French films about monks

A Buddhist monk walks barefoot and incredibly slowly through Marseille – so slowly, that his progress is barely perceptible and he becomes a calming influence in the midst of the town’s goings-on.

A virtuous monk descends to the depths of sin and depravity after Satan sends an unholy temptress to lead him astray.

A dramatic retelling of the life of Michel de Nostredame, from his early work as a plague doctor to his time at the court of Catherine de Medici, after he became famed for his prophetic almanacs. Stars Rutger Hauer and Julia Ormond.

Into Great Silence (German: Die Große Stille) is a documentary film directed by Philip Gröning that was first released in 2005. It is an intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

Julien Monnier has a serious problem. Though he's a brilliant couples counselor, he can't keep a woman in his life for more than two weeks. Indeed, ever since his childhood, Julien jinxes every woman who falls in love with him. But it's not just any small jinx. It's the kind that sends you to the hospital several times a week, that destroys your professional life or that turns your friends into enemies. Julien is strictly speaking a true black cat for women. Joanna Sorini will soon learn this at her expense the day she meets him. A career that's just taking off, a love life that finally seems to be taking a good turn, all that may just change.

Northern Italy, 17th century. In a monastery, a nun accused of witchcraft tries to seduce a young confessor who refuses to yield to his searing temptation.

French drama based on the 1996 kidnapping and killing of seven monks in Algeria. A group of Trappist monks reside in the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, where they live in harmony with the largely muslim population. When a bloody conflict between Algeria's army and Muslim Jihadi insurgents disrupts the peace, they are forced to consider fleeing the monastery and deserting the villagers they have ministered to. In the face of deadly violence the monks wrestle with their faith and their convictions, eventually deciding to stay and help their neighbours keep the army and the insurgents at bay.

This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.

In a monastery set on the top of sandstone pillars young monk Theodoros and nun Urania find themselves physically drawn to one and other after devoting their lives to the strict rituals and practises of the monasteries. Below them the eternal cycle of farm-life provides a strong contrast to their lives and they are forced to choose between human desire and spiritual devotion

Two mismatched cops team up to investigate the murder of a business mogul's wife.

Laura is still waiting for Prince Charming at the age of 24. So when Sandro appears at a party, exactly like her Prince would in her dreams, she thinks she's found the right one. But then again, when she meets Maxime, Laura starts to wonder if some Princes could be more charming than others? Of course Sandro has problems of his own : his father, Pierre, just bumped into Madam Irma at his father's funeral and this reminded him of the date of his own death which Madame Irma had predicted ages ago. Now Pierre is unable to make any plans, not with his new partner Eleonore, nor with Sandro. And Maxime has his own problems, and so does Eleonore, Marianne, Jacqueline and many others. But don't worry, in the end, they'll all live happily ever after.

In 1971, Carole and Delphine meet and fall in love in Paris. When Carole follows Delphine back to her family farm in Limousin, the two find lesbianism and feminism are not as easy in the countryside.

An Algerian man's life-long dream finally comes true when he receives an invitation to take his cow Jacqueline to the Paris International Agriculture Fair.

Sam, a freelance journalist, decides to investigate the growing phenomenon of disaffected youth joining extremist groups. He infiltrates a group of four young people who have been tasked with the creation of a jihadist cell and whose mission is to destabilise the city centre of Paris.

15-year-old Tom (Simon Royer) is going to spend another calm summer with his parents and younger sister at their summer house. But by fate, another family comes to spend some time with them, with their 17-year-old son Félix (Marin Lafitte). In the unforgettable summer, Félix will introduce Tom to new things...

Drama about a father and son who set out to find their missing daughter/sister with the help of an American headhunter.

Antoine and Laurent, old friends, spend their vacation in Corsica with their respective daughters: seventeen-year-old Louna and eighteen-year-old Marie. One evening at the beach, Louna seduces Laurent. Louna is in love, but for Laurent it was nothing more than a momentary distraction. Without revealing her lover's name, Louna confides in her father, who tries by any means to discover who his daughter's lover is. How long will the secret be able to be kept hidden?

Théo and Hugo meet in a club and form an immediate bond. Once the desire and elation of this first moment has passed, the two young men, now sober, wander through the empty streets of nocturnal Paris, having to confront the love they sense blossoming between them. Ducastel and Martineau's most ambitious film to date and a candid insight into 21st century life.

A middle-aged writer is looking for a quiet retreat; a slightly younger female estate agent gives him details of a house a close to Venice.

One night to change everything. One night to save a theater, one night to change one's perspective about life. Luigi will push and pull Faeza with him everywhere around Paris an entire night to save his theater.

Despite his fame, Taillandier has suddenly stopped painting. Deeply depressed, the sixty-year-old decides to go away. He has no clear goal and explains nothing to his close friends. During his travels, he has a strange encounter with Marylou, a wild teenager who was rejected by her mother. The lost girl and the man at the end of his tether will travel together awhile. Finally living like a father and daughter, at peace.

The Art of Love is composed of several chapters, which follows several Parisian couples.

26 year-old Karl Marx embarks with his wife, Jenny, on the road to exile. In 1844 in Paris, he meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist’s son, who has been investigating the sordid birth of the British working class. Engels, the dandy, provides the last piece of the puzzle to the young Karl Marx’s new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and the police’s repression, riots and political upheavals, they will lead the labor movement during its development into a modern era.

Serge Tanneur (Fabrice Luchini) is at the pinnacle of his acting career when he decides to turn his back on show business and become a hermit living off of France’s Atlantic coast. Three years later, Gauthier Valence (Lambert Wilson), a beloved TV actor, shows up on the island to offer Serge a role in his directorial debut – a rendition of Molière’s classic play, “The Misanthrope”. Serge refuses at first, but then suggests that they rehearse the first scene and after five days he’ll decide if he wants to dothe play or not. What ensues is a battle of brawn and wits and peculiar encounters with a hotel maid who longs to be a pornstar and an Italian divorcée.

In a peaceful little clearing, the remains of a hastily abandoned picnic sparks a battle between two tribes of ants. A bold young ladybug finds himself caught in the middle. He befriends the leader of the black ants, Mandible, and helps him save the anthill from the assault of the terrible red ant warriors, led by the fearful Butor. A fantastic journey at ground level…

It's young Lucy's first day as a trainee in-house caregiver. She visits Mrs Jessel, an old woman who lies in cerebral coma, by herself, in her large desolate house. Learning by accident that Mrs Jessel, a former dance teacher of repute, supposedly possesses a treasure somewhere in the house, Lucy and friends William and Ben decide to search the house in the hope of finding it. At night, they get into the house, which reveals itself to be increasingly peculiar. Their hunt for Mrs Jessel's treasure leads them into a horrifying supernatural series of events that will change Lucy forever..

Anne leaves Estonia to come to Paris as a caretaker for Frida, an elderly Estonian lady who emigrated to France long ago. Anne soon realizes that she is not wanted. All Frida wants from life is the attention of Stéphane, her younger former lover. Stéphane, however, is desperate for Anne to stay and look after Frida, even against the old lady's will. In this conflict of strangers, Anne will find her own way…

Twenty year old Antoine has made enemies of a gang of young thugs, to whom he owes money. Fed up with his scams and petty crimes, his mother and older brother decide to send Antoine to his father's place in Saint-Etienne. The two men haven't seen each other for several years.

Thirty-year-old Ben is about to marry Juliette. His quiet, ordered life will fall to pieces when he meets up again with the person he secretly wants to see the most: Vanessa, the high school bombshell who never so much as looked in his direction. She's back in Paris, and the only person she now knows is him…

Five brothers similar yet different, raised by a mother widowed too early. One of them had left the family when he returns, pursued by a gang of smugglers, he find shelter in his family while reveling them a dark secret. The five brothers, together, will find the energy to defend themself and the means to avenge the memory of their murdered father...

Kelly, Dan and Louis are students at a prestigious business school, destined to become tomorrow's elite. The industrious trio are determined to start putting their education into practise from the off in an attempt to make as much money as they can from their fellow students. Working on the theory that relationships between the sexes can be regulated by market principles, they begin to inflate the popularity of certain individuals artificially, by hiring beautiful and sexy off-campus women as their dates for exclusive and riotous college parties. However their perfect business model soon spirals out of control as their moneymaking scheme takes off in a big way across campus.

Maltazard, the Evil M, is now 7 feet tall and evolving among the humans, causing terror wherever he goes. His goal is simple: forming an army of giant henchmen and ruling over the universe. Meanwhile, Arthur is still a Minimoy, and thus in a state where he's unable to fend him off. With the help of Selenia and Betameche, he hatches a plan to regain his usual size: all they must do is infiltrate Arthur's house through the pipeworks, catch an electric train from his bedroom to his grandfather's study and find an elixir that will make him grow back to his human size. Sounds simple enough, if it weren't for Darkos, Maltazard's own son, hot on their tails.

Ombline, a 20-year-old woman, is sent to prison for three years after committing a violent assault on a police officer. Just when she has lost all hope for the future, she discovers that she is pregnant. The law allows her to rear her newborn for the first 18 months of its life, after which time the child must be given up and placed into state care. Ombline has no intention of surrendering her beloved little boy and is prepared to do anything to convince the authorities that she is capable of rearing the child after she has left prison. As her maternal instincts assert themselves, the young woman finds she has a cause worth fighting for, and an opportunity to rebuild her shattered life…

Marco returns to Paris after his brother-in-law's suicide, where he targets the man his sister believes caused the tragedy - though he is ill-prepared for her secrets as they quickly muddy the waters.

France, around 1900. Coming from the vibrancy of Paris, pert Célestine is procured as a chambermaid in Normandy. In the Lanlaire's villa she encounters the lecherous man of the house and his asexual, tyrannical and jealous wife. Célestine is determined to avoid the fate suffered by the cook Marianne who has already secretly killed one child born out of wedlock and now despairingly realises she is pregnant again. The lively maid is intrigued by what the mysterious manservant Joseph is up to: he distributes anti-Semitic leaflets and suggests that she could work for him as a prostitute in Cherbourg…

What happens when a man and a woman share a common passion? They fall in love. And this is what happens to Jean-René, the boss of a small chocolate factory, and Angélique, a gifted chocolate maker he has just hired. What occurs when a highly emotional man meets a highly emotional woman? They fall in love, and this is what occurs to Jean-René and Angélique who share the same handicap. But being pathologically timid does not make things easy for them. So whether they will manage to get together, join their solitudes and live happily ever after is a guessing matter.

Mrs. Géquil is an eccentric teacher despised by her colleagues and students. On a stormy night, she is struck by lightning and faints. When she wakes up, she feels different. Will she now be able to keep the powerful and dangerous Mrs. Hyde contained?

A woman has disappeared. The day after a snowstorm, her car is found on a road leading to a plateau with with nothing but a few scattered farms. The gendarmes have nothing to go on, while five individuals well know they have something to do with the woman's disappearance. They all keep their secrets to themselves, but no one suspects that the whole story began far from these windswept wintry peaks: on another continent, in the burning sun, where poverty doesn't stop desire from taking the law into its own hands.

She drove me into a corner, then forced me to go beyond my limits. She made me confront the absolute: love, sacrifice, tenderness, abandonment. She dislocated me, transformed me. Why didn't anyone warn me? Why doesn't anyone ever talk about this?" Un heureux événement, or an intimate view of motherhood, sincere and with no taboos.

A middle-class family living in Calais deal with a series of setbacks while paying little attention to the grim conditions in the refugee camps within a few miles of their home.

France, 1940. In the first days of occupation, beautiful Lucile Angellier is trapped in a stifled existence with her controlling mother-in-law as they both await news of her husband: a prisoner of war. Parisian refugees start to pour into their small town, soon followed by a regiment of German soldiers who take up residence in the villagers' own homes. Lucile initially tries to ignore Bruno von Falk, the handsome and refined German officer staying with them. But soon, a powerful love draws them together and leads them into the tragedy of war.

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.

Jacques Mayano, a French journalist who has lived a traumatic experience, is recruited by the Vatican to be part of a task force that must investigate the veracity of a supernatural apparition allegedly happened in a small French village.

Following a series of unexplained crimes, a father is reunited with the son who has been missing for 10 years.

Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.

A veteran chef faces off against his restaurant group's new CEO, who wants to the establishment to lose a star from its rating in order to bring in a younger chef who specializes in molecular gastronomy.

How did Sarah and Victor get along for more than 45 years? Who was this enigmatic woman living in the shadow of her husband? Love, ambition, betrayals and secrets feed the story of this extraordinary couple, as they experience both the large and small moments of the last century's history.

A man tries that his wife fall in love with him again, after to wake up in an alternate reality where she never knew him.

A biopic of French pop star Claude Francois, most famous for co-writing the song 'My Way'. Tracing his life from his childhood in Egypt through his success in France to his untimely death in Paris in 1978.

Roméo and Juliette are two young actors. They fall in love at first sight, move in together and make a baby. A love story and the founding of a home like millions of others. Except that their little boy, Adam, behaves abnormally. The young parents try hard to persuade themselves that everything is okay but, with the passing of time, they cannot delude themselves anymore: their son has a problem. From now on, war is declared. A war against illness. A war against Death. A war against despair.