite and launched the career of
Milla Jovovich.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet made
Delicatessen and
The City of Lost Children (
La Cité des enfants perdus), both of which featured a distinctly fantastical style. In 1992,
Claude Sautet co-wrote (with Jacques Fieschi) and directed
Un Coeur en Hiver, considered by many to be a masterpiece.
Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film
Hate (
La Haine) received critical praise and made
Vincent Cassel a star, and in 1997,
Juliette Binoche won the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in
The English Patient. The success of
Michel Ocelot's
Kirikou and the Sorceress in 1998 rejuvenated the production of original feature-length animated films by such filmmakers as
Jean-François Laguionie and
Sylvain Chomet.
2000s In 2000, Philippe Binant realized the first
digital cinema projection in
Europe, with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by
Texas Instruments, in Paris.
2010s at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. One of the most noticed and best reviewed films of 2010 was the drama
Of Gods and Men (
Des hommes et des dieux), about the
assassination of seven monks in Tibhirine, Algeria. 2011 saw the release of
The Artist, a silent film shot in black and white by
Michel Hazanavicius that reflected on the end of Hollywood's
silent era. French cinema continued its upward trend of earning awards at the Cannes Festival, including the prestigious
Grand Prix for
Of Gods and Men (2010) and the
Jury Prize for
Poliss (2011); the
Best Director Award for
Mathieu Amalric (
On Tour, 2010); the
Best Actress Award for
Juliette Binoche (
Certified Copy, 2010); and the
Best Actor Award for
Jean Dujardin (
The Artist, 2011). In 2011, the film
The Intouchables became the most watched film in France (including the foreign films). After ten weeks nearly 17.5 million people had seen the film in France, the film was the second most-seen French movie of all time in France, and the third including foreign movies. In 2012, with 226 million admissions (US$1,900 million) in the world for French films (582 films released in 84 countries), including 82 million admissions in France (US$700 million), 2012 was the fourth best year since 1985. With 144 million admissions outside France (US$1,200 million), 2012 was the best year since at least 1994 (since
Unifrance collects data), and the French cinema reached a market share of 2.95% of worldwide admissions and of 4.86% of worldwide sales. Three films particularly contributed to this record year:
Taken 2,
The Intouchables and
The Artist. In 2012, films shot in French ranked 4th in admissions (145 million) behind films shot in English (more than a billion admissions in the US alone), Hindi (?: no accurate data but estimated at 3 billion for the whole India/Indian languages) and Chinese (275 million in China plus a few million abroad), but above films shot in Korean (115 million admissions in South Korea plus a few millions abroad) and Japanese (102 million admissions in Japan plus a few million abroad, a record since 1973 et its 104 million admissions). French-language movies ranked 2nd in export (outside of French-speaking countries) after films in English. 2012 was also the year French animation studio
Mac Guff was acquired by an American studio,
Universal Pictures, through its
Illumination Entertainment subsidiary. Illumination Mac Guff became the animation studio for some of the top English-language animated movies of the 2010s, including
The Lorax and the
Despicable Me franchise. In 2015 French cinema sold 106 million tickets and grossed €600 million outside of the country. The highest-grossing film was
Taken 3 (€261.7 million) and the largest territory in admissions was China (14.7 million). In that year, France produced more films than any other European country, producing a record-breaking 300 feature-length films. France is one of the few countries where non-American productions have the biggest share; American films only represented 44.9% of total admissions in 2014. This is largely due to the commercial strength of domestic productions. == French Acting ==