The best French movies on Netflix include, happily, some of the best French movies ever. This list certainly isn’t exhaustive in terms of masterpieces by French directors — there’s not enough room here to list all the classics of French cinema that aren’t available on Netflix. That said, our favorite streaming service does offer many exceptional French films — and these are the best shows and movies among them.
As part of working on my book, I’ve been re-watching a few of my favorite movies about love: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Weekend (the U.K. one, not the French one), and Before Sunset, among them. The one I love most is Blue Is the Warmest Color. I am writing about it today because I realized I wanted to officially declare it my movie of France. I won’t summarize the plot beyond its most basic points: Two women fall in love. Complications ensue. I loved it when I first saw it, because I thought it was remarkably clear-eyed about a certain kind of love. I believe that with love, although we have a spectrum of choices, most relationships of some duration fall into one of two categories: relationships of convenience and true, crazy, harrowing love. This film, obviously, is about the latter.