Highest-Rated Movies about 'French Resistance', Sort by Popularity

Army of Shadows (1969), Three Colors: Red (1994), The Children of Chabannes (1999), La grande vadrouille (1966), To Have and Have Not (1944), Lacombe, Lucien (1974), Three Colors: White (1994), Orders to Kill (1958) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best French Resistance movies.

#1. Army of Shadows (1969)

Storyline: France, 1942, under German occupation. Philippe Gerbier, a civil engineer, is a French Resistance commandant. Denounced by a French collaborator, he is interned in a concentration camp. He manages to escape, and rejoins his network in Marseille, where he has the traitor executed. This movie reveals rigorously and austerely what life was like in the French Resistance: the solitude and fear of its members; their relationships with one another; the constant threat of arrest by the Gestapo; the Resistance command structure and the way its orders were carried out. Head writer Joseph Kessel and co-writer/director Jean-Pierre Melville were both veterans of the "Shadow Army".

Plot Keywords: engineer, rebel, traitor, nazi, intense, gritty, passionate ...

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#2. Three Colors: Red (1994)

Storyline: Valentine is a young model living in Geneva. Because of a dog she ran over, she meets a retired judge who spies his neighbours' phone calls, not for money but to feed his cynicism. The film is the story of relationships between some human beings, Valentine and the judge, but also other people who may not be aware of the relationship they have with Valentine or/and the old judge. Redemption, forgiveness and compassion...

Plot Keywords: model, boyfriend, neighbor, girlfriend, emotional, playful, geneva ...

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#3. The Children of Chabannes (1999)

Storyline: In the spirit of Louis Malle's "Au Revoir les Enfants" and Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," the Emmy® Award-winning film "The Children of Chabannes" (93 minutes), has been praised as "splendid, informative and emotionally involving" (Los Angeles Times) and called "a seamless memoir of courage and a tribute to the human spirit." (New York Daily News). A magical World War II tale of resilience and love, "The Children of Chabannes" reveals the previously untold story of how the people in a tiny village in unoccupied France chose action over indifference to save the lives of 400 Jewish refugee children. Returning to the forgotten corner of France with her father and uncle (two of the saved children), filmmaker Lisa Gossels and co-director Dean Wetherell movingly recreated the joys and fears of daily life in Chabannes during the war. Through warm and wonderful accounts from the educators, townspeople and from the children themselves, we see how this oasis of hope is shattered in August of 1942, when the war reaches the doorsteps of the crumbling chateau where the children lived. A celebration of human kindness, "The Children of Chabannes" delivers a profound message of tolerance. The film documents the remarkable efforts made by the citizens of Chabannes, who risked their lives and livelihoods to protect these children, simply because they felt it was the right thing to do.—New Video/Docurama

Plot Keywords: father, daughter, jew, foreigner, teacher, child, moving ...

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#5. To Have and Have Not (1944)

Storyline: Harry Morgan and his alcoholic sidekick, Eddie, are based on the island of Martinique and crew a boat available for hire. However, since the second world war is happening around them business is not what it could be and after a customer who owes them a large sum fails to pay they are forced against their better judgment to violate their preferred neutrality and to take a job for the resistance transporting a fugitive on the run from the Nazis to Martinique. Through all this runs the stormy relationship between Morgan and Marie "Slim" Browning, a resistance sympathizer and the sassy singer in the club where Morgan spends most of his days.

Plot Keywords: fisherman, resistance fighter, alcoholic, pianist, wanderer, playful, patriotic ...

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#6. Lacombe, Lucien (1974)

Storyline: A small town in the south-west of France, summer of 1944. Having failed to join the resistance, the 18 year old Lucien Lacombe, whose father is a prisoner in Germany and whose mother dates her employer, works for the German police. He then meets France Horn, the daughter of a rich jewish tailor.—Vincent Merlaud <merlaud@studi.mathematik.hu-berlin.de>

Plot Keywords: peasant, police officer, pretty woman, daughter, father, brooding, france ...

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#7. Three Colors: White (1994)

Storyline: Karol (Polish) marries Dominique (French) and moves to Paris. The marriage breaks down and Dominique divorces Karol, forcing him into the life of a metro beggar and eventually back to Poland. However, he never forgets Dominique and while building a new life for himself in Warsaw he begins to plot.

Plot Keywords: immigrant, wife, boss, hairdresser, brother, dark, amusing ...

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#9. The Accompanist (1993)

Storyline: In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young accompanist named Sophie Vasseur gets a job with famed singer Irene Brice. As Irene's husband Charles, a businessman collaborating with the Nazis, wrestles with his conscience, Sophie becomes obsessed with Irene, taking on the role of maid as well as accompanist, living life vicariously through Irene's triumphs and affairs.—Gary Dickerson <slug@mail.utexas.edu>

Plot Keywords: pianist, singer, businessman, nazi, resistance fighter, lover, brooding ...

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#10. Belle and Sebastian (2013)

Storyline: In 1943, in the French Alps, the orphan Sébastien lives in a small village with his grandfather César, who is a shepherd, and his aunt Angélina, who is a baker. Sébastien misses his mother and believes she has traveled to America. He expects to get a watch with compass as a gift from her. The local Dr. Guillaume is a member of the Frech resistance that helps Jewish refugees to flee to Switzerland and the German Lieutenant Peter and troop are hunting down the resistance. When sheep are found slaughtered, César and the other residents believe that a stray dog that has been abused by his owner is the responsible and hunt it down. Sébastien finds the dog, gives the name of Belle to her and they become friends. But the animal is considered a beast by the inhabitants. Will Sébastien be capable to save Belle?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: boy, dog, grandmother, suspenseful, heartwarming, village, border ...

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#11. Female Agents (2008)

Storyline: In 1944, in London, Lieutenant Pierre Desfontaines assigns his sister Louise Desfontaines to convince three other women to form a five-woman task force under his command to rescue a British geologist from a German hospital in the countryside. The geologist was assigned by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster in a reconnaissance mission of the soil of the beaches at Normandy for the D-Day and had been captured by the Germans. Louise and Pierre force the prostitute Jeanne Faussier that is imprisoned for murdering her pimp; the explosives expert Gaëlle Lemenech that misses action; and the former dancer and fiancé of Colonel Karl Heindrich, Suzy Desprez, using blackmail and unethical methods to fly to France and join the Italian agent Maria Luzzato in the assignment. They are well-succeeded but when they deliver the geologist to the British aeroplane, Pierre betrays the group. He forces the women to travel to Paris to kill Colonel Heindrich who suspects that the landing of the allied forces will be through Normandy, in a dangerous mission.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: frenchwoman, resistance fighter, british officer, geologist, ss officer, german officer, thrilling ...

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#12. Head in the Clouds (2004)

Storyline: On a rainy night in 1933, the young, rebellious and provocative heiress of a French champagne magnate, Gilda Bessé, storms into the quiet life of the timid Oxford undergraduate, Guy Malyon, taking him by surprise. And before he knows it, Guy is love-smitten, and taken in the Parisian apartment of the now famous photographer, Gilda, living under the same roof with her muse and Spanish political idealist, Mia. However, as Spain gradually succumbs to the Nationalists, Mia and Guy's commitment to the cause of the Spanish Republic will threaten to break up their bohemian and almost idyllic coexistence. In the end, as Adolf Hitler rises into power, can a war-torn Europe separate the three companions forever?

Plot Keywords: photographer, teacher, refugee, soldier, intellectual, bohemian, passionate ...

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#13. Charlotte Gray (2001)

Storyline: Charlotte (Cate Blanchett), a young Scottish woman, who has studied in France, is living in London during World War II. Within a few weeks she falls in love with a young pilot and is recruited by the Secret Service to act as a courier for the French Resistance. However, her mission behind enemy lines becomes a personal mission to find her lover who has been shot down. Assigned to a Communist Resistance group, she encounters acts of betrayal from sometimes unexpected sources, but meets the violence of war and her own disappointment with hope.—<johnno.r@xtra.co.nz>

Plot Keywords: scottish person, resistance fighter, lover, pilot, communist, nazi, intense ...

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#15. Mosquito Squadron (1969)

Storyline: Squadron Leader Quint Munroe, an RAF pilot in World War II, has a hard time dealing with the presumed death in action of fellow Sq. Leader David 'Scotty' Scott, whose family practically raised him when he was orphaned, so they were like brothers. RAF Air Commodore Hufford has a crucial task for Quint, who is no longer serving in the squadron: a reconnaissance flight over the château de Charlon, a castle in occupied France, where the Nazis are probably developing a new generation of flying bombs; the defenses are indeed suspiciously tight. When analyzed, the photos show the castle grounds harbor an underground launching tunnel, and Quint gets a nearly impossible precision top-secret mission: select and train a team in only 10 days, when the French underground believes the first launch is planned, to 'aim' a new type of bouncing bomb into the tunnel, to blow up the whole Luftwaffe installation. Quint falls in love with Scotty's young widow Beth Scott, whose crippled brother, Flight Lieutenant Douglas Shelton, is on his team. After the Gestapo catches and tortures a French underground member, the Luftwaffe drops a film showing the castle being filled with captured RAF men, one of which is, to Quint and Doug's shock, Scotty, not dead after all, causing a dilemma for which Quint presents an even more daring solution, to be prepared in a few days...—KGF Vissers

Plot Keywords: fighter, squadron leader, wife, brother, nazi, priest, patriotic ...

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