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The five most romantic French films of all time

No one makes romantic films like the French do - here are five of the best. (And no Amélie is not one of them.)

Published: 14 February 2017 09:08 CET
Updated: 12 October 2022 15:13 CEST
The five most romantic French films of all time
A scene from Heartbreaker. Photo: YouTube/Screengrab

Ukraine’s Defence Ministry referenced France’s reputation as the country of romance when it unveiled a ‘romantic’ film asking the French government to send them more weapons to help defeat the Russian invaders.

 
 

And it’s true, the French really are the masters when it comes to truly romantic films – here are some suggestions from the masters of French film, Lost in Frenchlation. 

1. Peau d’Âne (Once Upon a Time) by Jacques Demy, 1970

A musical fairy tale, starring Catherine Deneuve (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) who is at her most beautiful in this film, and Jean Marais (Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast). Peau d’Âne is about a widowed king who insists that his second wife be as beautiful as his first.

As with all good fairytales, the film has its dark side… incest being its main theme. Yet somehow, it still manages to maintain its charm through its genius artistic design, use of colour, and memorable songs. You will either hate it or love it, but you won’t be able to get the haunting main theme song (from the great film score composer Michel Legrand) out of your head.

2. La Boum (Ready for Love) by Claude Pinoteau, 1980

A drama/teen flick about 13-year-old Vic who is trying to fit in at her new school, but is roadblocked by her parents who won’t let her go to the “boum” (big party). With some help from her grandma, she manages to get there anyway and meets the love of her life, Matthieu.

The film captures the mood of teenage love while avoiding the sentimentality that takes over in American films with similar story lines. Its honesty and depiction of first love, friendship, and family troubles make it something that everyone can relate to. It’s a “classic” for those who grew up in the eighties, and equally loved by people from all generations.

3. L’Arnacoeur (Heartbreaker) by Pascal Chaumeil, 2010

A romantic comedy starring Romain Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) who runs a business designed to break up relationships. The immoral firm is hired to break up the wedding of a rich client’s daughter (Vanessa Paradis), a strong-minded businesswoman about to marry a charming English man (Andrew Lincoln).

Look out for the darkly funny and brilliant prologue at the beginning of the film which sets the story’s tone, as well as the Dirty Dancing scene which is another must-see. It’s the kind of thing Hollywood loves to copy but never manages to do with the required French lightness and elegance.

4. 20 ans d’écart (It Boy) by David Moreau, 2013

Another romantic comedy about an under-40 fashionista (Virginie Efira) who falls for an appealing yet clumsy student (Pierre Niney).

Despite the 20-year age difference (as suggested by the French title), the chemistry between them is perfect. The movie is filled with hilarious scenes about the mismatches in all kinds of life experiences (especially the scene of the couple’s first, quite awkward sexual encounter) and plays to the French stereotype that cougars are both sexy and cool.

5. 3 coeurs (3 hearts) by Benoît Jacquot, 2014 

A drama about how a tax inspector (Benoît Poelvoorde), his new bride (Chiara Mastroianni) and her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) become caught up in a love triangle (a not-so-uncommon experience in France… according to another stereotype).

Featuring amazing performances from the actors, it’s a strong film about love, passion, and chance. This sentimental thriller’s cruelness and tenderness will pull you in two directions at once, making it a movie that needs to be on your list of things to watch.

By Manon Kerjean and Matt Bryan, co-founders of Lost in Frenchlation

Lost in Frenchlation hosts screenings of French films with English subtitles at cinemas throughout Paris.

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LEARNING FRENCH

Is the English language really just ‘badly pronounced French’?

A French linguist has been making waves with his boldly-titled book 'The English language does not exist - it's just badly pronounced French', but does the professor actually have a point?

Published: 23 April 2024 14:35 CEST
Is the English language really just 'badly pronounced French'?

The French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini is clear that the title of his book should be taken with humour and a pinch of salt, beginning his work by explaining that it is a ‘bad faith proposition’.

Clearly, the English language does exist and equally clearly the French are a little uneasy about it – with numerous laws, national bodies and local initiatives attempting to fight back against the anglicisms that now litter everyday speech, from ‘c’est cool’ to ‘un job’. 

But Cerquiglini argues that the supposed ‘influx’ of English words that are now used in France, especially tech-related terms, is nothing compared to what happened when French literally invaded English in the Middle Ages.

And the close similarity that the two languages enjoy today – around 30 percent of English words are of French origin – speaks to this entwined history.

“You can also see my book as an homage to the English language, which has been able to adopt so many words… Viking, Danish, French, it’s astonishing,” he told AFP.

The history

The key date in the blending of English and French is the Norman conquest of 1066, when Duke William of Normandy invaded England with a small group of Norman knights and made himself the English king William the Conqueror.

What happened next was a radical re-ordering of society in which English nobles were displaced and William’s knights were installed as a new French-speaking (or at least Norman-speaking) ruling class. 

The use of French by the ruling classes continued into the 13th and 14th centuries, by which time French was the official language of the royal courts, diplomacy, the law, administration and trade – meaning that ambitious English people had no choice but to learn French in order to take part in official or legal processes. 

Cerquiglini says that half of all English’s borrowings from French took place between 1260-1400, with a heavy slant towards words related to nobility, trade, administration or the law.

But a large group of non-native speakers meant that the French spoken in England was already starting to evolve, and the French words ended up with different pronunciations or even a different meaning. 

As early as 1175, the records show a Frenchman in England snootily remarking that: “My language is good, because I was born in France”. 

English and French started to part ways from the mid-1400s, by which time the two countries no longer shared royalty (the last English possession in France, the port of Calais, was lost to the French in 1558) and gradually systems such as the law courts and trade began to be conducted in English.

French remained widely spoken as a second language by the nobility and the elite right up until the early 20th century and French is still the most widely-taught language in UK schools.

The similarities

It’s not always easy to distinguish between English words that have a French root and those that have a Latin root, but linguists estimate that around 29 percent of English words come from French, another 29 percent from Latin, 26 percent from German and the rest from other languages.

But many of the English words that do have a clear French root are related to nobility, administration, politics and the law.

For example the French words gouvernement, parlement, autorité and peuple are clearly recognisable to English speakers. Likewise budget, revenus, enterprise and taxe, plus avocat, cour, juge, magistrat and evidence.

Amusingly, the French and the English obviously found time to share many insults, including bâtard [bastard], crétin, imbecile, brute and stupide.

Adaptation

But most of the people in England who were speaking French did not have it as their mother tongue, so the language began to adapt. For example the French à cause de literally translates into English as ‘by cause of’ which over time became the English word ‘because’.

There are also words that started out the same but changed their meaning over time – for example the English word ‘clock’ comes from the French ‘cloche’ (bell), because in the Middle Ages church bells were the most common method of keeping track of the time for most people.

When the mechanical clock began to appear from the 14th century onwards, the French used a new term – une horloge – but the English stuck with the original.

The differences

One of the big differences between English and French is that English simply has more words – there are roughly 170,000 words in the English language, compared to about 135,000 in French.

And at least part of this comes from English being a ‘blended’ language – that English people hung on to their original words and simply added the French ones, which is why you often get several different English words that have the same translation in French eg clever and intelligent both translate into French as ‘intelligent’.

Another difference represents the class divide that the Norman invasion imposed between the French nobles and the English labourers.

For example the words pig and cow both have Anglo-Saxon roots, while pork and beef come from French (porc and boeuf) – so when the animal is in the field being looked after by English peasants it has an Anglo-Saxon name, but by the time it is on the plate being eaten by posh people, it becomes French.

There’s also a tendency in English for the more everyday words to have Anglo-Saxon origins while the fancier words have French origins – eg to build (English) versus to construct (French). In French construire is used for both. Or to feed (English) versus to nourish (French) – in French both are nourrir.

Faux amis

One consequence of English and French being so closely linked in the bane of every language-learner’s life – les faux amis (false friends).

These are words that look and sound very similar, but have a completely different meaning. If you don’t know the French word for something you can have a stab at saying the English word with a French pronunciation – and often you will be right.

But sometimes you will be wrong, and sometimes it will be embarrassing.

READ ALSO The 18 most embarrassing French ‘false friends’

Often, faux amis are words that have changed their meaning in one language but not the other – for example the French word sensible means sensitive, not sensible – which is why you can buy products for peau sensible (sensitive skin).

But it once meant sensitive in English too – for example in the title of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility – over time the meaning of the English word adapted but the French one stayed the same.

The title

And a word on that title – La langue anglaise n’existe pas, C’est du français mal prononcé (the English language does not exist, it’s just badly pronounced French) is actually a quote from former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau.

He did apparently speak English, but doesn’t appear to have been very fond of England itself – his other well-known quote on the topic is: “L’angleterre n’est qu’une colonie français qui a mal tourné” – England is just a French colony gone wrong.  

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