Casablanca (1942), A Man Escaped (1956), Army of Shadows (1969), La grande vadrouille (1966), Au Revoir, les enfants (1987), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Longest Day (1962), The Train (1964) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best French Resistance movies.
Storyline: A documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly one thousand four hundred cameramen. It opens as the assembled Allied forces plan and train for the D-Day invasion at bases in Great Britain, and covers all of the major events of the war in Europe, from the Normandy landings, to the fall of Berlin.—Phil Landon
Plot Keywords: year 1945, year 1944, 1940s, german soldier, german officer, french resistance, explosion ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In this sprawling, star-laden film, we see the struggles of various French resistance factions to regain control of Paris near the end of World War II. The Nazi general in charge of Paris, Dietrich von Cholitz (Fröbe), is under orders from Hitler himself to burn the city if he cannot control it or if the Allies get too close. Much of the drama centers around the moral deliberations of the general, the Swedish ambassador (Welles), and the eager but desperate leaders of the resistance.—Carl J. Youngdahl <zomno@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: year 1944, paris france, 1940s, nazi occupation, nazi uniform, liberation, french soldier ...
Movie Details Click Here!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: german, french resistance, nazi, alps, wound, trap, avalanche ...
Movie Details Click Here!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: year 1945, year 1944, 1940s, feminism, female prisoner, heroine, female fighter ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: John Martin is part of an American spy team dropped into France during World War II to destroy the French railway system. After successfully blowing up a tunnel he runs back to save Ellen and is told "Never come back for me again." Later he must choose whether or not to obey her wishes.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: murder, escape, french resistance, parachute, sculpture, bomb, train ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: An RAF squadron is brought down over occupied France. The flyers get to Paris in spite of the fact that the youngest, Baby, is injured. He must be hidden and his wounds cared for. The Gestapo has already issued orders for their arrest.
Plot Keywords: french resistance, military, gunshot wound, gunfire, german army, fugitive, firing squad ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In occupied France, German-run Continental Films calls the shots in the movie business. Assistant director and Resistance activist Jean Devaivre works for Continental, where he can get "in between the wolf's teeth and avoid being chewed up". Fast-living screenwriter Jean Aurenche uses every possible argument to avoid working for the enemy. For both, wartime is a battle for survival.—Aline
Plot Keywords: crying, cowardice, courage, contract, comrade, communist, collaborator ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In World War II, a group of Nazi officers come up with a propaganda event in which an all-star Nazi team will play a team composed of Allied prisoners of war in a soccer (football) game. The prisoners agree, planning on using the game as a means of escape from the camp.
Plot Keywords: escape, football, prisoner of war, sports team, world war two, prison, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On being demobbed at the end of the war, Canadian flyer Laurence Gerard returns to France to discover who ordered the killing of a group of Resistence fighters including his new bride. He identifies Vichy collaborator Marcel Jarnac, who is reported as dead himself. Not believing this, Gerard follows the trail to Argentina where it is apparent that Nazism is also far from dead.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: father in law son in law relationship, airplane, maid, postman, ruins, investigation, destruction ...
Movie Details Click Here!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: year 1944, paris france, world war two, lesbian kiss, female nudity, lesbianism, group sex ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In Argentina, family man Julio Madariaga (Lee J. Cobb) is the patriarch of his family and considers his farm paradise on Earth. One of his daughters, Dona Luisa Desnoyers (Harriet E. MacGibbon), has married French immigrant Marcelo Desnoyers (Charles Boyer) and they have one son, the playboy Julio (Glenn Ford), and one daughter, the gorgeous student of Sorbonne Chi Chi (Yvette Mimieux). His other daughter, Elena von Hartrott (Kathryn Givney), has married German Karl von Hartrott (Paul Lukas), and they have three sons: Heinrich (Karlheinz Böhm), Gustav (Brian Avery), and Franz (Richard Franchot). In 1938, Heinrich returns from Germany for a family reunion and when he tells that he has joined the S.S., the displeased Julio Madariaga has a heart attack and dies. When France is occupied by the Germans, the family reunites in Paris, and Franz is the Nazi administrator in France. The alienated Julio has a studio where he paints, and has a love affair with Marguerite Laurier (Ingrid Thulin), the wife of newspaper owner Etienne Laurier (Paul Henreid), who is fighting in Belgium. Meanwhile, Chi Chi joins the French resistance and is arrested. Julio uses the influence of his cousin Franz to release her. However, Chi Chi has an argument with Julio for his neutral position. When Chi Chi is tortured to death by the Gestapo, Julio joins the resistance, using his relationship with the Germans to get inside information.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: adolf hitler character, cheating wife, extramarital affair, husband wife relationship, uncle nephew relationship, cousin cousin relationship, brother sister relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!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: 1940s, flashlight, father son relationship, family relationships, eyeglasses, explosion, espionage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Into the small river port of St.Pierre-le-Port within Brittany under German occupation during the height of World War Two sneaks French patriot Jean Batiste who is on the run after illegally having left San Lazear seeking safe passage to England. Befriended by townsfolk including waitress Frisette, Jean is turned away for lodging by innkeeper's wife Fauntel before finding refuge with baker's mother L. Labouche who bluffs away Nazi searcher Kutrz. Lieutenant Rabineau brings word to Commandant Lazarette and aide Von Kleist that the local resistance movement has fired the petrol dump, then next day 54 German cars are demobilized with flat tires, each indignity marked by leaving a small white Lorraine Cross as the symbol of Free France. Instead of tightening security, Lazarett is persuaded by supposed-collaborators mayor Pierre DuSchen and daughter Marie to lessen patrols which might reap better feeling from the populace. Issued covering papers by the mayor's secretary Boileau, Jean secures shipyard employment before white-bearded Matthueu whisks him underground where rebel Pogo is smuggling three English sailor out by channel. Intent on getting details of the German submarine base at St. Nazaire back to England. Jean is assured that Marie is only pretending cooperation with the Boche but later spots her at a Hitler-featured movie where Lazarette clears the theatre when the audience lets loose with catcalls. Warned the vital ammunition train will be sabotaged, Lazarret learns from German-blooded cafe waitress informant Germaine Bertan that signalmen have been switched. Taken to the Stationmaster's office upon receiving a note from the freedom fighters, Marie furtively slips into the machinery room and pulls a track switch to send the ammo train exploding into a freight-car amid confusion in negating a fake bomb. After Lazarette has shot citizen Moreau who refused to yield on the pavement, Germaine calls the Nazi high command to inform of the underground hideout to which she has trailed Pogo. Horrified to see Jean with whom she has fallen in love also enter. Germaine kills Lazarret and badly wounds Von Keist prompting Gestapo official Seitz to order 50 hostages, headed by Pierre, shot if the assassin not revealed. Switching sympathies and refusing to identify a dress fragment found at the station, Germaine is killed upon approaching Marie's home. Finally realizing that Marie is aiding the resistance, after Seitz has reached the same conclusion, Jean persuades her to leave with him that evening, which is heartily endorsed by Pierre. Escaping a Nazi roundup, Jean boards a small rowboat with Marie, as semi-comatose Von Kleist discloses the secret pump-house entrance, though the Germana's arrive too late to nab the departing duo. Convincing the wealthy Jacquier and the others not to weaken into denouncing their compatriots but to uphold freedom's torch with an undaunted spirit, Pierre and the brave French folk sing the "Marseilles" as they march courageously to the death by firing squad. Stopped momentarily in the channel by Seitz before havoc reigns when Matthieu throws master switches illuminating the shipyard for a devastating bombardment by the Britsh, Jean and Marie sail toward Engkland under the glowing light of dawn, red-hued but clear.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: collaborator, nazi occupied france, french resistance, world war two, smuggler, shipyard, secretary ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys - seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 - possibly hope to succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind's greatest achievements.
Plot Keywords: art, 1940s, world war two, statue, art theft, sniper, painting ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Allan Lemaire, an American O.S.S. agent, masquerading as a Frenchman, in the Maquis underground during World War Two, is called on to assist the in the escape to London of the heinous Nazi General Bruger, responsible for, among other war crimes, the cold-blooded murder of Lemaire's fiancee and eleven other French hostages. Bruger has bought his escape with the promise of vital information to the Allies. However, it soon comes clear that he has been indulging in a counter-espionage plot, at which point Lemaire, unhappy at having to assist Bruger anyway, provides a vindictive solution.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: nazi occupation, nazi officer, nazi occupied france, french resistance, nazi salute, german soldier, prison escape ...
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