Cinema of France

French cinema refers to films produced by the French industry, whether shot in France or abroad by French companies. It stands as Europe’s oldest and most influential national cinema, and it also played a key role in shaping film traditions in Asia, particularly in China. The Lumière brothers launched motion pictures in 1895 with L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat. By the early 1900s, France led global filmmaking.

After World War I

Pioneers like Georges Méliès developed new cinematic techniques and made the first science-fiction film, A Trip to the Moon (1902). Studios such as Pathé and Gaumont dominated the era, and Alice Guy-Blaché directed hundreds of films. After World War I, French cinema declined as American films flooded Europe, prompting the government to impose import quotas. Between the wars, directors like Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, and Marcel Carné defined Poetic Realism.

Post–World War II

Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu (1939) and Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) remain classics, showing innovation despite wartime difficulties. From the late 1950s through the 1970s, French cinema thrived with the New Wave, led by critics-turned-filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Their groundbreaking works include Breathless (1960) and The 400 Blows (1959). This movement inspired directors worldwide but faded by the late 1960s.

Meanwhile, commercial French films gained popularity, with comedies like La Grande Vadrouille (1966). Stars like Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon, and Catherine Deneuve achieved international fame. Directors like Bertrand Tavernier explored political and artistic themes.

By the late 1970s, films such as La Cage aux Folles (1978) found major global success. France produced several major box-office hits in the 1990s, including Cyrano de Bergerac (1990). Films like La Femme Nikita (1990) and The Fifth Element (1997) also reached wide international audiences. In 2013, France was the world’s second-largest film exporter after the United States.

Government support

A 2014 study found that French cinema was the most appreciated globally after American cinema. According to industry tracker The Numbers, French film exports have since declined: in 2019, France ranked seventh by total box-office revenue with a 2% global share; by 2023, it had fallen to fifteenth with a 0.44% share. Overall, France sits fourth on the tracker’s all-time box-office chart, behind the US, UK, and China. The two most important French film production groups are Pathé and StudioCanal, which are also the two largest groups in Europe.

Silent era

The Lumière brothers gave the first projection using the Cinematograph in Paris on 28 December 1895, with a public screening at the Eden Theatre in La Ciotat. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the French film industry was the most important in the world. Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinématographe, and their L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat is widely considered the official birth of cinema. French films of this period catered to a growing middle class and were mostly shown in cafés and at traveling fairs.

From 1896 to 1902, four firms dominated: Pathé Frères, Gaumont, the Georges Méliès company, and the Lumières. Méliès invented many basic cinematic techniques and produced fantastic, surreal short films, including the first science-fiction film, A Trip to the Moon (1902). In 1902, the Lumières stopped making films and focused only on producing film stock, leaving Méliès as the weakest of the remaining three. (He retired in 1914.) From 1904 to 1911, Pathé Frères led the world in film production and distribution.

At Gaumont, pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché—formerly M. Gaumont’s secretary—became head of production and oversaw about 400 films, from her first, La Fée aux Choux (1896), through 1906. She later continued her career in the United States, as did Maurice Tourneur and Léonce Perret after World War I. In 1907, Gaumont owned and operated the world’s largest movie studio. With the construction of luxury cinemas like the Gaumont-Palace and the Pathé-Palace (both 1911), cinema became an economic rival to theater by 1914.

After World War I, the French film industry suffered from a lack of capital, and production declined, as it did in most of Europe. This allowed the U.S. film industry to enter the European market, since American films could be sold more cheaply than European ones—studios had already recouped their costs at home. As European studios struggled, many countries set up import barriers. France imposed a quota of 1:7: for every seven foreign films imported, one French film had to be produced and shown in French cinemas.

Between the two world wars, Jacques Feyder and Jean Vigo became founders of poetic realism in French cinema. Along with Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac, and Jean Epstein, they also dominated French impressionist cinema. In 1931, Marcel Pagnol filmed the first of his great trilogy: Marius, Fanny, and César. He followed with other films, including The Baker’s Wife.

Other notable 1930s films include René Clair’s Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante (1934), Jacques Feyder’s Carnival in Flanders (1935), and Julien Duvivier’s La belle équipe (1936). In 1935, playwright and actor Sacha Guitry directed his first film and went on to make over 30 films that anticipated the New Wave. In 1937, Jean Renoir directed La Grande Illusion. In 1939, Renoir directed La Règle du Jeu.