Highest-Rated Movies about 'French New Wave'

The Lovely Month of May (1963), My Life to Live (1962), Shoot the Piano Player (1960), Eden (2014), The Bride Wore Black (1968), The 400 Blows (1959), The Beaches of Agnès (2008), The Mother and the Whore (1973) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best French New Wave movies.

#6. The 400 Blows (1959)

Storyline: Seemingly in constant trouble at school, 14-year-old Antoine Doinel returns at the end of every day to a drab, unhappy home life. His parents have little money and he sleeps on a couch that's been pushed into the kitchen. His parents bicker constantly and he knows his mother is having an affair. He decides to skip school and begins a downward spiral of lies and theft. His parents are at their wits' end, and after he's stopped by the police, they decide the best thing would be to let Antoine face the consequences. He's sent to a juvenile detention facility where he doesn't do much better. He does manage to escape however.

Plot Keywords: french film, coming of age, rebellion, adolescence, paris, black and white, semi-autobiographical ...

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#7. The Beaches of Agnès (2008)

Storyline: At nearly 80, Agnès Varda explores her memory - growing up in Belgium, living in Sète, Paris, and Noirmoutier, discovering photography, making a film, being part of the New Wave, raising children with Jacques Demy, losing him, and growing old. She explores her memory using photographs, film clips, home movies, contemporary interviews, and set pieces she designs to capture a feeling, a time, or a frame. Shining through each scene are her impish charm, inventiveness, and natural empathy. How do people grow old, how does loss stay with them, can they remain creative, and what do they remember? Memory, she says, is like a swarm of confused flies. She envisions hers for us.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: documentary, french cinema, memory, art, filmmaking, experimental film, personal history ...

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#8. The Mother and the Whore (1973)

Storyline: In Paris, Alexandre, an unemployed young man with memories of the May 1968 events in France, attempts to persuade his former love, Gilberte, to marry him. Gilberte opts to instead marry another man. Alexandre is involved with a live-in girlfriend called Marie, and is interested in films such as The Working Class Goes to Heaven. One day, after an unsuccessful reconciliation with Gilberte at the highly popular Les Deux Magots café, he meets Veronika, a Polish French twenty-something nurse. In the midst of the sexual revolution, Veronika is highly promiscuous, and begins to make advances on Alexandre. During the summer of 1972, Alexandre and Marie are nude in bed in their apartment when Veronika visits. Marie lets her in and Veronika insults both of them, but acknowledges she is not pure herself. The three begin a ménage à trois and sleep in the same bed, with Veronika assuring Alexandre she and Marie both love him, and telling him to be more happy with his situation and life. Although Marie affirms her indifference to Alexandre's affairs, she quickly changes her mind when she sees how close he becomes to Veronika. This leads to a growing estrangement between her and Alexandre. As the three sit together, Veronika attempts to reassure Marie about her looks and body. Tearfully, Veronika speaks about how she believes no women are truly whores, and how love is meaningless unless it produces a child.

Plot Keywords: love triangle, existentialism, sexual themes, dialogue-driven, social critique, modern love, emotional alienation ...

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#10. Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

Storyline: Florence Carala and her lover, Julien Tavernier, want to murder her husband - Julien's boss - by faking his suicide. But after Julien's killed him, and had left, he remembers he's forgotten the rope outside the window which could implicate him, and he returns to the building to remove it

Plot Keywords: crime, film noir, thriller, romance, betrayal, murder, jazz ...

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#11. The Unfaithful Wife (1968)

Storyline: Charles Desvallées (Michel Bouquet), a successful insurance broker, employs a private investigator on suspicion that his wife, Hélène (Stéphane Audran), is cheating on him. After acquiring evidence of his wife's infidelity, Charles confronts and murders Hélène's lover, Victor Pégala (Maurice Ronet). When the police question the married couple about their connection to the murdered man, both Hélène and Charles continue their perilous dance of deception.

Plot Keywords: drama, crime, romance, mystery, marriage, betrayal, french film ...

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#12. My Night at Maud's (1969)

Storyline: Thirty-four year old engineer Jean-Louis has just started a new job in Clermont. He leads a relatively solitary life not knowing anyone in town besides his work colleagues, he who has made a conscious decision that they should not become his de facto friends just because they work together. His choice not to socialize in town is due also in part to his situation and needing to make the long daily commute to/from Ceyrat where he currently lives. He has had his fair share of women over the course of his adult life, he now choosing to adhere more closely to his Catholic beliefs in approaching romantic and sexual relationships with women solely in the goal of love and marriage. Although not knowing her or having talked to her, he believes the pretty blonde he sees at church at Sunday morning services is the woman destined to be his wife. Within this situation of his new life, he has lately been reading the writings of Blaise Pascal, the mixture of mathematics and Catholicism in particular which he feels applies to his life. One day just before Christmas, he runs into Vidal, an old college friend he hasn't seen in fourteen years, Vidal now a Philosophy professor at the college. Through the course of getting reacquainted over the next couple of days, Vidal invites Jean-Louis over to his friend Maud's apartment the day after Christmas. Maud is a recently divorced pediatrician, and mother to a young adolescent daughter, Marie. Much of Jean-Louis, Vidal and Maud's discussion that evening uses Pascal as a jumping off point, it veering into his philosophies in relation to sex and love, Vidal and Maud who have a different view than Jean-Louis in being atheists. This night, which Jean-Louis learns was not by accident on Vidal's part, has the potential to reshape his life as he would have to admit his attraction to Maud, who is not the theoretical of the perfect mate for him. If he does stay true to his thoughts of the blonde, he may find that a happily ever after with her is not a guarantee, she who may have some baggage of her own.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: romance, moral dilemma, intellectual, existentialism, dialogue-driven, black and white, emotional entanglement ...

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#13. Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

Storyline: A French woman and a Japanese man have an affair while she is in Japan making a film about peace and the impact of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, The man, an architect, lost his family in the bombing. She recalls her lover during the war, a 23 year-old German soldier who later died. Despite the time they spend together, her attachment appears minimal and they go forward into the future.

Plot Keywords: romance, war, memory, trauma, japan, time, pain ...

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#14. Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

Storyline: Two hours from 17:00 to 19:00h on the longest day of the year in the life of a young Parisienne is presented. Florence Victoire, who is better known by her stage name Cléo Victoire (as in Cleopatra), is a singer with three hit singles to her name, and as such some renown. Two days ago, she went in for some tests for abdominal issues to see if it is cancer. She will be getting the results today at 18:30h. She is certain that it will be a terminal cancer diagnosis, her mind fixated on that outcome and what it actually means. This belief affects how she approaches the day, from her encounters with friends and acquaintances to what she observes in total strangers around her. It could be as simple as how she views the lyrics to new songs presented to her from her songwriting team, to her feelings about a conversation she overhears in a café between a couple having relationship problems, to the typical sweet nothings spoken to her from her lover, José. There are certain things that do ...

Plot Keywords: female director, black and white, realism, paris, existentialism, female perspective, urban life ...

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#15. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

Storyline: This is the story of a donkey and the somewhat difficult life it leads. During a summer holiday, the baby donkey is a child's pet but when they return home, it begins it's life of misery. It works as a farm animal, pulling a delivery cart and working as any manner as various owners require of it. Meanwhile, the young girl who first acquired Balthazar as a pet grows up, only to be badly treated herself by an indifferent and selfish boyfriend.

Plot Keywords: human nature, suffering, redemption, minimalism, existentialism, moral dilemma, social critique ...

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