French films about palace intrigues

Don Sallust (Louis de Funès) is minister of the King of Spain. It is a being disingenuous, hypocritical and greedy that collects the taxes himself, he turns in part to his advantage. He is hated by the people he oppresse.Accusé by Queen, a beautiful princess Bavarian, of having an illegitimate child to one of her maids of honor, he was stripped of his duties and ordered to retire to a monastery. Decided to revenge, it comes in contact with his nephew seducing Caesar ...

A look at the relationship between Marie Antoinette and one of her readers during the final days of the French Revolution.

A wide-ranging, energetic period piece tracing the rise of the Protestant Henry of Navarre as he goes from battlefield warrior to France's beloved King Henri IV. Director Jo Baier's epic is a classically entertaining adventure, albeit one with more than a little bloodshed and frequent bawdy sexual interludes. In late 16th-century France, Catholics and Protestant Huguenots were at war. Seemingly seeking peace, the French dowager queen, Catherine de Medici summons Henry to her court to have him marry her daughter, uniting the two warring factions. However, the Catholics slaughter the Protestant wedding guests in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and Henry-now married-must use all his guile to both stay alive and maneuver for the throne. [Written by Palm Springs International Film Festival]

The story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly's crisis of marriage and identity, during a political dispute between Monaco's Prince Rainier III and France's Charles De Gaulle, and a looming French invasion of Monaco in the early 1960s.

Set in the high courts of 16th Century France, where the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants are raging. Marie de Mézières, a beautiful young aristocrat, is in love with Henri de Guise, but her hand in marriage is promised to the Prince of Montpensier.

The life and death of the Scottish monarch.

A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.

A French woman mourning over the death of her husband three years prior is courted by a Swedish co-worker.

A housewife takes over her husband's umbrella business after his illness.

Bright days ahead? Caroline has retired, at last. A new life lies before her: time to take care of her children, her husband, and, most of all, herself. However, she soon comes to realize that this new freedom is synonymous with boredom and idleness. Especially when she receives a membership to her neighborhood’s senior club as a birthday present… Reluctant at first, she nevertheless decides to take the plunge. Oddly enough, she meets great people there, starting with the young computer science teacher, who is far from insensitive to her charms. Caroline gradually takes control of her life again and lives a second youth: taking a new lover, living new experiences, breaking the rules, not doing what’s expected of her… Who said that retirement was the beginning of the end and not a new beginning?

A true sports story that utterly defies the odds, Duguay’s film captures the wild ups and downs of the Olympics-bound career of legendary equine star Jappeloup and his troubled rider, locked in a tense relationship with his horseman father and forever uncertain of his own skills as an equestrian

Haiti, 1962: A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. In Paris, 55 years later, at the prestigious Légion d’honneur boarding school, a Haitian girl confesses an old family secret to a group of new friends - never imagining that this strange tale will convince a heartbroken classmate to do the unthinkable.

Paul reflects on the summer he met Angèle and Frédéric as he watches his friend being laid to rest.

In Montreal, the unemployed fashion designer Sophie Malaterre is shown a website, switch.com, where it is possible to switch houses with a stranger for vacation. Sophie seeks an apartment in Paris nearby the Eiffel Tower that belongs to Bénédicte Serteaux and they change apartments. Sophie arrives in Paris on Saturday morning. The next morning, policemen break in the apartment and arrest Sophie while she is having a bath. Detective Damien Forgeat interrogates Sophie believing that she is Bénédicte and she learns that a beheaded body was found in her room and all evidence of her life has been deleted.

Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.

Polina is a young dancer from a modest family. After years of ballet academy, she is accepted by the Bolshoi; still, she decides to try and audition of a modern dance company in France. She makes it, but her journey will not end there...

A comedy about funny adventures of the group of French people during the summer vacation.

Amin, an aspiring screenwriter living in Paris, returns home for the summer, to a fishing village in the South of France. It is a time of reconnecting with his family and his childhood friends. Together with his cousin Tony and his best friend Ophélie, he spends his time between the Tunisian restaurant run by his parents, the local bars and the beaches frequented by girls on holiday. Enchanted by the many female characters who surround him, Amin remains in awe of these summer sirens while his dionysiac cousin throws himself into their carnal delights with euphoria. Armed with his camera and guided by the bright simmer light of the Mediterranean coast, Amin pursues his philosophical quest while gathering inspiration for his screenplays. When it comes to love, only Mektoub (‘destiny' in Arabic) can decide.

The chilling story of a young American boy living in France in 1918 whose father is working for the US government on the creation of the Treaty of Versailles. What he witnesses helps to mold his beliefs – and we witness the birth of a terrifying ego.

A gripping family drama and entrepreneurial fable, set in a post-war Paris fashion house. It exposes the grit behind the glamour of a rising business, spearheaded by two clashing brothers.

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.

Sasha and Ilya, a bored young couple on a verge of breakup, are spending a New Year's Eve at a secluded beach house in Northern France then a carcass of an unidentified creature is washed ashore nearby. Later that day on his way back from a local bar Ilya meets Masha, a lost Russian girl, who seems to have gotten off the train at the wrong station and has nowhere to spend the night.

Two years have passed. After missing their separation, the Leroy seem perfectly successful in their divorce. But the appearance of two new lovers in the life of Vincent and Florence will set fire to the powders. The match between the former spouses resumes.

It's the beginning of the WWII. South of France. Patricia, 18, is the oldest daughter of a well-digger, Pascal, who considers her a princess because of her moral qualities. She's kind, devoted. One day, she briefly meets a young man, Jacques, the son of Mazel, owner of the shop where her father buy his material. He's handsome and teasing. Her father's friend, Felipe, would love to marry her, and he invites her to an aviation show. She accepts his invitation only because she knows Jacques is a pilot and will be there. Soon, she'll carry his child, and he'll be gone, and the family will have to deal with this out-of-wedlock pregnancy...

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…

A young woman begins a new life at the Apollonide bordello, a high-class brothel in Paris.

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.

In the 16th century in the Cévennes, a horse dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas leads a happy and prosperous family life. When a lord treats him unjustly, this pious, upstanding man raises an army and puts the country to fire and sword in order to have his rights restored.

It is 1979 and Albertine, 10, and all her family members have gathered in Brittany to celebrate the birthday of her grandmother. Everyone thinks that the Skylab space station from NASA will fall on their heads this summer. The meeting turns into a crazy weekend full of revelations, love and song.

When a romance between a widow and a notorious libertine takes an unexpected turn, Mademoiselle de Joncquières becomes instrumental to one lover’s plans for revenge.

An average guy who works in a recycling plant wakes up one morning to discover that he's become inexplicably famous.

In the sterile setting of a powerful multinational, two young women compete ... Isabelle is working under the orders of Christine, a woman of power she admires unreservedly.

In the midst of a divorce, Miriam Besson decides to ask for exclusive custody of her son, in order to protect him from a father that she is accusing of violence. The judge-in-charge of the file grants a shared custody to the father whom it considers abused. Taken as a hostage between his parents, Julien Besson will do everything to prevent the worst from happening.

A young woman makes a surprising discovery about the husband of her late best friend.

In a trench during the first world war, a French soldier becomes paralyzed with fear. His mind disconnects from reality and escapes to a brightly colored fantasy world where wars are fought by toys.

Ben, who dreamed of himself as a comic in New York, is back in Paris, his professional and emotional life in complete disarray. He encounters Alex, the star host of the Breakfast Club, a popular morning radio show. With Cyril, a forty-something who'd prefer not to be, and Arnold, the charismatic leader of the gang, they call the shots on Blast FM. In next to no time Ben is hired to write for them. He's barely joined the team when a tidal wave hits the station: Breakfast Club listenership is in free fall. They set out on a bus to travel to every corner of France to meet and win over their public once again. For these arrogant Parisians, a real journey of initiation arises from this radio-phonic road trip, shaking up all their certainties.

Eugenia is the queen of an imaginary European country. When her husband dies, quite unexpectedly, the country is left without a king. According to the law, the new king needs to be married so that leaves out the eldest son. Her youngest son, Prince Arnaud is married to the lovely Armelle and they have two young children. They become the future rulers of the kingdom.

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Nothing in her background destined Loïe Fuller from the American Midwest to become a Belle Epoque icon, even less a dancer at the Paris Opera. Even at the risk of destroying her back and burning her eyes with the stage lights, she will never falter in the quest to perfect her dance. But her encounter with Isadora Duncan, a prodigious young dancer hungry for fame and glory, will precipitate the fall of this icon at the beginning of the twentieth century.

A dangerous international spy is determined to give up his high stakes life to finally build a closer relationship with his estranged wife and daughter. But first, he must complete one last mission - even if it means juggling the two toughest assignments yet: hunting down the world's most ruthless terrorist and looking after his teenage daughter for the first time in ten years, while his wife is out of town.

Under the pressure of his boss, a music producer decides to set up a group consisting of a rabbi, a priest and an imam to make them sing the living together. But the religious he recruits are far from being saints ...

Three characters living in an unfinished painting venture out into the real world in search of their creator to convince him to finish his work.

Paulette lives alone in a housing project in the Paris suburbs. With her meager pension, she can no longer make ends meet.

Paris 1930. Paul has only ever had one and the same horizon: the high walls of the orphanage, an austere building in the Parisian working class suburbs. Entrusted to a joyful country woman, Célestine, and her husband, Borel, the rather stiff gamekeeper of a vast estate in Sologne, the city child, recalcitrant and stubborn, arrives in a mysterious and disturbing world, that of a soverign and wild region. The huge forest, misty ponds, heaths, and fields all belong to the Count de la Fresnaye, an elderly taciturn man who lives alone in his manor.

Franck and his girlfriend Sonya, plus some of their friends go on holiday in Brazil. Franck, his friends, two girls and Sonya's grandmother leave to visit a cave, but everything goes wrong and their crazy adventures begin.

When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history ; international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes : a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Sebastião's Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Antoine is about to start his first year of medical school… for the third time. Benjamin, just out of high school, will make his first try. He soon realizes it's not exactly a walk in the park. In a fiercely competitive environment, with nights dedicated to hard studying rather than hard partying, the two freshmen will have to adapt and find a middle ground between despair for the present and hope for the future.

Between 1978 and 1979, the inhabitants of the Oise are in fear of a maniac who kills several hitchhikers and escape the police. He was then dubbed "the killer of the Oise" is actually a shy young policeman who will investigate his own murder, only to lose control of the situation.

The life of Jeanne B?cu who was born as the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished seamstress in 1743 and went on to rise through the Court of Louis XV to become his last official mistress.