French movies about scammers and scams

Frank Valken, high-flying robber, has just made a final masterful break. At least that’s what he believes… Ideal suspects, Valken and his gang find themselves involved in a criminal case of thirty years. It seems that the crazy killers are back.

One night, a burglar in a Santa Claus costume is surprised by Victor, a young boy who believes he is the real Santa Claus. Victor then follows him, and they embark on an unexpected adventure that will change their lives.

A thriller that follows two siblings who decide to fend for themselves in the wake of a botched casino heist, and their unlikely reunion during another family's Thanksgiving celebration.

A small time delinquent, turned police mechanic for a go fast task force, is forced to defend his innocence when his mentor is killed by dirty cops.

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.

Diagnosed with an incurable illness, Charles, a rugby tycoon who has made a fortune in New Zealand prints an ad in his hometown looking for his sister that he's not seen in fifty years. A notary clerk, believing that Charles has a terminal illness responds to Charles' search for heirs claiming to be his sister. Charles finds that he was misdiagnosed and returns to France to meet his long lost sister.

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.

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.

A satirical drama reflecting our times — about the sense of community, moral courage and the affluent person’s need for egocentricity in an increasingly uncertain world.

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.

London, England, April 2015. Brian Reader, a retired thief, gathers an unlikely gang of burglars to perpetrate the biggest and boldest heist in British history. The thieves assault the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company and escape with millions in goods and money. But soon the cracks between the gang members begin to appear when they discuss how to share the loot.

To escape his life of crime, a Paris drug dealer takes on one last job involving Spain, unhinged gangsters, his longtime crush and his scheming mother.

Manuel is a crooked politician who enjoys the lifestyle that kickbacks afford. He eats at fancy restaurants, parties with his friends on yachts, and provides a very luxurious lifestyle for his family. Manuel brazenly bribes, extorts, and pays off anyone who threatens to expose the activities of his inner circle. When he is singled out to take the fall for a case of fraudulent government contracts, rather than admit to any wrongdoing, Manuel decides to sell out his whole party in an effort to avoid jail time. It's a decision that puts many lives at risk.

In forgotten towns along the American border, a young mother drifts from one motel to the next with her intoxicating boyfriend and her 8-year-old son. The makeshift family scrapes by, living one hustle at a time, until the discovery of a mobile home community offers an alternative life.

Set in the 1920s French Riviera, a master magician is commissioned to try and expose a psychic as a fraud.

Thunder, an abandoned young cat seeking shelter from a storm, stumbles into the strangest house imaginable, owned by an old magician and inhabited by a dazzling array of automatons and gizmos. Not everyone welcomes the new addition to the troupe as Jack Rabbit and Maggie Mouse plot to evict Thunder. The situation gets worse when the magician lands in hospital and his scheming nephew sees his chance to cash in by selling the mansion. Our young hero is determined to earn his place and so he enlists the help of some wacky magician's assistants to protect his magical new home.

An actor named Kosuke plays the role of Iemon in a stage version of Yotsuya Kaiden and his new lover Miyuki plays Oiwa. However, as they delve deeper into their respective performances, the line between fantasy and reality becomes obscured until the murderous, vengeful themes of the play bleed into their own relationship.

One year after outwitting the FBI and winning the public’s adulation with their mind-bending spectacles, the Four Horsemen resurface only to find themselves face to face with a new enemy who enlists them to pull off their most dangerous heist yet.

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.

Gu, a famous gangster, has just escaped from jail. All french police is after him. Before leaving the country with Manouche, the woman he loves, Gu needs a final job to get some money. The job works, but a police's scheming makes Gu appear as a traitor to his own accomplices. Gu will do whatever it takes to clean his honor...

Christmas is on its way and with it disaster. The 92,000 responsible for manufacturing children's toys all become sick at the same time! It's a tough moment for Santa, better known as Father Christmas. He's left no choice: he must make an emergency trip to Earth with his reindeer to search for a remedy. When he arrives, he must find some allies to save the magic of Christmas.

Max is a battle-weary veteran of the wedding-planning racket. His latest — and last — gig is a hell of a fête, involving stuffy period costumes for the caterers, a vain, hyper- sensitive singer who thinks he's a Gallic James Brown, and a morose, micromanaging groom determined to make Max's night as miserable as possible. But what makes the affair too bitter to endure is that Max's colleague and ostensible girlfriend, Joisette, seems to have written him off, coolly going about her professional duties while openly flirting with a much younger server. It's going to be a very long night… especially once the groom's aerial serenade gets underway.

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On a mission to loosen up, a miser's sets about buying a house in the country for his family.

The night of August 24, 1944. The fate of Paris is in the hands of General von Choltitz, governor of Grand Paris, who is preparing, on Hitler’s orders, to blow up the French capital. The descendent of a long line of Prussian military men, the general has never had any hesitation when it came to obeying orders. This is what’s on Swedish consul Raoul Nordling’s mind as he takes the secret staircase that leads to General von Choltitz’s suite at the Hôtel Meurice. The bridges on the Seine and the major monuments of Paris (including the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower) are mined with explosives, ready to be detonated. Armed with all the weapons of diplomacy, the consul will try to convince the general not to follow Hitler’s order of destruction.

Bahia Benmahmoud, a free-spirited young woman, has a particular way of seeing political engagement, as she doesn't hesitate to sleep with those who don't agree with her to convert them to her cause - which is a lot of people, as all right-leaning people are concerned. Generally, it works pretty well. Until the day she meets Arthur Martin, a discreet forty-something who doesn't like taking risks. She imagines that with a name like that, he's got to be slightly fascist. But names are deceitful and appearances deceiving.

Family man François Nouel is the number one fan of the Tour de France – an obsession that costs him his wife and his job. At a loose end, François meets a former sports manager, Rémi who encourages him to take the plunge and do the Tour himself. With nothing to lose, François sets off, always one day ahead of the race, attracting fellow amateurs, media coverage and cheering crowds. As obstacle after obstacle is thrown his way, and his family comes back on the scene, François discovers what is really most important in his life.

Aging small-time con man Augusto, who swindles peasants, works with two younger men: Roberto, who wants to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Bruno, nicknamed Picasso, who has a wife and daughter and wants to paint. Augusto avoids the personal entanglements, spending money at clubs seeking the good life. His attitude changes when he runs into his own daughter, whom he rarely sees, and realizes she's now a young woman and in need of his help to continue her studies. His usual partners are away, so he goes in with others to run a swindle, and they aren't forgiving when he claims he's given the money back to their mark. They leave him beaten, robbed, and alone.

Spans the period from 1958 to the present day and tells the story of an unconditional love between a mother and her daughter which is endangered by an unsteady and manipulative father.

Zachary is 20 years old. Dark and independent, he collects amorous conquests and school failure. Sarah is 18 years old. First class, fragile, she fills her emotional gaps with perfect control of his life. Nothing should close and yet, the year of the tank, for six months, they will live a love against which nothing can be, the true, the big one that marks a life forever.

Dead Shadows tells the terrifying story about a young man, Chris, whose parents were brutally killed 11 years ago, on the same day that the comet of Haley could be seen from earth. Tonight, a new comet is going to appear and everyone in Chris’s building are getting ready for a big apocalypse party to celebrate the event. As the night falls, Chris starts to discover that people are acting strange and it seems to somehow be connected to the comet. People are becoming disoriented and violent and it doesn’t take long before they start mutating into something from beyond this world.

Valentin D is a hot designer architect who claims to be an orphan because he is too ashamed to admit he is the son of working-class scrap metal merchants from the north of France.

A captured performance by Parisian nude cabaret Crazy Horse, in a surreal show directed by French footwear designer Christian Louboutin. Louboutin calls Crazy Horse “an iconic monument of Paris, a monument to dance, a modern, dream- like idea of the celebration of women for women”.

Winter, 1915. Confined by her family to an asylum in the South of France - where she will never sculpt again - the chronicle of Camille Claudel's reclusive life, as she waits for a visit from her brother, Paul Claudel.

In a sleepy provincial town, a Jehovah Witness community is attacked by an extremist group. In the midst of this conflict, the familiar world of Yana, the wife of the community leader, slowly crumbles. Yana’s inner discontent grows as she struggles to make sense of her desires.

"Everything will be fine" the doctor promised Jo while she was giving birth to her first child. But, some forty years and four sons later, nothing is happening like it should be during this month of August: as she arrives on Greek soil to organize her traditional festival with her tribe, Jo learns that the latter has been cancelled, courtesy of the economic crisis. The hour seems to be tragic but the maternal instinct grows stronger, she is ready to do everything for the happiness of her sons. Between squabbles and blood and destiny blows, this summer will be like no other.

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.

A family together with their grandpa go on a vacation, when their new car won't stop and it nearly escapes crashing into a hundred cars.

Tony is admitted to a rehabilitation center after a serious ski accident. Dependent on the medical staff and pain relievers, she takes time to look back on a turbulent relationship that she experienced with Georgio.

After getting a car ride from an unknown man, Lisa wakes up in a tube. On her arm is strapped a bracelet with a countdown. She quickly understands that every 8 minutes, fire burns an occupied section. She has no choice but to crawl into safe sections to survive. To know why she’s there and how to get out, Lisa will have to face the memories of her dead daughter…

When Nénette (Josiane Balasko) discovers the identity of her father in a letter, she quickly goes off in search of him. But instead of finding her father, she is met by her half-brother, Paul (Michel Blanc). Paul, a bitter man who gave up his dream to take over his father’s pharmacy business, is less than thrilled at the arrival of his ‘embarrassing’ half-sister. After refusing to take her in, he soon gets a taste of his own medicine. Under the influence of a potent drug, for one day Paul is generous, happy and sensitive. The next morning, however, once the drug has worn off, his nasty side comes back...

A romantic drama set in Germany just before WWI and centered on a married woman who falls in love with her husband's teacher. Separated by the war, they pledge their devotion to one another.

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.

French filmmaker Eric Lartigau directs the anarchic buddy comedy Bullit and Riper, originally released as Mais qui a tue Pamela Rose? French comedic television stars Kad Merad and Olivier Barroux are both the protagonists and the screenwriters. As a parody of Hollywood cop films, the story is set somewhere in the American Midwest as fabricated by the French. After losing his regular partner, FBI agent Richard Bullit (Merad) gets assigned to the book-learned cop Riper (Barroux) to investigate the death of a stripper. American movie stereotypes abound, such as shock jock Phil Canon (Gérard Darmon) and sheriff Steve Marley (Jean-Paul Rouve).

Vlada works as a truck driver during the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Tasked with transporting a mysterious load from Kosovo to Belgrade, he drives through unfamiliar territory, trying to make his way in a country scarred by the war. He knows that once the job is over, he will need to return home and face the consequences of his actions.

Charlie, a 17-year-old girl tortured by doubt, is thrilled when she becomes friends with Sarah, but when Sarah tires of Charlie and looks for a new friend, their relationship takes an ominous turn.

They are the perfect French haute bourgeois couple: Paul is a respected surgeon and Lucie cooks and gardens exquisitely. But now, in the autumn of his life, Paul can’t resist the lure of an ambiguous and dangerous relationship with a mysterious young woman. Might there be something sinister behind the roses delivered to his office and the “chance” meetings?

Ely and Lila are like sisters. They know each other since childhood,they share everything and dream of a better life.they live in the same suburb, 10mn from Paris. Today,Ely and Lila dont want to be 10mn away from their life anymore.from small troubles to big lies, they will do everything to penetrate a world which is not theirs, a world where everything is possible or so they think.....

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.

A young Israeli man absconds to Paris to flee his nationality, aided by his trusty Franco-Israeli dictionary.