Paths of Glory (1957), The Battle of Algiers (1966), La Grande Illusion (1937), Papillon (1973), Dunkirk (2017), Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Longest Day (1962) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best French Soldier movies.
Storyline: In 1832, cholera ravages Provence (South of France). After several misadventures, Angelo, young Italian officer hunted by the Austrian secret police, meets Pauline de Theus, a young lady. After a second accidental meeting, both will start the search of Pauline's husband in a chaotic country.—Remy Amouroux <Remy.Amouroux@imag.fr>
Plot Keywords: knight, escape, saving a life, prologue, horse and carriage, shot in the head, duel ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A news-reel like movie about early part of the French Revolution, shown from the eyes of individual people, citizens of Marseille, counts in German exile and, of course the king Louis XVI, showing their own small problems.—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>
Plot Keywords: french revolution, la marseillaise, pigeon, jumping out a window, hunger, misery, trojan horse ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Algeria, 1943, through Italy and France, to Alsace in early 1945, with a coda years later. Arabs volunteer to fight Nazis to liberate France, their motherland. We follow Saïd, dirt poor, an orderly for a grizzled sergeant, Martinez, a pied noir with some willingness to speak up for his Arab troops; Messaoud, a crack shot, who in Province falls in love with a French woman who loves him back; and Abdelkader, a corporal, a budding intellectual with a keen sense of injustice. The men fight with courage against a backdrop of small and large indignities: French soldiers get better food, time for leave, and promotions. Is the promise of liberty, equality, and fraternity hollow?
Plot Keywords: year 1944, battle, firearm, cigarette smoking, reference to allah, 1940s, world war two ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: British Thomas Fowler enjoys his life in Saigon working as a reporter for the London Times, covering the war in Vietnam between the colonial French powers and the Communists, who seem to be winning the war. In the later stages of his career, he takes his job lightly now, filing stories only on occasion, and no longer doing field work. But most importantly, this posting allows him to escape from what he considers a dreary life in London, including an unsatisfying marriage to a Catholic woman, who will never grant him a divorce, which in turn allows him to have an affair with a young Vietnamese ex-taxi dancer named Phuong, whom he loves and would marry if he were able. Phuong's sister doesn't much like Fowler, if only because he cannot provide a stable future for her. His idyllic life is threatened when the head office suggests he go back to London. In this way, he decides to write a major story to prove to his superiors that he should stay in Saigon. In 1952, Fowler is called into the ...
Plot Keywords: melancholy, propaganda, jealousy, ambush, drug use, pipe smoking, adultery ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The newly-named Emperor Maximillian, the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, arrives in Mexico in the early 1860s with his wife Carlotta to face popular sentiment favoring Benito Juarez and popular demand for democracy. With an elite group of Mexican monarchists, Maximillian tries to appease the democratic Mexicans but he fails. Abraham Lincoln continues to support Juarez and asks the French to withdraw support for Maximilian. Carlotta goes to France to plead with Napoleon III, to no avail.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: cavalry charge, infantry, cavalry, musket, flintlock pistol, flintlock rifle, cannon ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The painter Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition when his muse, Ines, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her father, Thomas, comes to him hoping that his connection with Brother Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure the release of his daughter.
Plot Keywords: christianity, female nudity, shackles, sign language, sketching, skull cap, pipe smoking ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Denis revisits Africa, this time exploring a place rife with civil and racial conflict. A white French family outlawed in its home and attempting to save its coffee plantation connects with a black hero also embroiled in the tumult. All try to survive as their world rapidly crumbles around them—Pusan International Film Festival
Plot Keywords: coffee, male nudity, male pubic hair, pubic hair, f rated, bicycle, uncle nephew relationship ...
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: Colonel Chabert has been severely wounded in the French-Russian Napoleonic war to the point that the medical examiner has signed his death certificate. When he regains his health and memory, he goes back to Paris, where his "widow", Anne has married the Count Ferraud and is financing his rise to power using Chabert's money. Chabert hires a lawyer to help him get back his money and his honor.—Dragomir R. Radev <radev@cs.columbia.edu>
Plot Keywords: french soldier, military officer, presumed dead, back from the dead, marriage, husband wife relationship, paris france ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Marianne de Beaumaniour is on her way to New Orleans from Paris to inspect the plantation she inherited from her uncle. On the ship with her are bondsmen, that are to be sold for slavery. Charles, Duc de Villiers, a political enemy of the king, is also aboard posing as a bondsman. Charles is bought by Marianne's plantation manager and she is quickly taken by Charles' charm. Marianne soon discovers Charles' true-identity and she sets him free, before the French officers find him. Marianne decides to sail back to Paris with the Police Captain on the ship, 'New Moon', but they must first stop at Martinique. After Martinique, the ship is invaded by pirates. Marianne is shocked to see that Charles is the leader. That night, a fierce storm occurs, and everyone is ship-wrecked. Now, Charles is the leader and the fun begins...—Kelly
Plot Keywords: love, french revolution, french soldier, governor, island, louisiana, male female relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: French colonists in Africa, several months behind in the news, find themselves at war with their German neighbors. Deciding that they must do their proper duty and fight the Germans, they promptly conscript the local native population. Issuing them boots and rifles, the French attempt to make "proper" soldiers out of the Africans. A young, idealistic French geographer seems to be the only rational person in the town, and he takes over control of the "war" after several bungles on the part of the others.—Carl Seiler <lcs9549@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Plot Keywords: colony, german soldier, title based on song, outpost, voice over letter, drunkenness, bicycle ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: At the start of World War II, the fate of the free world hangs in the balance at the posh Hotel Splendide in Bordeaux. Cabinet members, journalists, physicists, and spies of all persuasions gather in order to escape the Nazi occupation of Paris. High society socialites hobnob with jailbirds. Murderous intrigues, scientific secrets and love affairs flourish.—Sujit R. Varma
Plot Keywords: title spoken by character, dead body, bicycle, fight, song, love triangle, refugee ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In post-war Vienna, occupied by the Allies, four sergeants representing each of the occupying nations (USA, England, France, Soviet Union) patrol in the same Jeep. One day they are given the mission to capture and arrest a prisoner who has run away from a Soviet war prisoner camp. But when they learn the truth about Karl, the runaway, and Franziska, his wife, they decide to help him instead. The trouble is that the Soviet sergeant is held on a short leash by his superiors. He has strict orders not to let the fugitive slip away and he comes into conflict with his fellow military policemen. In these conditions, will Karl and Franziska be reunited and live free again?—Guy Bellinger
Plot Keywords: patrol, vienna austria, post world war two, military uniform, quartet, jeep, automobile ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1940, German soldier Hans Quangel (Louis Hofmann) is killed in action during the French campaign. His parents, Otto (Brendan Gleeson) and Anna (Dame Emma Thompson), are devastated by the loss and their bereavement is unmollified by the joyful hysteria at Germany's victory. Deciding that Führer Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime are responsible for this tragedy and much more, Otto cannot stand by any longer. As such, Otto begins to create handwritten cards denouncing the regime's abuses and lies, which he secretly deposits throughout Berlin while a disillusioned Anna insists on helping him. As the subversive cards pile up over the years, Police Detective Escherich (Daniel Brühl) is tasked to track down the leafleteer while being pressured by his increasingly impatient S.S. superior for an arrest for this "treason", regardless of actual guilt. As the stakes rise even as Nazi Germany's day of reckoning approaches, Otto and Anna are determined to spread the truth regardless of the odds, even as their opposition awaits the fatal mistake that could doom them.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Plot Keywords: berlin germany, man hits a woman, bloody mouth, blood, hit in the face, policeman, kiss ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: English nurse Edith Cavell is matron in a small private hospital in German-occupied Brussels during WWI. When the son of a recently deceased patient escapes from a German prisoner-of-war camp, Cavell aids him to reach Holland and safety. This leads to Cavell, a local noblewoman, the grandmother of the escaped prisoner-of-war, and others to form an organization to help Belgian, French, English and other soldiers escape as well. Eventually the Germans become aware of what's happening and take action.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>
Plot Keywords: based on novel, retribution, catholic priest, defense attorney, war crime, traitor, betrayal ...
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