French movies about orphans

The adventures of the young Rémi, an orphan, collected by the gentle Madam Barberin. At the age of 10 years, he is snatched from his adoptive mother and entrusted to the signor Vitalis, a mysterious itinerant musician. Has its sides, he will learn the harsh life of acrobat and sing to win his bread. Accompanied by the faithful dog capi and of the small monkey Joli-Coeur, his long trip through France, made for meetings, friendships and mutual assistance, leads him to the secret of its origins.

Halla declares a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry. She is prepared to risk everything to protect the pristine Icelandic Highlands she loves… Until an orphan unexpectedly enters her life.

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.

Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

Set in 1940's France, a new teacher at a school for disruptive boys gives hope and inspiration.

In 1958, in the French Alp, the young servant Anna Jurin arrives in Saint Ange Orphanage to work with Helena while the orphans moved to new families. Anna, who is secretly pregnant, meets the last orphan , Judith, left behind because of her mental problems, and they become closer when Anna find that Judith also hear voices and footsteps of children.

Young Oksana puts her newly born Denis in a baby box. Sixteen years later she steals him away from a children's home, intent on making amends for her maternal neglect, and to exploit him to earn money in a corrupt legal system.

On the rocky path to sobriety after a life-changing accident, John Callahan discovers the healing power of art, willing his injured hands into drawing hilarious, often controversial cartoons, which bring him a new lease on life.

A woman who works for a non-governmental organization (NGO) forms a special relationship with a young boy in war-torn Chechnya.

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.

Tristana is a young Spanish woman left to the care of Don Lope, a protective but impoverished aristocrat. Don sells his possessions to avoid manual labor and champions the causes of the dispossessed and downtrodden of society. He takes advantage of the vulnerable Tristana, who leaves him when she falls in love with Horacio. Unable to commit to him, she returns to Don Lope when she falls ill. He asks for her hand in marriage, and she accepts after losing her leg to cancer. She chooses to remain in a passionless union rather than be subject to the harsh realities of a society that refuses to change to the needs of women. Taken from the novel by celebrated author Benito Perez Galdos.

David, who gets by doing odd jobs, meets Lena, who has just moved up to Paris, and falls in love. But soon after, his life is brutally interrupted by the sudden death of his sister. Beyond the shock, and the pain, David now finds himself alone with his young niece Amanda to care for.

César Borgnoli, an unsuccessful car salesman from Italy, lives well beyond his means. In order to get out of his financial disaster, he agrees to a deal: he pretends to be the husband of his sister's girlfriend Kim so she can legally adopt a little girl from Thailand. Caesar believes this to be a great idea and is looking forward to his trip to Thailand. After all, he is going to be able to mix business with pleasure--so he thinks. He didn't expect the local police, the Chinese Triads and the director of the orphanage to chip in, who want to make sure that little Mai is going to end up in a nice family.

After dedicating their whole life in upbringing their children, elderly couple Raj Malhotra and Pooja gets homeless. Instead of caring, their children treat them as a burden.

In this ensemble drama set in rural France, the women of the Paridier farm are left to run it by themselves while their men are off fighting in World War I. But things become complicated with the arrival of American troops.

Loulou is a wolf. Tom is a rabbit. As curious as it may seem, Loulou and Tom have been inseparable since they were little. Now in their teens, they live the easy life in the Land of the Rabbits. But Loulou, who thought he was an orphan, learns that his bohemian mother is alive. The two friends set out to find her in the principality of Wolfenberg, the Land of the Wolves. They arrive in the middle of the Meat-eaters' Festival, a yearly get together for the world's great carnivores. Will Loulou and Tom's friendship survive in the land where herbivores always end up as the main course? What incredible secret lies behind Loulou's birth?

Paris, December. A conductor of a choir is found mysteriously murdered, with burst eardrums. Lionel Kasdan, a police inspertor the verge of retirement, and Frank Salek, an official of Interpol, embark together on a hunt for the killer, and also to a secret organization specializing in kidnapping children.

Belle and Sebastian is set high in the snowy Alps during the Second World War. The resourceful Sebastian is a lonely boy who tames and befriends a giant, wild mountain dog, Belle – even though the villagers believe her to be ‘the beast’ that has been killing their sheep.

Simon, a young orphan, has an extraordinary power : he can take on the appearance of people he’s already touched. When his best friend dies in an accident, there is no witness. Simon decides to steal his place in his family. Ten years later, the truth will get more and more difficult to bear and to hide...

France asleep in the nineteenth century, governed by steam and Napoleon VI, where scientists vanish mysteriously, a girl, Avril, goes in search of her missing scientist parents.

Set in 1879 Paris. An orphan girl dreams of becoming a ballerina and flees her rural Brittany for Paris, where she passes for someone else and accedes to the position of pupil at the Grand Opera house.

Four lives intersect along the Ganges: a low caste boy in hopeless love, a daughter ridden with guilt of a sexual encounter ending in a tragedy, a hapless father with fading morality, and a spirited child yearning for a family, long to escape the moral constructs of a small-town.

In Paris around 1900, Georges Randal is brought up by his wealthy uncle, who steals his inheritance. Georges hopes to marry his cousin Charlotte, but his uncle arranges for her to marry a rich neighbour. As an act of revenge, Georges steals the fiance's family jewels, and enjoys the experience so much that he embarks upon a life-time of burglary.

Santa doesn't want to retire, but rules are rules and he must train someone to replace him. The lucky winner, to be chosen from among millions of children, must be named Nicholas, be an orphan and have a pure heart. On the other side of the planet, there is a little boy who is a perfect match, but his lack of self-confidence and fear of heights make him a poor contestant. Will Santa agree to step down, and help his apprentice take his place?

Run Boy Run is the true story of Jurek, an eight-year-old boy, who escapes from the Warsaw ghetto, then manages to survive in the woods and working as a farmhand, disguising himself as a Polish orphan. He encounters people who will betray him for a reward, who will beat him up or try to kill him, and he meets those, who will do and risk almost everything to help him. Jurek’s resilience is put to the ultimate test, when an accident cripples him, making it harder to find work. But he struggles on against all odds. Eventually the Russians reach his area and Jurek even finds a family where he could stay. Yet he is betrayed again, and a young man from a Jewish orphanage forcefully tries to bring Jurek back to his people and his faith.

In the aging orphanage the days pass very uneventfully, but the nights are something quite different; at least for Tim they are. The light reflected from the stars is the only cure for his fear of the dark. One night this fear leads him to the orphanage rooftop. Where he discovers that his favorite star has disappeared, and unfortunately it´s not going to be the last one. Tim also discovers...

Yellowbird lives in the ruins of an old house. He lacks the confidence to leave his home, no matter how much Bug, his labybird friend, tries to convince him to go out into the world. Attempts to toughen him up have had little success, so Bug seizes an opportunity that leaves Yellowbird unexpectedly finding himself the new leader of the flock that is migrating to Africa. Still, lacking faith in his own abilities and with danger and imminent failure lurking around every corner, our feathered hero is forced to either find the strength required to work with the team or bow out and stay hidden away forever.

Mona Bergeron is dead, her frozen body found in a ditch in the French countryside. From this, the film flashes back to the weeks leading up to her death. Through these flashbacks, Mona gradually declines as she travels from place to place, taking odd jobs and staying with whomever will offer her a place to sleep. Mona is fiercely independent, craving freedom over comfort, but it is this desire to be free that will eventually lead to her demise.

A black and white silent movie, based on the Snow White fairy tale, that is set in a romantic version of 1920s Seville and centered on a female bullfighter.

Paul is a sweet man-child, raised — and smothered — by his two eccentric aunts in Paris since the death of his parents when he was a toddler. Now thirty-three, he still does not speak. Paul's aunts have only one dream for him: to win piano competitions. Although Paul practices dutifully, he remains unfulfilled until he submits to the interventions of his upstairs neighbour. Suitably named after the novelist, Madame Proust offers Paul a concoction that unlocks repressed memories from his childhood and awakens the most delightful of fantasies.

Beirut, 1982: a young Palestinian refugee and an Israeli fighter pilot form a tentative bond in their attempt to make their way across war-torn Lebanon back to their home.

Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.

During a winter storm, Ursus offers shelter to two orphans, Gwynplaine and Déa; some years later, they are still living together. Gwynplaine has become a famous star, but his success threatens his relationships with Déa and Ursus.

The film is set in Tuscany during the Black Death. As in the Decameron, ten young Florentines take refuge from the plague. But instead of telling stories, they have lusty adventures, bawdy exchanges, romance and swordplay. There are randy nuns, Saracen pirates, and a sexy cow.

The adventurous, young Madeline is very good at getting into trouble, but she's also fantastic at solving problems as well, and her school-mistress Miss Clavel is not too approving of her. The biggest problem comes up when Lord Covington decides to sell Madeline's school.

Director Christophe Blanc delivers a fast-past thriller set to a background of Finland's stunning landscape. High-end car dealership owner Maxime is pursued by Finnish gangsters over unsatisfactory cars his dead partner sold them.

Basque Country, Spain, 1843. A police constable arrives at a small village in Álava to investigate a mysterious blacksmith who lives alone deep in the woods.

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.

Spain, 1950s. Montse's agoraphobia keeps her locked in a sinister apartment in Madrid and her only link to reality is the little sister she lost her youth raising. But one day, a reckless young neighbor, Carlos, falls down the stairwell and drags himself to their door. Someone has entered the shrew's nest... perhaps he'll never leave.

Zombillenium, the Halloween theme park, happens to be the one place on earth where real monsters can hide in plain sight. When Hector, a human, threatens to disclose the true identity of his employees, the Vampire Park Manager has no other choice but to hire him. To see his daughter, Hector must escape from his Zombies and Werewolves coworkers.

A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict.

A bored little prince makes a poor rat hunter his whipping boy but after his pranks at the royal court almost causes a war with the neighbor king he runs away with the whipping boy to escape from his first spanking. After being in the real world his life will change making him a prince fit to rule.

In November 1918, a few days before the Armistice, when Lieutenant Pradelle orders a senseless attack, he causes a useless disaster; but his outrageous act also binds the lives of two soldiers who have nothing more in common than the battlefield: Édouard saves Albert, although at a high cost. They become companions in misfortune who will attempt to survive in a changing world. Pradelle, in his own way, does the same.

Colette, lovely and vulnerable prostitute, accepts to take care of her unknown colleague's boy. She, herself, needs a child to make her loved ex return to her. So she's having two problems to solve at one time - to find a suitable "father" of her kid and to get off hand of Billy. Meanwhile, the relationship between Colette and Billy is developing, you just don't know in which way. Then, when she cannot get rid of Billy and realizes her ex has another women, the things between "Billy et Colette" are now quite transparent.

A beautiful 18-year-old orphan escapes from a reformatory and hooks up with a gang of jewel smugglers, and decides on a life of crime. However, she falls for and marries a policeman, putting a crimp in her criminal career.

Quiet, withdrawn 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs lives peacefully in her home in a New England beach town. Whenever the prying landlady inquires after Rynn's father, she politely claims that he's in the city on business. But when the landlady's creepy and increasingly persistent son, Frank, won't leave Rynn alone, she teams up with kindly neighbor boy Mario to maintain the dark family secret that she's been keeping to herself.

Alex is an 11-year old boy who, during WWII, hides in the Jewish ghetto from Nazis after all the relatives have been sent to the concentration camp. The movie portrays the ghetto through his eyes.

Before immigrating to the West, Abdallah travels to the coastal city of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, to visit his mother. Although he grew up there, Abdallah feels anything but at home in his old neighborhood: He can no longer speak the local dialect, and he wears western clothes that immediately cast him as an outsider. But, as Abdallah spends time with a young boy and an elderly electrician, he can't help but feel a sense of loss for the life he's abandoning

The Hans Christian Anderson tale gets a new treatment, this time with a rat trying to exploit the talents of a little ugly duckling for profit.

A hardened New Orleans cop, Dave Robicheaux, finally tosses in the badge and settles into life on the bayou with his wife. But a bizarre plane crash draws him back into the fray when his family is viciously threatened.