French films about the 18th century

After many years of confrontation, the treasures of Spain and France are empty. In 1721, the regent of France draws up an ambitious plan to inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity that will heal the economies of both nations: his intention is to build a solid network of marriage alliances that will involve four children of very different ages who know nothing of betrayals and power games…

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in the stench of 18th century Paris, develops a superior olfactory sense, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. However, his work takes a dark turn as he tries to preserve scents in the search for the ultimate perfume.

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.

A chronicle of the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was reviled for her extravagant political and personal life.

A young queen falls in love with her physician, and they start a revolution that changes their nation forever.

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.

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

On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the 18th century, an artist is commissioned to paint a young woman's wedding portrait.

„Un peuple et son roi" crosses the destinies of the men and women of the population, and those of historical figures. Their meeting place is the newly founded National Assembly. At the heart of the story lie the fate of the king and the birth of the French Republic.

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

In eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire.

Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love. Based on the same novel as "Dangerous Liaisons."

In a remote South American colony in the late 18th century, officer Zama of the Spanish crown waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious location. He suffers small humiliations and petty politicking as he increasingly succumbs to lust and paranoia.

Marquise is a drama about the rise and fall of a beauteous actress. As cheerfully portrayed by Sophie Marceau, the eponymous heroine is an engagingly ribald, but perhaps rather too modern, character. She rises from an impoverished background to become a favourite of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and the mistress of the celebrated Racine, who wrote roles especially for her; but her fate, in the end, is a tragic one.

From Jane Austen’s novella, the beautiful and cunning Lady Susan Vernon visits the estate of her in-laws to wait out colorful rumors of her dalliances and to find husbands for herself and her daughter. Two young men, handsome Reginald DeCourcy and wealthy Sir James Martin, severely complicate her plans.

In 18th century France, the Chevalier de Fronsac and his Native American friend Mani are sent by the King to the Gevaudan province to investigate the killings of hundreds by a mysterious beast.

Stuck in the corridors of time, Godefroy de Montmirail and his faithful servant Jacquouille are projected to a time of profound political and social upheavals: the French Revolution... specifically, The Terror, time of great dangers, during which the descendants of Godefroy and Jacquouille had their castle and all their property confiscated by arrogant aristocrats, fleeing and lifes hanging by a thread.

An adaptation of Milena Agus' eponymous novel set after WWII, "Mal de Pierres" ("Mal di Pietre") spans 20 years, following the destiny of a passionate, free-spirited woman who is in a loveless marriage and falls for another man.

August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.

Dino Fabrizzi is the number one seller of the Maserati dealership in Nice. At 42, he arrives at a turning point in his life, the position of director is openly proposed and his companion for a year, Helen, has the firm intention to marry her. For Dino, life is great, except that this perfect life was built on a lie. Dino is actually called Mourad Ben Saoud. Neither his boss nor Helen and even less his parents are aware of this false identity. In ten days begins Ramadan and Mourad who passes every year will this time assume the promise made to his sick father. Taking part in Ramadan, For Dino - the Italian - it will not be easy.

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…

From the moment they meet, brooding Chris and the beautiful Aurore fall instantly and passionately in love but it's not long before their intense connection is consumed by Chris's dark obsession with gay men. Before long, the pair embarks on a violent and sexual journey filled with seduction and destruction of young gay hustlers.

Three teenagers skip school in order to explore an abandoned film studio lot where they catch sight of a woman being dragged by a masked man.

Alex and his sister run a business designed to break up relationships. They are hired by a rich man to break up the wedding of his daughter. The only problem is that they only have one week to do so.

In an attempt to flee Nazi-occupied France, Georg assumes the identity of a dead author but soon finds himself stuck in Marseilles, where he falls in love with Maria, a young woman searching for her missing husband.

Frédéric, a young man with a troubled past, has the good fortune to be given a job in a luxurious mountain hotel. When one of the hotel guests disappears one evening and is later found dead, Frédéric suspects he may have been killed by the family who employ him. But rather than betray his boss, Jacques Couvreur, he makes up his mind to protect him. Unwittingly, Frédéric puts himself in grave danger...

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.

In 1789, when the Revolution went on, a bandit named "Black Tulip" held the surroundings of village Roussillon in fear. The poor people respected him as Robin Hood, who declare himself a revolutioner but Count Guillaume de Saint Preux "plays" this benefactor.

Three people who have lost everything, a soldier tired of fighting, a young woman and a little girl, pose as a family to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka. They emigrate to France and settle in a chaotic neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris, where apparently the law no longer exists; but they, who barely know each other, struggle to survive there, even when the ghosts of war begin to haunt them again.

During the elimination of the Belgian/French border in the 90s, a Belgian customs officer is forced to team up with one of his French counterparts.

Buddy is an abandoned young cocker spaniel waiting dejectedly in his cage for a kind, new owner to adopt him. Suddenly, Billy, a little boy whose hair is as red as Buddy's, appears. It's love at first sight and the beginning of a great friendship. But for Billy's parents, this is where the trouble begins.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge.[ A friar who has witnessed the tragic accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928.

Once upon a time... consumer goods were built to last. Then, in the 1920’s, a group of businessmen realized that the longer their product lasted, the less money they made, thus Planned Obsolescence was born, and manufacturers have been engineering products to fail ever since. Combining investigative research and rare archive footage with analysis by those working on ways to save both the economy and the environment, this documentary charts the creation of ‘engineering to fail’, its rise to prominence and its recent fall from grace.

Doctor Knock is a former thug who has become a doctor and arrives in the small village of Saint-Maurice to make his fortune according to a particular method. It will make the villagers believe that they are not as healthy as they might think. It is thus that he will find in each one an imaginary symptom, or not, and thus will be able to exercise his profession lucratively. Under his seductive looks and after gaining the confidence of the village, Knock is on the verge of achieving his ends. But his past catches up with him and an old acquaintance disrupts the doctor's plans.

Aram, a young man from Marseille of Armenian origin, blows up the Turkish ambassador's car in Paris. Gilles, a young cyclist who was passing at that precise moment, is seriously injured. Aram's mother feels guilty and feels the need to visit Gilles at the hospital and beg for his forgiveness, something that Gilles does not understand. Against the advice of his comrades in Beirut, Aram decides to go meet his victim.

He’s lived for too long off his parents. It’s time for 40-year-old slacker Jacques to get by on his own. One-time gigolo and a borderline bum, he knows what he wants – to become rich and famous. He even has a business plan: tourism combined with cheap plastic surgery. Jacques moves in with his older sister, Monique, who manages an Emmaus village in the south west of France. And before long, the smooth-talking chancer has convinced a group of workers to pool their meagre funds and set out on a trip to a clinic in Bulgaria, where all their dreams of a brighter and more beautiful future will all come true. If only…

Alessandro teaches musicology at the university of Strasbourg. He is also a volunteer reader in hospitals. He shares his apartment with his daughter, 15-year-old Irina, and his anarchist brother Luigi. Life is not always rosy at Alessandro's for three main reasons : he is a widower and has never really recovered from the death of his young wife ; his brother is some kind of parasite who refuses to sell his paintings to capitalist speculators and so to contribute to the cost of the household ; Irina, whom he has raised alone since she was five months old and always felt close to, is rapidly changing from little girl to teenager and wishes to be treated as such. One day, Florence, a beautiful young woman, gets into Alessandro's life. Will he eventually take his chances with her? And will he manage to stop stifling Irina? And will he finally get on with Luigi?

Eleanor, thirties, has just lost her father. He bequeathed his house in Brittany in the Cotes d'Armor. She is a photographer, has had some success but business no longer work as before. It is imperative to sell the house. She goes there with Samuel, her former companion which she left some time ago, because she does not feel to go alone and she has not returned since the death of her father. But she is playing with fire - because she knows that their relationship did not exactly appeased, even if it was for some adventures and Samuel lives with Laura. Claire Andrieux, the real estate agent, was busy organizing visits during the two days Samuel and Eleanor will stay in the house. It's a funny weekend that these three are about to spend.A surprising weekend full of surprises, emotions, tensions, memories and shouting matches in melancholy and absurd moments that leave the couple necessarily changed.

The unhappily married woman struggles to break free from social pressures and her boring suburban setting.

England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.

A man rescues a mermaid in Paris and slowly falls in love with her.

François, a young thirty-year-old Asian, has not been back in his family for 10 years after a violent dispute with his father Meng. Since then, he has always tried to avoid questions about his origins, until he lies to believe that he has been adopted. But when he learns that he is going to be a father, he realizes that he will have to reconnect with his past and his origins. Pushed by his companion Sophie, he decides to reconnect with his family and returns to his XIIIth native district to announce the good news, accompanied by his best friend Bruno. François is welcomed with open arms by his family, with the exception of his father and his younger brother. The return to his community is not going to be so simple .

Police commander Simon Weiss, head of the division that supervises Paris’s demi-monde, starts out on his nightly tour of bars, discos and strip clubs, making sure once again that the owners don’t bend the rules too far. Weiss knows he’s between a rock and hard place: it’s obvious that criminal gangs run rampant in his special domain, and even more obvious that they’re protected by higher-ups in the department.

Nick and Meg Burrows return to Paris, the city where they honeymooned, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and rediscover some romance in their long-lived marriage. The film follows the couple as long-established tensions in their marriage break out in humorous and often painful ways.

In 1922, a young novelist goes to the countryside to write her latest book and falls victim to terrifying hallucinations and nightmares.

Paolo, an Italian tour bus driver living in Paris, has just summoned up the courage to propose marriage to his German girlfriend Greta. However, a chance encounter with a French woman on a bicycle the very next day turns Paolo's life upside down.

Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought.

Suzanne Simonin describes her life of suffering in letters. As a young woman she is sent to a convent against her will. Since her parents cannot afford the dowry required for a marriage befitting her rank they decide she must instead become a nun. Although a kind and understanding Mother Superior helps her to learn the convent’s daily routine, Suzanne’s desire for freedom remains unabated. When the Mother Superior dies, Suzanne finds herself faced with reprisals, humiliation and harassment at the hands of the new Abbess and the other Sisters. For many years, Suzanne is subjected to bigotry and religious fanaticism. (Berlinale.de)

Set in France during the mid-1970s, Vanessa, a former dancer, and her husband Roland, an American writer, travel the country together. They seem to be growing apart, but when they linger in one quiet, seaside town they begin to draw close to some of its more vibrant inhabitants, such as a local bar/café-keeper and a hotel owner.

On holiday in the south of France, chic Parisian sophisticate Violette meets life-loving IT geek Jean-René. Against all odds, there’s a real chemistry between them and at the end of the summer, Jean-René wastes no time in joining his beloved in Paris. But there’s trouble in paradise, and a third party swiftly appears to shatter the couple’s idyll: Lolo, Violette’s ultra-possessive 19-year-old son, who is determined to get rid of his mother’s lover, whatever it takes…