Louis Feuillade’s outrageous, ambitious Fantômas series, based on the phenomenally popular French pulp novellas, captures the seamy exploits of the criminal lord of Paris.

An achingly romantic reverie of desire and hope set upon a barge floating on the Seine. Directed by Jean Vigo.

Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu give two of their finest performances as members of a French theater company living under the German occupation. Directed by François Truffaut.

Two unlikely companions join forces to smuggle four suitcases of contraband pork across Nazi-occupied Paris. Directed by Claude Autant-Lara.

Jacques Rivette’s debut feature stands out as a remarkable premonition of Sixties youth culture and the French New Wave.

Agnès Varda, eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer (Corinne Marchand) set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy.

Godard’s meditation on a changing Paris looks at consumerism through a housewife from the Paris suburbs who prostitutes herself for extra money.

A landmark of contemporary French cinema, Mathieu Kassovitz’s gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility of modern-day France remains as relevant as ever 25 years since its release.

Djinn Carrénard provides a rich yet unsettling portrait of a group of late teens and twentysomethings navigating the ever-changing shoals of class, religion, and identity.

Sumptuously filmed and featuring an evocative score by Tindersticks, Claire Denis’s sublime film captures the sense of contemporary multicultural Paris.