What are the gems?

Shoot the Piano Player
A Man Escaped
Pierret Le Fou

400 blows
La Haine
Amelie
Breathless

The Rules of the Game
Children of Paradise
Coco Avant Chanel
Blue is the warmest color
The Intouchables
The Chorus
The Artist
La Vie en Rose
Delicatessen

Les Diaboliques
400 Blows (maybe the rest of the Doinel series)
Jules et Jim
Les Cousins
All French Demy joints
L’argent
Vivement dimanche!
Le Deuxieme Souffle
Le feu follet
Le Trou

Respire

Elle
Blue is the Warmest Color
Climax
Martyrs
The Intouchables
Irreversible
Enter the Void

I haven’t watched too many French movies honestly, but those were great for me.

Avi
Un Prophete

My personal favorite French director is Jacques Tati:

Playtime (1967)

Trafic (1971)

irreversible
vivre sa vie

Everyone gonna recommend Godard and Truffaut and they’re fine and all but Demy and Tati are the true goats.

Films by them to check out:

• Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• Young Girls of Rochefort
• Donkey Skin
• Mon Oncle
• Playtime

For some older gems, Renoir and Vigo are great particularly Rules of the Game or L’Atalante

Diabolique, Rififi and Wages of Fear are also some very entertaining 50’s French films.

For more recent, Haneke and Sciamma are great. You’re probably familiar with Portrait of a Lady on Fire and that’s essential. The Piano Teacher and Amour are great also.

breathless is amazing and actually found out about it through a badbadnotgood song

Raw

You purposely left out Godard? And I incidentally watched all of the Truffaut films you listed, plus the Piano Player already

Thank you, this is very helpful

Might've, but I remember you saying Godard being unbearable (or boring, something along those lines, can't quite recall) in another thread so I thought I'd skip and I assume you've seen the more popular ones

As Kyeezus said, Jacques Demy (which I also wrote),

not sure what you've seen yet but here goes

Louis Malle - Le feu follet, Le souffle au cœur, Zazie dans la métro, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud

Jacques Becker - Le Trou, Casque d'Or

Melville - Le Samouraï, Le Deuxieme Souffle, Le Doulos,

Bresson - L'Argent, Pickpocket, A Man Escaped, Au Hasard Balthazar

Yes I was asking because of that ☺️

Thanks for the suggestions, these others are all new to me

idk just watch godard