16 Best Movies In French On Mubi Canada

Staff & contributors
Find the best French-language movies to watch. These movies in French are: highly-rated by critics, highly-rated by viewers, and handpicked by our staff.

Nothing about Saint Omer is easy. A female Senegalese migrant (Guslagie Malanga) is put to trial for committing infanticide, but throughout the film, it becomes clear how much of a victim she is too, of an uncaring and deeply prejudiced society. “What drove her to madness?” Her attorney asks at one point. We’re not sure. We're not necessarily asked to side with her, nor answer the many hard-hitting questions brought up in the film, but we sit with the uneasiness of it all and, in that silence, confront our ideas about motherhood, womanhood, personhood. 

This confusion is what makes the film so compelling. Despite the court’s best efforts, Laurence isn’t meant to be understood. She’s meant to be an example of the ever-ambiguous, forever-complicated, always-hurt person. It’s human nature after all to be this complex and messed up. The film shows us that the best that we can do in situations like this is to listen, understand, and as our protagonist Rama (Kayije Kagame) does, make peace with the noise. 

Genre: Crime, Drama

Actor: Aurelia Petit, Guslagie Malanda, Kayije Kagame, Louise Lemoine Torrès, Salimata Kamate, Valérie Dréville, Xavier Maly

Director: Alice Diop

There’s much to despair at in Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's drama set in Chad, where abortion is illegal, female genital mutilation isn't, and single mothers are ostracised. Amina's (Achouackh Abakar) 15-year-old daughter Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio) has just been expelled from school because she’s pregnant. Like Amina, Maria has been abandoned by the child’s father — but, having witnessed first-hand the stigma that comes with being an unmarried mother, she refuses to let history continue repeating itself, and declares she wants an abortion.

But underground abortions are expensive, and the duo are barely scraping by as it is, in spite of Amina’s backbreaking manual work. Their situation is dire — and there are more disturbing revelations to be had — but, despite the bleakness of Lingui’s plot on paper, the film isn’t miserabilist. As Amina searches desperately for a safe abortion provider, she takes us with her into a furtive underground network of solidarity, one that offers the mother and daughter all the compassion and aid that the government and their imam should be providing. This is a film in which acts of kindness are quietly delivered on the understanding that that’s what we owe each other, and one where sisterhood is alive — making this, paradoxically, a simultaneously enraging and heartening watch.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Achouackh Abakar Souleymane, Briya Gomdigue, Rihane Khalil Alio, Saleh Sambo, Youssouf Djaoro

Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

Eve’s Bayou is a Southern Gothic tale of spirituality, family, secrets, and the ties that bind them together. The story follows the awakening, both spiritual and emotional, of young Eve Baptiste. The middle sibling of the Baptiste family, 10-year-old Eve, navigates childhood while enduring the tumultuous relationship between her mother and father. 

What lurks beneath a seemingly ordinary marital conflict is an insidious betrayal that could tear her entire family apart. Eve’s Bayou should be considered one of the greatest Black American epics of the past 25 years. I adore this film because it is unflinchingly real - and honest about the sometimes rocky reality of familial bonds. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Allen Toussaint, Billie Neal, Branford Marsalis, Carol Sutton, Debbi Morgan, Diahann Carroll, Ethel Ayler, Jake Smollett, Jurnee Smollett, Leonard L. Thomas, Lisa Nicole Carson, Lynn Whitfield, Marcus Lyle Brown, Meagan Good, Roger Guenveur Smith, Ron Flagge, Samuel L. Jackson, Tamara Tunie, Victoria Rowell, Vondie Curtis-Hall

Director: Kasi Lemmons

Rating: R

In The Beasts, the idyllic semi-retirement that a French couple seeks in the Galician countryside — growing organic vegetables, fixing up abandoned farmhouses — devolves into a terrifying slow-burn nightmare. This beautifully shot yet spiritually ugly thriller plunges us straight into an atmosphere of crackling social tension that never abates. We begin after the event that turns local farmer Xan (Luis Zahera) and his brother Loren (Diego Anido) against French transplants Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs): the latter two have vetoed the sale of land to a wind turbine company in favor of preserving the village’s rustic character. Incensed by what he sees as the theft of his birthright by an outsider, Xan orchestrates a steadily intensifying campaign of terror against the couple.

Though much slighter than the physically imposing Ménochet, Zahera makes for a profoundly menacing presence, and Xan’s seemingly endless appetite for hostility and vindictiveness charges the film with a deeply unsettling sense of inevitability. His performance alone would mark The Beasts as a standout, but an unexpected switch in character focus late on in the film wrests it out of Xan’s grasp and reorients the movie as a study of grim resolve — making it a film of two equally remarkable halves.

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Actor: David Menéndez, Denis Ménochet, Federico Pérez Rey, Luis Zahera, Luisa Merelas, Machi Salgado, Marie Colomb, Marina Fois, Xavier Estévez

Director: Rodrigo Sorogoyen

Shia Laboeuf and Stellan Skarsgård star in this true story about one of the greatest tennis matches in history: the 1980 Wimbledon final. The movie dissects what drives both competitors (one played by Laboeuf and the other by Sverrir Gudnason). Their personalities, considered opposites, are studied through their paths and how they got into tennis. All this leads to that one match, in this beautiful story of dealing with competition and fear of failure. Don’t stop watching when the credits roll, read what they say!

Genre: Drama, History

Actor: Anders Berg, Ben Bradshaw, Bjorn Granath, Bob Boudreaux, Colin Stinton, Dag Malmberg, David Bamber, Ian Blackman, Iva Šindelková, Jackson Gann, James Sobol Kelly, Jamie Marshall, Jane Perry, Janis Ahern, Leo Borg, Marcus Mossberg, Mats Blomgren, Robert Emms, Roy McCrerey, Scott Arthur, Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgård, Sverrir Gudnason, Thomas Hedengran, Tuva Novotny, Wille Glyt, Zuzana Geislerová

Director: Janus Metz, Janus Metz Pedersen

Rating: R

Despite being based on a 19th-century serial novel, Lost Illusions feels remarkably close to contemporary concerns about fake news and the devaluing of art for profit. But as the story is also, obviously, set in the 19th century, all this bribery and these backdoor dealings are done entirely through the written word and by sending runners from one Parisian theater to the next—and the result is uniquely thrilling. Nearly every character is a terrible person (like in an old-timey Goodfellas way) and it can get tiring seeing the film glorify their hustle, but the energy it brings is rare to find in any other period drama.

Genre: Drama, History, Romance, Thriller

Actor: Alexis Barbosa, André Marcon, Benjamin Voisin, Candice Bouchet, Cécile de France, Gérard Depardieu, Isabelle De Hertogh, Jean-François Stévenin, Jean-Marie Frin, Jean-Paul Muel, Jeanne Balibar, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Maryne Bertieaux, Pierre Poirot, Saïd Amadis, Salomé Dewaels, Vincent Lacoste, Xavier Dolan

Director: Xavier Giannoli

This is a documentary with a dark underbelly. When Bobby Shafran goes on his first day at college, everyone seems to recognize him. The person they're actually recognizing is his twin brother, as the two were separated at birth by an adoption agency. A third brother surfaces to make the story even crazier, but things take a darker turn when questions arise about why they were separated as toddlers and to what end. If it wasn't a documentary, this story would be an unusual science fiction on the themes of identity and nature vs. nurture.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: David Kellman, Ellen Cervone, Howard Schneider, Lawrence Wright, Michael Domnitz, Robert Shafran, Tim Wardle

Director: Tim Wardle

Rating: PG-13

A great example of frank, emotionally honest filmmaking with three totally vulnerable lead performances, Passages takes a subject that can so easily be reduced into clichés—infidelity—and approaches it with a genuine sense of melancholy. It can still be frustrating to watch fully developed adults refuse to communicate more clearly about their feelings, but director and co-writer Ira Sachs also understands the nuanced gender dynamic that informs some of these bad decisions. Tomas understands that his commitment to Martin may not give him the "easy" satisfaction of a traditional romance, but there is also a sense that his attraction to Agathe (supposedly the first time he's truly fallen for a woman) might be more of an impulsive attempt to settle for something safer, something that he has more control over.

Ben Whishaw is reliably sympathetic as Martin, and Adèle Exarchopoulos carries herself with the unembellished authenticity that many of the best French actors do. And Franz Rogowski makes Tomas both entirely pathetic and still so very heartbreaking in the predicament he's put himself into. There are no cheap histrionics or outbursts of emotion here—just performers living fully within each moment and selling us on the situation they're in.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Arcadi Radeff, Ben Whishaw, Caroline Chaniolleau, Erwan Kepoa Falé, Franz Rogowski, Olivier Rabourdin, Radostina Rogliano, Théo Cholbi, William Nadylam

Director: Ira Sachs

Rating: NR

The film for which Kristen Stewart became the first American actress to win the César Award. The Twilight star turned indie prodigy plays next to another award favorite, Juliette Binoche, as her assistant. When rehearsing for the play that launched her career many years earlier, Binoche's character, Maria, blurs the line between fiction and reality, her old age and her assistant's young demeanor, and the romance story portrayed in the play and her own life. The movie itself is stylized as a play, adding another interesting layer of artistic creativity to the complex plot line. A film for film lovers.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Aljoscha Stadelmann, Angela Winkler, Benoit Peverelli, Brady Corbet, Caroline De Maigret, Chloë Grace Moretz, Claire Tran, Gilles Tschudi, Hanns Zischler, Jerry Kwarteng, Johnny Flynn, Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Luise Berndt, Nora von Waldstätten, Nora Waldstätten, Ricardia Bramley, Sean McDonagh, Steffen Mennekes

Director: Olivier Assayas

Rating: R

It doesn’t feel quite right to call Pacifiction a political thriller — at 2 hours 45 minutes and with an unhurried, dreamlike pace, it’s hardly the adrenaline rush that that categorization suggests. But Albert Serra’s film is still suffused with all the paranoia and intrigue that the genre promises, just at a slower burn. The specters of colonialism and nuclear apocalypse hang low over the movie, which is set in an idyllic Tahiti, where Benoît Magimel’s Monsieur De Roller is stationed as France’s outgoing High Commissioner, a bureaucratic relic of the country’s imperialist history. As shady figures and strange rumors about a military submarine begin to arrive on the island, a paranoid De Roller struggles to exert political control — and, in the process, seems to lose some of his own sanity. With an ethereal score, defiantly murky plot, hallucinatory cinematography, and some of humanity’s greatest horrors hanging over it like a pall, Pacifiction feels like a fever dream in the truest sense.

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Actor: Benoit Magimel, Cécile Guilbert, Marc Susini, Montse Triola, Sergi Lopez

Director: Albert Serra

Whores’ Glory leads us through the hidden world of prostitution in three different countries. The lack of narration is an excellent choice here—all too often, it’s easy to accept preconceived notions about this type of work. Instead, what leads us through the film are words from the sex workers themselves and their clientele. In some ways, these words reveal their differences. The workers pray, worry about money, and share their troubles with each other, but it’s their employers and clientele who reveal their misogyny. Overall, while the Western soundtrack and glamorizing shots can be distracting, it’s clear that the film gives respect to sex workers and prioritizes their perspective.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Director: Michael Glawogger

Rating: Not Rated

Certified Copy starts straightforward enough as it follows an unnamed shopkeeper (Juliette Binoche) and a writer (William Shimell) taking a stroll around picturesque Tuscany, debating the merits of authenticity and simplicity. They’re strangers flirting under the guise of an intellectual debate, and for a while, you think you’re watching a film like Before Sunrise, that is until a mysterious, almost magical, shift occurs, and suddenly, you’re witnessing something entirely different. For better or worse, director Abbas Kiarostami never makes it clear what happens, and that very mystery gives you a lot to think about. Are they pretending to be copies or is it the other way around? Neverending questions run through your head as you watch them banter, but whatever actually happens might be beside the point. At the moment, you get deeply felt, wonderfully rendered, as-real-as-can-be performances from Binoche and Shimell, and you can’t help but surrender.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Adrian Moore, Agathe Natanson, Gianna Giachetti, Jean-Claude Carrière, Juliette Binoche, William Shimell

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Rating: NR

This is a really weird movie starring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. They play a wholesome and well-off couple where Farrell is a heart surgeon. The movie starts with him taking care of a teenager called Martin, who's not related to him or seems to have any real connection with him. It later turns out that Martin shares a special bond with the surgeon, a bond that will threaten his family in unexpected ways. The camera work and direction by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) offset the weirdness to offer an intriguing experience.

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Alicia Silverstone, Anita Farmer Bergman, Barry G. Bernson, Barry Keoghan, Beverly Kristy, Bill Camp, Bryant Bentley, Carly Tamborski, Charles Poole, Colin Farrell, David Pittinger, Denise Dal Vera, Drew Logan, Dylan Keith Adams, Herb Caillouet, Jerry Pope, Joanne Popolin, John Newsom, John W. Harden, Lea Hutton Beasmore, Megan Chelf Fisher, Michelle Dobrozsi, Ming Wang, Nicole Kidman, Raffey Cassidy, Robert Gerding, Steven Schraub, Sunny Suljic, William C. Ingram

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Rating: R

While primarily a showcase of endoscopic footage of various surgeries in different hospitals throughout Paris—which should already be enough to either make you queasy or inspire introspection into the fragility of our lives—this singular, experimental documentary places all this bloodshed in the context of the mundanity of the medical profession. Much of the film is taken up by muted conversation from the surgeons and footage of elderly patients wandering around, creating an even more surreal look into the lack of support these hospitals receive. It's far more abstract than it is educational, but its commitment to getting its hands dirty makes it an unforgettable experience.

Genre: Documentary

Director: Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel

, 2013

Ida, the 2015 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, is a stark black & white drama set in the early 60’s about a young Polish nun-to-be and her bawdy Aunt Wanda searching for the truth behind her family’s demise at the hands of the Nazis. What initially comes off as a painfully slow sleep-inducer pretty quickly evolves into a touching and lively contrast between the two lead characters; one virtuous and pure, the other boorish and hedonistic. Their journey is equal parts amusing, insightful and heartbreaking, with Ida’s personal exploration of self playing out as a remarkably humanistic affair. The cinematography by Lukasz Za and Ryszard Lenczewski is particularly striking, each shot a work of art in it’s own right. Logging in at just 82 minutes, the entire story whizzes by in a flash. The kind of film that will stay with you long after you’ve watched it.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Adam Szyszkowski, Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Artur Janusiak, Dawid Ogrodnik, Dorota Kuduk, Halina Skoczynska, Izabela Dąbrowska, Jerzy Trela, Joanna Kulig, Marek Kasprzyk, Mariusz Jakus, Paweł Burczyk

Director: Paweł Pawlikowski

Rating: PG-13