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Ten Films Set in Paris
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The broad boulevards and landmark buildings of the French capital have proved an irresistible draw for filmmakers, French and foreign, since the early days of cinema. The sprawling, ancient City of Light provides a multifaceted backdrop, sometimes charming, sometimes gritty but always uniquely romantic.
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Les Enfants du Paradis (1945)
Directed by Marcel Carné in unspeakably trying circumstances during the Nazi occupation of Paris in WWII, Les Enfants du Paradis takes place a century before, in the 1840s. Set in the city’s thriving theatre scene, it tells the story of a beautiful courtesan (played by the mononymous model, singer and actress Arletty) and the four men who have fallen in love with her; an actor, a mime artist, a criminal and an aristocrat. Divided into two sections of equal length, the action takes place mostly in Paris’ Boulevard du Temple, in the heart of the theatre district.
An American in Paris (1952)
Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dance their way through the cobbled streets of an idealised Paris (actually the MGM backlot) in Vincente Minnelli’s timeless musical, one of the finest to emerge from the mid-50s heyday of the genre. The film’s climax, a 16 minute ballet set to George Gershwin’s classic score, cost more than half a million dollars to shoot, an astronomical sum at the time.
Rififi (1955)
The American’s couldn’t resist Paris in the 50s. Blacklisted by the studios for his communist leanings, director Jules Dassin decamped to the French capital to make this masterpiece of film noir, which stars the ultra-smooth Jean Servais as a grizzled jailbird masterminding one last big score at a high-class jewellery store on the Rue de Rivoli. Dassin’s low-budget classic is the benchmark against which every heist film since has been measured.
Bande à Part (1964)
The leading light of the Nouvelle Vague, Jean Luc-Godard’s love-letter to his native city has the gorgeous Anna Karina, flanked by would-be criminals Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur, race against the clock to beat the record for running through the sumptuous galleries of the Louvre museum. Almost 40 years later, Bernardo Bertolucci paid homage to Godard by having Eva Green, Louis Garrel and Michael Pitt attempt the same feat in his Paris story, The Dreamers.
Three Colours: Blue (1993)
The first film in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s acclaimed trilogy, inspired by the colours of the French flag, has Juliette Binoche play a woman whose husband and child are killed in a car accident attempting to rebuild her life on her own in a beautifully photographed Paris. A scene where Binoche takes a swim at the art deco Rue de Pontoise swimming pool had Parisians flocking to the pool to get a flavour of Kieslowski’s cinematic magic.
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Woody Allen’s charming homage to the golden age of the MGM musical has a vast ensemble cast, including Julia Roberts, Edward Norton and Goldie Hawn, take a trip from New York to Venice and Paris in a story about a the romantic complications of a wealthy extended family. Allen liked the place so much he returned to make 2011s nostalgic romance Midnight in Paris, which showed the glittering city in the present day, the 1930s and the Belle Époque of the late 19th Century.
Director Abdellatif Kechiche’s debut film, which he also wrote, tells the story of a young Tunisian man who enters France illegally, struggling to make a new life in Paris. Kechiche’s vision of the Republican motto of liberty, fraternity and equality follow’s Sami Bouajila’s wide-eyed innocent along the capital’s streets in a coming-of-age built around themes of individual dignity and human rights.
Amélie (2001)
Just as Kieslowski’s Three Colours: Blue introduced the world to Juliette Binoche, Jean-Pierre Juenet’s whimsical Parisian romance made a star of Audrey Tautou. She plays the titular waitress in a freewheeling story of shy love, secretly trying to improve the lives of the wonderfully eccentric characters around her. Paris has rarely looked better on screen, owing to the director carefully removing all the graffiti and litter digitally.
Arnaud Viard wrote and directed this tender romance set in Paris about a successful young man falling in love with a beautiful and exciting young woman. From the irrepressibly charming “meet-cute” through to a series of jaunty musical numbers set on the streets, everything goes perfectly for the young couple, until she reveals she has got the HIV virus.
Caché (2005)
Austrian director Michael Haneke’s claustrophobic story of murder, voyeurism and immigration is set in the little-seen residential side-streets of Paris, where happily married couple Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil are terrorised by a series of sinister surveillance videotapes left on their doorstep.
