Culture > French film industry

Famous French film directors

The French film industry has seldom reached the commercial heights of Hollywood, but is no worse for that.

It tends to have different goals - artistic merit among them - that assure a more restricted audience for the films produced. It is also clear that French language films, even with subtitles, are going to have a smaller audience than English language films.

Despite these challenges (or perhaps because of them) France to this day has an active and thriving film industry.

The country has produced some exceptionally talented film directors (and films) during the course of the 20th century, and helped shape cinema as we know it today. In this section you can read of the lives and works of some of the greatest and best known French film directors:

The so called Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) movement in french film-making was very influential - see Nouvell Vague films

See also our related article - Films set in Paris - if you planning to visit or like to see France as it really is.