French History Movies

After twenty years away, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The king has finally returned home, but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.

D'Artagnan, a spirited young Gascon, is left for dead after trying to save a noblewoman from being kidnapped. Once in Paris, he tries by all means to find his attackers, unaware that his quest will lead him to the very heart of a war where the future of France is at stake. Aided by King's Musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis, he faces the machinations of villainous Cardinal Richelieu and Milady de Winter, while falling in love with Constance, the Queen's confidante.

Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo's newest work uses split-screens (at times, up to four images simultaneously) to present a fake documentary in which "the president" has disappeared; talk-show hosts, rivals, politicians and even rappers chime in on what may have occurred, and what their president for life has—or has not—done for Cameroon.

June, 1940. France collapses and signs the armistice. In the midst of the chaos, one man refuses to give up. Alone against the odds, this unknown general flees to London to save what remains of freedom.

In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.

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.

You've seen him interview Mikhail Gorbachev, Angelina Jolie, Robbie Williams, Mariah Carey, Brad Pitt, Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro... You know him, but you don't really know him. Everyone has talked about Ardisson without ever getting close to the truth about him. My ambition: to reveal the man behind the costume of "The Man in Black." I thought to myself: if anyone can figure him out, it's me, a journalist and portraitist who has lived with him for 15 years. Who is the private Thierry behind the spectacular Ardisson? What we discover is how much Ardisson's personal history reflects the eras he has lived through, their contradictions, their utopias, their excesses, their violence. Like so many facets of a man and of society at the turn of the century.

Jean and Otto, a French newspaperman and a young German Francophile, are fighting for peace in Europe. Jean’s daughter, Corinne, is launching a brilliant acting career in the film world, but war breaks out and France is occupied. The two friends have a major role to play in this new France. Jean becomes a big press baron and an ardent advocate of collaboration with the occupying forces, while Otto becomes the Reich’s ambassador in Paris. Corinne, meanwhile, finds herself thrown into the lion’s pit.

Part two of a two-part biopic following French army officer Charles De Gaulle's life and political commitment between 1940 and 1945, and trace his development towards a political career.

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

A passionate love story set against a backdrop of sexual freedom, loosely based on the relationship between 19th century authors Pierre Louÿs and Marie de Régnier.

1492: Conquest of Paradise depicts Christopher Columbus’ discovery of The New World and his effect on the indigenous people.

After writing for Cahiers du cinéma, young Godard decides making films is the best film criticism. He gets Beauregard to fund a low-budget feature, creating a treatment with Truffaut about a gangster couple.

In 18th century France, the Chevalier de Fronsac and his Native American friend Mani are sent by the King to the Gevaudan province to investigate the killings of hundreds by a mysterious beast.

With the Third Reich at its peak in 1942, the Czech resistance in London plans the most ambitious military operation of WWII – Anthropoid. Two young recruits are sent to Prague to assassinate the most ruthless Nazi leader – Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office, the Gestapo and the architect of the Final Solution.

A 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it is Benedetta's shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its core.

When Queen Elizabeth's reign is threatened by ruthless familial betrayal and Spain's invading army, she and her shrewd adviser must act to safeguard the lives of her people.

In 1937, amidst Stalin's Great Terror, a newly appointed prosecutor for the USSR is made aware of alleged corruption in the Secret Police, and takes it upon himself to investigate.

In post-war France, Jan Bojarski, a young Polish refugee, became the greatest counterfeiter of all time, the "Cézanne of counterfeit money". For more than fifteen years, this man led a double life, unbeknownst to his family, making counterfeits in a garden shed that were "truer" than the bills issued by the Banque de France... All these years, this peerless counterfeiter managed to avoid being caught by the police, and became the bête noire of Commissaire Mattei in a hunt that, for these two obsessives, turned into a duel.

A man prepares himself to be transferred to a detention center and rest home where he will relive one more time the highlights of his youth.

After getting threatened by Kelly's friends and family, Constable Fitzpatrick places the blame on Ned Kelly and exaggerates what happened. With the biggest ever award available, Kelly and his gang set into the wild, to remain hidden from everyone who seeks them. Even if it means having his family arrested, the members of the Kelly Gang stay hidden and plan a way to get their names cleared.

Barents Sea, August 12th, 2000. During a Russian naval exercise, and after suffering a serious accident, the K-141 Kursk submarine sinks with 118 crew members on board. While the few sailors who are still alive barely manage to survive, their families push for accurate information and a British officer struggles to obtain from the Russian government a permit to attempt a rescue before it is late. But general incompetence are against all their efforts.

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The life of Émilie du Châtelet, mathematician and physicist during the Enlightenment.

Louis is a 27-year-old reservist and patriot, as is his childhood friend and longtime rival Bastien, who sees the war, like everything else, as an opportunity. One night, as their unit sleeps near the front, they're bombed. Louis and his comrades fall back in disarray and in the general panic lose their regiment. When they locate it again a few hours later, their general accuses them of desertion.

A woman who is unfairly institutionalized at a Paris asylum plots to escape with the help of one of its nurses. Based on the novel 'Le bal des folles' by Victoria Mas.

Concepcion de la Playa Setta, an Andalusian noblewoman, the daughter of the provost marshall of Flanders, is in love with the Duke Philippe de Hornes. He is a Brussels gentleman in revolt against her people, the Spanish occupiers. When her rebellious lover is hurt during an uprising against the troops of Philip II, Concepcion takes him in in her house. And she personally defends him when, at his trial. Condemned to be hanged through the intervention of the Duke of Alba, de Hornes is eventually reprieved by the new governor and set free. The two lovers meet again and can live happily from now on.

In Third Reich, the abuse of drugs made commanders and soldiers feel invincible. The Führer himself took them on daily basis. This is the unbelievable story of the D-IX project and of methamphetamines, which, abundantly furnished to soldiers, changed the course of history.

The Nomad is a historical epic set in 18th-century Kazakhstan. The film is a fictionalised account of the youth and coming-of-age of Ablai Khan, as he grows and fights to defend the fortress at Hazrat-e Turkestan from Dzungar invaders.

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.

In November 15, 2017, the painting Salvator Mundi, attributed to Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), was sold for an unprecedented $450 million. An examination of the dirty secrets of the art world and the surprising story of how a work of art is capable of upsetting both personal and geopolitical interests.

The life of Jeanne Bécu, who was born as the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished seamstress in 1743 and went on to rise through the Court of Louis XV to become his last official mistress.

In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Devil’s Island penal colony.

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.

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Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

Summer 1944, France. Racine is a carefree 19-year-old first-aid worker, his secret desire is to be able to sleep with Isabelle, the girl he's in love with. One evening they are about to take the plunge, but a resistance fighter comes to ask for help. Racine goes up to the maquis to impress the young girl and joins a group of fifteen immature boys. But up there, nothing goes as planned. The war catches up with them, brutally marking the end of an innocence and Racine finds himself caught in the crossfire.

Jean Valjean is released from prison after nineteen years of hard labor, violence, and suffering. Filled with anger and a deep sense of injustice, he has become a dangerous man who trusts no one and nothing. When he arrives in a small village in Provence, he is repeatedly turned away. Desperate, he unknowingly finds refuge at the house of Bishop Bienvenu, who lives simply, with his sister and a single servant. There, he is surprised by their warm welcome, and his inner demons start to waver. But the temptation to be what society sees in him still haunts him, and he steals the Bishop’s silverware. When the police ultimately catches him, the Bishop forgives him and gifts him the candlesticks. This acts becomes the starting point of Jean Valjean’ transformation into a new man who reclaims his humanity.

England, 1940, during World War II. An MI5 officer, codenamed Jack King, infiltrates a network of conspirators, a British fifth column sympathetic to Nazi Germany, in order to control the organization and destroy it in the event of a German invasion. But who was he? A single person or several?