Few would be surprised to learn that Hollywood film studios are the largest film producer in the world. While American superheroes fight evil in theatres, thought-provoking films with social commentary and real people's lives are shown on the big screen in France.
Of course, French audiences also watch American blockbusters, but the French cinematic tradition is a bit different.
France is the 7th largest film producer in the world. France is the birthplace of cinema and is responsible for many of the important contributions to the art form and the filmmaking process itself. Several important cinematic movements, including the 'Nouvelle Vague', started in France. The country is known to have a particularly strong film industry, partly due to the protections offered by the French government.
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As we are discussing French cinema, we'd like to know: who are your French favourites for the big screen?
We have compiled a list of great French actors of all time, but such a short list will never feel complete to everyone. Please let us know if there's any actor you think is missing from the list!
Or click here to find out why cinema is a national obsession in France.
Famous French actresses
Catherine Deneuve
The daughter of theatre and voice actress Renée-Jeanne Simonot, Catherine Deneuve is known for her many film roles and her liberal political views.
She made her film debut at the age of 14 but did not gain recognition until her breakthrough in 1964 when she took the lead role in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Her acting career spans several decades and transcends national boundaries.
In addition to French films, she appears in Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark and the British drama Mayerling. This is a selected list of some of her movies:
- 1967 - Belle de jour
- 1967 - The Young Girls of Rochefort
- 1968 - Mayerling
- 1972 - Dirty Money
- 1977 - March or Die
- 2000 - Dancer in the Dark
- 2001 - The Musketeer
- 2002 - 8 Women
Although prolific in her acting career, this hard-working actress also has her own fashion line where she designs glasses, shoes and jewellery.
Brigitte Bardot
At the height of her career, Brigitte Bardot was one of the greatest style icons ever. The provocative promotional poster for Jean Luc Godard's film Les Mépris received both criticism and praise for portraying Bardot in such a sexualized way.
In fact, posters of her in her bouffant hair and pouting lips were posted everywhere, sadly her appearance received more praise than any of her achievements.
Now, as then, female actors are objectified to be just an appearance and are supposed to please the male audience.
Ten years after her breakthrough with Les Mépris, she mysteriously retired from film, stage and studio. After recording over 60 songs in her short career and appearing in 47 films.
Besides Les Mepris, she is known for films such as And God Created Woman… (1956), The Truth (1960), Contempt (1963), and Viva Maria! (1965) and Shalako (1968).
Marion Cotillard
Cotillard is a French actress. Known for her roles in indie and feature films in both European and Hollywood productions, she has received several awards, including an Oscar, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, a European Film Award, a Lumières Award and two César Awards.
She became a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2010 and was promoted to officer in 2016. She has been a spokesperson for Greenpeace since 2001.
What she has done to earn these awards is phenomenal: to date, her films have grossed more than three billion dollars at the box office. It is clear that she is a force of attraction, a magnetic force that few can resist.
How many actors could give such a realistic performance in La Vie en Rose as Cotillard did in portraying Edith Piaf, the most famous French singer?
One of her more dramatic moves on the activist front was caging herself in front of the Louvre to demand the release of 30 Greenpeace workers, firmly declaring herself a climate advocate.
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Audrey Tautou
Amelie, perhaps one of the most famous French films in the world, brought international acclaim to Audrey Tautou as the incurably curious, sunny optimistic title character.
The film received critical acclaim and was a huge box-office success. Amélie won Best Film at the European Film Awards, four César Awards (including Best Film and Best Director), two BAFTA Awards (including Best Original Screenplay) and was nominated for five Oscars.
With over £27 million in limited theatrical release, it remains the highest-grossing French-language film released in the United States.
With only a handful of roles under her belt before taking the lead in this project, she too, of course, received countless awards - as did the movie.
Since then, she has appeared in films in various genres, including the thrillers Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and The Da Vinci Code (2006) and the romantic comedy Priceless (2006). She has received critical acclaim for her many roles, including the World War I drama A Very Long Engagement (2004) and her portrayal of French fashion designer Coco Chanel in the biographical drama Coco avant Chanel (2009).
In June 2004, she became one of the few French actors in history to be invited to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Isabelle Huppert
The lead actor in Piano Teacher has been hailed as one of the most accomplished in the world today.
And for good reason!
With a career spanning almost 50 years, this Parisian has been able to bring emotion to the widest spectrum of the human experience: tragedy and despair, comedy and compulsion - all with mastery and precision.
Huppert received her first César nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Aloïse (1975). She won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for The Lacemaker (1977). She went on to win two Best Actress awards at the Cannes Film Festival, for Violette Nozière (1978) and The Piano Teacher (2001).
One of the most prolific actresses in international cinema, Huppert has worked in Italy, Russia, Central Europe and Asia. Her English-language films include:
- Heaven's Gate (1980)
- The Bedroom Window (1987)
- I Heart Huckabees (2004)
- The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2013)
- Louder Than Bombs (2015)
- Greta (2018)
- Frankie (2019)
- Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (2022)
Danielle Darrieux
Danielle Yvonne Marie Antoinette Darrieux (1917-2017) was a French actress on stage, television and film. She was also an accomplished singer and dancer. Her career spanned 80 years and she was still accepting juicy roles as recently as 2010 - at the age of 97.
During the German occupation of France in World War II, Darrieux continued to perform, a decision that was severely criticized by her countrymen.
A short selection of her many films:
- 1931 Le Bal
- 1936 Mademoiselle Mozart
- 1955 Lady Chatterley's Lover
- 1967 The Young Girls of Rochefort
- 1986 Scene of the Crime
- 2001 8 women
For her role in 8 Women, she was nominated for four awards and won two. In Berlin, she won a Silver Bear for 'Outstanding Artistic Achievement' and at the European Film Festival, she won the 'Best Actress' award.
For her long service to the film industry, she was awarded a César in 1985. Her career spanned a full eight decades, and in one of her last roles, she voices the grandmother of the main character in the animated film Persepolis (2007), about the impact of the Islamic revolution on a girl's life as she grows to adulthood in Iran.
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Famous French actors
Jean Reno
Reno made his breakthrough in the 1988 film The Big Blue and has since appeared in several other Luc Besson films, for example, Léon, which made him world famous in 1994. Since then, he has also appeared in several American films.
Reno was born in Morocco to Spanish parents but moved to France at the age of 12. He is fluent in Spanish, English, French and Italian.
In the French dub of The Lion King (1994), he plays the voice of Mufasa, which he did again in the more recent 2019 Disney version.
He has also appeared in blockbusters such as The Da Vinci Code (2006), Mission: Impossible (1996), Godzilla (1998) and Pink Panther 1 and 2 (2006 and 2009).
Fun trivia is that Jean Reno has twice played characters whose profession is "cleaner" - the psychotic Victor the Cleaner in Nikita (1990) and the calm assassin Léon in Léon (1994).
Gerard Depardieu
There is a question as to whether we should consider Monsieur Depardieu on the list of French actors, as he declared in 2012 that he would give up his French passport and currently resides in Belgium.
Despite this, he has made important contributions to French cinema, including starring in The Last Metro and Jean de Florette - which made him an international star.
In fact, he is considered the most prolific character actor of all time, with more than 170 films since 1966.
His flair for comedy virtually guaranteed him a role in all four Asterix films, but he has also been known to star in the occasional thriller.
He has also done the occasional romantic comedy, such as in Cyrano de Bergerac, for which he won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Omar Sy
Omar Sy, born January 20, 1978, in Trappes, Yvelines, is a French actor. Sy made his breakthrough with the lead role of Driss in Intouchables. The role earned him a César du cinéma in the Best Actor category.
He has won numerous awards for his roles and for his acting and has been nominated for even more. Moreover, as the youngest actor on our list, we can guess that he has a lot of good things ahead of him.
He has appeared in a whole host of films, both French and Hollywood.
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2012)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
- Samba (2014)
- Jurassic World (2015)
- Le flic de Belleville (2018)
- The Call of the Wild (2020)
- Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
This is just a small selection, so it's safe to say he keeps himself busy.
He has also starred in the Netflix blockbuster Lupin. The series is mainly set in Paris and is loosely based on the Arsène Lupin books. Arsène Lupin is described as a gentleman and grand thief, which Sy's character sees himself as. He, therefore, gives himself the nickname Lupin.
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Vincent Cassel
Cassel made his breakthrough in 1995 in Mathieu Kassovitz's film While We're Falling where he played the role of Vinz. For this role, he was nominated for the French film award César. Since the mid-90s, Cassel has played a wide range of roles in both French and international films.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, Cassel appeared in a number of French films. In 1996, he co-starred with Monica Bellucci in the atmospheric French film L'Appartement.
In 1996, the film became a critical success, winning a BAFTA Award for Best Non-English Language Film and the first British Independent Film Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
He portrayed trillionaire Engerraund Serac, the main antagonist of the third season of the HBO series Westworld in 2020 and in 2021, he narrated the documentary Reset, directed by Thierry Donard.
Alain Delon
This veteran French actor became one of French cinema's biggest sex symbols in the 1960s. Discovered in Cannes by an American talent scout, he was offered his first contract on the condition that he learns English.
He resisted the lure of Hollywood after meeting the famous French director Yves Allegret, who cast him in his debut film.
Initially associated with the New Wave, film era 'la nouvelle vague', this film festival favourite is best known for Until the Last Breath (1960) - one of his earliest roles. As the star of countless commercial films, he disdained intellectual pursuits, preferring action to nudity.
A star of innumerable commercial films, he scorned intellectual ventures, preferring action to nudity.
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo was a French actor who was also initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s. He was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onwards.
His best-known works include À bout de souffle (1960), Un nommé La Rocca (1964), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Borsalino (1970) and Le Professionnel (1981).
His career continued until 2010 when, at the age of 77, he starred in the short film Allons-y! Alonzo!
Whether a Very Long Engagement – pun intended, or a promising ascension, actors and actresses in France thrill French audiences, and those worldwide.
The reading of subtitles aside, there is no one genre that defines the quintessential French film, only excellence as portrayed by talented French people on the silver screen.
Do you have your own list of the best French actors? Is it similar to this one?
If you enjoyed this article, why not learn more about the history of French cinema?
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