Highest-Rated Movies about 'French Resistance'

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.

#1. Casablanca (1942)

Storyline: The story of Rick Blaine, a cynical world-weary ex-patriate who runs a nightclub in Casablanca, Morocco during the early stages of WWII. Despite the pressure he constantly receives from the local authorities, Rick's cafe has become a kind of haven for refugees seeking to obtain illicit letters that will help them escape to America. But when Ilsa, a former lover of Rick's, and her husband, show up to his cafe one day, Rick faces a tough challenge which will bring up unforeseen complications, heartbreak and ultimately an excruciating decision to make.

Plot Keywords: nazi, love triangle, lovers reunited, 1940s, resistance fighter, visa, morocco ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#2. A Man Escaped (1956)

Storyline: Captured French Resistance fighter Lieutenant Fontaine awaits a certain death sentence for espionage in a stark Nazi prison in Lyon, France. Facing malnourishment and paralyzing fear, he must plot an extraordinary escape, complicated by the questions of whom to trust, and what lies beyond the small portion of the prison they are housed in.

Plot Keywords: escape from prison, based on true story, world war two, 1940s, escape plan, resistance fighter, prison cell ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#3. 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: french resistance, nazi, gestapo, nazi soldier, fascist, comrade, collaborator ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#5. Au Revoir, les enfants (1987)

Storyline: In 1944, upper class boy Julien Quentin and his brother François travel to Catholic boarding school in the countryside after vacations. Julien is a leader and good student and when the new student Jean Bonnet arrives in the school, they have friction in their relationship. However, Julien learns to respect Jean and discovers that he is Jewish and the priests are hiding him from the Nazis. They become best friends and Julien keeps the secret. When the priest Jean discovers that the servant Joseph is stealing supplies from the school to sell in the black market, he fires the youth. Sooner the Gestapo arrives at school to investigate the students and the priests that run and work in the boarding school.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: school, anti semitism, german occupation, schoolboy, world war two, teacher, friendship ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#6. 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: fishing, based on novel, femme fatale, whistle, bar, bullet wound, fog ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#7. The Longest Day (1962)

Storyline: In 1944, the U.S. Army and Allied forces plan a huge invasion landing in Normandy, France. Despite bad weather, General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the okay and the Allies land at Normandy. General Norma Cota travels with his men onto Omaha Beach. With much effort, and lost life, they get off the beach, traveling deep into French territory. The German military, due to arrogance, ignorance and a sleeping Adolf Hitler, delay their response to the Allied landing, with crippling results.

Plot Keywords: world war two, year 1944, german soldier, dead soldier, parachute, firearm, wehrmacht ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#8. The Train (1964)

Storyline: As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.

Plot Keywords: train, french resistance, art theft, world war two, year 1944, sabotage, based on book ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#9. 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: france, year 1944, collaborator, based on true story, french resistance, occupation, moral ambiguity ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#10. Sunshine (1999)

Storyline: The film follows a Jewish family living in Hungary through three generations, rising from humble beginnings to positions of wealth and power in the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. The patriarch becomes a prominent judge but is torn when his government sanctions anti-Jewish persecutions. His son converts to Christianity to advance his career as a champion fencer and Olympic hero, but is caught up in the Holocaust. Finally, the grandson, after surviving war, revolution, loss and betrayal, realizes that his ultimate allegiance must be to himself and his heritage.

Plot Keywords: one word title, man in shower, sex scene, jewish, female frontal nudity, eastern europe, family business ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#11. The Last Metro (1980)

Storyline: Paris, 1942. Lucas Steiner is a Jew and was compelled to leave the country. His wife Marion, an actress, directs the theater for him. She tries to keep the theater alive with a new play, and hires Bernard Granger for the leading role. But Lucas is actually hiding in the basement... A film about art and life.

Plot Keywords: jew, anxiety, gestapo, hideout, world war two, french resistance, marriage ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#12. A Bag of Marbles (2017)

Storyline: In occupied France, Maurice and Joseph, two young Jewish brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.

Plot Keywords: french resistance, paris france, nazi occupied france, nazi occupation, german occupation, holocaust, world war two ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#13. Allied (2016)

Storyline: At the height of World War II, in turbulent 1942, the fearless Wing Commander, Max Vatan, lands on the desert dunes of Morocco to meet with the Parisian member of the French Resistance, Marianne Beauséjour. After a botched attempt to eliminate an elusive target during a suicide mission in the heart of Casablanca, Max and Marianne flee to England intent on starting a family soon; however, heavy clouds of distrust and suspicion will burden their already difficult relationship, when Max receives a shocking call from the Secret Service Division. In disbelief--with a terrible task in his hands, and crushed under a devastating dilemma--Max must summon up the courage to seek for answers in the perilous streets of a bombarded London, regardless of the outcome. Now, amid duty and love, who shall live and who shall die?

Plot Keywords: nazi, spy, suicide, secret mission, world war two, betrayal, french ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#15. Suite Française (2014)

Storyline: France, 1940. In the first days of occupation, beautiful Lucile Angellier (Michelle Williams) is trapped in a stifled existence with her controlling mother-in-law (Kristin Scott Thomas) as they both await news of her husband: a prisoner of war. Parisian refugees start to pour into their small town, soon followed by a regiment of German soldiers who take up residence in the villagers' own homes. Lucile initially tries to ignore Bruno von Falk (Matthias Schoenaerts), the handsome and refined German officer staying with them. But soon, a powerful love draws them together and leads them into the tragedy of war.

Plot Keywords: france, world war two, based on novel, french resistance, forbidden love, nazi occupation, 1940s ...

Movie Details Click Here!