The 40 most popular 1990s french movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1991 · 2h 17m · FR
Ten years after the events of the original, a reprogrammed T-800 is sent back in time to protect young John Connor from the shape-shifting T-1000. Together with his mother Sarah, he fights to stop Skynet from triggering a nuclear apocalypse.


Léon: The Professional
1994 · 1h 51m · FR
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.


The Fifth Element
1997 · 2h 6m · FR
In 2257, a taxi driver is unintentionally given the task of saving a young girl who is part of the key that will ensure the survival of humanity.


Taxi
1998 · 1h 26m · FR
In Marseilles a skilled pizza delivery boy Daniel who drives a scooter finally has his dreams come true. He gets a taxi license. Caught by the police for a huge speed infraction, he will help Emilien, a loser inspector who can't drive, on the track of German bank robbers, so he doesn't lose his license and his dream job.


La Haine
1995 · 1h 38m · FR
After a chaotic night of rioting in a marginal suburb of Paris, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, wander around unoccupied waiting for news about the state of health of a mutual friend who has been seriously injured when confronting the police.


The Lover
1992 · 1h 55m · FR
A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.
The Ex
The Ex
1996 · 1h 37m
Yann leads a seemingly happy life with his two children and a beautiful, loving, dynamic woman Julianne. Yet he is unhappy. For ten years, he has dreamed of writing a great novel that wins the Prix Goncourt, but all he gets on paper is the adventures of the Hippopoum TV figure and he flies away in the alcohol. One day Julianne is the Norwegian bushes of masculine pleasure and she pulls out with the director of a TV station. A disaster for Yann, because she leaves their children behind him and he is not able to take care of them.


Three Colors: Red
1994 · 1h 40m · FR
Part-time model Valentine unexpectedly befriends a retired judge after she runs over his dog. At first, the grumpy man shows no concern about the dog, and Valentine decides to keep it. But the two form a bond when she returns to his house and catches him listening to his neighbors’ phone calls.


eXistenZ
1999 · 1h 37m · CA
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.


The Piano
1993 · 2h · AU
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited pre-teen daughter Flora to the wilderness of 19th-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.


Three Colors: White
1994 · 1h 32m · FR
Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.


Asterix and Obelix Take On Caesar
1999 · 1h 49m · FR
Set in 50 B.C., Asterix and Obelix are living in a small but well-protected village in Gaul, where a magic potion concocted by Druids turns the townsfolk into mighty soldiers. When Roman troops carve a path through Gaul to reach the English Channel, Caesar and his aide de camp Detritus discover the secret elixir and capture the Druid leader who knows its formula, and Asterix and Obelix are sent off to rescue them.


The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
1999 · 2h 38m · FR
In 1429, a French teenager stood before her King with a message she claimed came from God; that she would defeat the world's greatest army and liberate her country from its political and religious turmoil. As she reclaims God's diminished kingdom, this courageous young woman has various amazing victories until her violent and untimely death.


Bouge !
1997 · 1h 39m · FR
Video director Jerome Cornuau made his feature-film debut with this showbiz-themed French film. Young Alice (Ambre Boukebza) hitchhikes into the city to seek out her music-executive dad (Bernard Le Coq) but instead becomes friends with a singing star (Ophelie Winter, portraying herself), learns dancing from African trashman Rudy (Ashanti), polishes her singing skills with an assist from vocalist Nathalie (Lea Drucker), and is romanced by producer Jeremy (Patrick Forster-Delmas).


Indochine
1992 · 2h 39m · FR
In colonial Vietnam, dashing French naval captain Jean-Baptiste, wealthy plantation owner Éliane Devries, and her adopted Vietnamese daughter Camillevare form the three points of a cross-cultural romantic triangle. As the struggle against European imperialism sweeps Indochina, Jean-Baptiste and Camille have to choose sides and Éliane faces the emotionally difficult challenge of raising the child of her daughter and ex-lover.


Bitter Moon
1992 · 2h 19m · FR
A passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic's wife.


Nikita
1990 · 1h 57m · FR
A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government.


Jeunes gens
1996 · 1h 3m · FR
Céramique and Louis are a carefree and charming young couple. But soon the whims of love appear. They have to face up to it.


1492: Conquest of Paradise
1992 · 2h 34m · FR
1492: Conquest of Paradise depicts Christopher Columbus’ discovery of The New World and his effect on the indigenous people.


Three Colors: Blue
1993 · 1h 38m · FR
The wife of a famous composer survives a car accident that kills her husband and daughter. Now alone, she shakes off her old identity and explores her newfound freedom but finds that she is unbreakably bound to other humans, including her husband’s mistress, whose existence she never suspected.


Drôles d'oiseaux
1993 · 1h 38m · FR
The fire at the supermarket is a boon for a scrap dealer who has just killed his wife. According to Commissioner Voitot, the victim could be one of the unidentified bodies. But here is a landscaper claims that his wife has also disappeared.


Super Mario Bros.
1993 · 1h 45m · UK
Mario and Luigi, plumbers from Brooklyn, find themselves in an alternate universe where evolved dinosaurs live in hi-tech squalor. They're the only hope to save our universe from invasion by the dino dictator, Koopa.


Desire
1996 · 1h 33m · FR
Désiré is a fine servant and butler who regularly seduces the ladies of the house where he works, but then he moves on. This time he is working for Odette, the mistress of the minister of Posts and he is living a new situation. He has fallen in love with with Odette.


Fatal Lovers
1990 · 1h 38m · FR
Following a dark story of sheep theft, Loup, nephew of Mark, the leader of a small community living in a tent city by the ocean in Connemara (Ireland), confronts Morholt, leader of a neighboring tribe. Severely wounded, he kills his opponent. For homicide, the representative of order and law, "the bishop", condemns him to go and find a bride for his uncle, Sedrid, famous in the whole country for his superb red hair.


The Sanguinaires
1999 · 1h 8m · FR
In December of 1999, François organizes a retreat to a small island for himself, some friends, and their children to avoid the craziness of Paris during the turn of the millennium. Things quickly become tense between François and the young man who is the island's caretaker. Boredom and bickering add to the growing foreboding. By the end, will millennial noise in Paris seem mild in comparison to violence in the pastoral retreat?


Un été après l'autre
1990
No overview available


Ex-Voto
1998 · 18m · FR
In a Breton coastal village, a very old woman seems to watch the open sea with particular attention. Back home, she is suddenly overcome by a presence that comes from the ocean...


The City of Lost Children
1995 · 1h 52m · FR
A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.


Black Cat, White Cat
1998 · 2h 7m · FR
A small-time hustler makes a deal with a notorious gangster to whom he owes money: marry his teenage son to the latter's daughter. However, the young lovers are not as agreeable.


Crying Freeman
1995 · 1h 42m · CA
A lethal assassin for a secret Chinese organisation, who sheds tears of regret each time he kills, is seen swiftly and mercilessly executing three Yakuza gangsters by a beautiful artist. She is captivated by the grace of his kill and later falls in love with him. An intense power struggle for the leadership of the Yakuza Clans ensues as they seek vengeance for the death of their leader.


Girls with Guns
1994 · 1h 30m · FR
In Montelimar, four young women whom life has not spared want to emerge from mediocrity. They decide to rob a bank, but everything is not so simple and the perfectly developed heist could turn into disaster.


The Other
1991 · 1h 40m
A man who survives an earthquake is convinced that there is another man still stuck in the debris.


La Belle Verte
1996 · 1h 39m · FR
As part of an intergalactic coalition, a well-meaning space alien volunteers to bring a message of self-actualization and harmony with nature to the one planet rejected by all her peers as incorrigible: Earth.


Marie's Counter
1998 · 1h 35m · FR
A bistro counter will decide the fate of two women. The first, Marie, the owner of a cafe for forty years in a Breton village, wants to realize her dream and go to the city. The second, Joelle, wants to leave town for the countryside.


The Visitors
1993 · 1h 47m · FR
After a wizard's spell goes awry, 12th-century Gallic knight Godefroy de Papincourt, Count of Montmirail finds himself transported to 1993, along with his dimwitted servant, Jacquouille la Fripouille. Startled and perplexed by modern technology, the duo run amok, destroying cars and causing chaos until they meet Beatrice de Montmirail, an aristocratic descendant of the nobleman, who may be able to help them get back to 1123.


Été brûlant
1995 · 1h 25m · FR
At the beginning of the century. To punish him for his failure at school, Count Ivan Petrov takes his son Alexander to spend the two summer months in their Crimean estate, far from any distraction. For the 18-year-old, this is the beginning of a long period of isolation, one-on-one with a father whose severity he fears. Once on the spot, Ivan announces to his son the imminent arrival of his cousins Katia, whom he loves in silence, and Natacha, accompanied by their mother Elena. The joy of Alexander is short-lived, Natacha learning to him immediately that Katia comes in fact to celebrate her engagement with Nicolai. His dismay increases when he discovers that it is his father who arranged this marriage, of which Katia does not seem to be very happy.


The Double Life of Véronique
1991 · 1h 38m · FR
Véronique is a beautiful young French woman who aspires to be a renowned singer; Weronika lives in Poland, has a similar career goal and looks identical to Véronique, though the two are not related. The film follows both women as they contend with the ups and downs of their individual lives, with Véronique embarking on an unusual romance with Alexandre Fabbri, a puppeteer who may be able to help her with her existential issues.


Total Eclipse
1995 · 1h 51m · FR
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.


Porté disparu
1995 · 1h 30m · FR
Twenty years after his disappearance and while everyone believes him dead, Jacques returns home incognito under the name Laurent Dupas. He finds his wife Hélène, who has remarried Eric, a bank manager. They all look happy. But behind this idyllic family picture lies a mystery.


No Time for Justice
1990 · 1h 45m
A man is accused of a crime he didn't commit. He will be sexually abused in prison.
The 1990s were the independent film decade, when Sundance and Miramax pushed low-budget American filmmaking into the mainstream. It's also when Hong Kong action, Japanese animation, and Iranian art cinema found large Western audiences.
French cinema invented much of what we consider film language, then reinvented it again with the Nouvelle Vague of the late 1950s. It remains Europe's most prolific film industry, with a strong tradition of state support for auteur work.