French movies about the 19th century

List of the best French movies about the 19th century, selected by visitors to our site: Marie Antoinette, Klimt, Casque d'Or, Green Book, The Founder, Ammonite, Tomb Raider, Double Jeopardy, At Eternity's Gate, An Officer and a Spy.

In the top there are new films of 2021, a plot description and trailers for films that have already been released.

Country
Markimdb: 6.5
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryUSA, France, Japan
Duration02:03

The retelling of France's iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette. From her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at 15 to her reign as queen at 19 and ultimately the fall of Versailles.

Markimdb: 5.1
Genredrama, biography
CountryAustria, France, Germany, United Kingdom
Duration02:11

A portrait of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt whose lavish, sexual paintings came to symbolize the art nouveau style of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Markimdb: 7.6
Genremelodrama, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:25

Ex-convict Georges Manda returns to the free world determined to go straight and takes a steady job as a carpenter. Unable to completely shake his connections with the underground, he meets with a former prison mate, older gangster Félix Leca, who introduces him to his mistress, the sweet but guarded Marie "Casque d'Or". Marie and Georges fall into a passionate relationship, driving Félix to do everything in his power to ruin the couple.

Markimdb: 8.2
Genrecomedy, drama, biography
CountryUSA, China
Duration02:10

Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, biography
CountryUSA, Greece
Duration02:38

The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, Australia, USA

In 1840s England, palaeontologist Mary Anning and a young woman sent by her husband to convalesce by the sea develop an intense relationship. Despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realisation that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genreaction, thriller, fantasy, adventure
CountryUnited Kingdom, Japan, USA
Duration02:11

Lara Croft, the fiercely independent daughter of a missing adventurer, must push herself beyond her limits when she finds herself on the island where her father disappeared.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA, Germany, Canada
Duration01:45

A woman framed for her husband's murder suspects he is still alive; as she has already been tried for the crime, she can't be re-prosecuted if she finds and kills him.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryRepublic of Ireland, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, France, USA
Duration01:46

Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genrethriller, drama, history
CountryFrance, Italy

In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil's Island.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryFrance, Germany, Belgium

The government is asking Eiffel to design something spectacular for the 1889 Paris World Fair, but Eiffel simply wants to design the subway. Suddenly, everything changes when Eiffel crosses paths with a mysterious woman from his past.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryFrance, Germany, Belgium
Duration02:14

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.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genredrama, music, biography, history
CountryFrance, Belgium, Czech Republic
Duration02:05

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.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genrethriller, adventure, crime, history
CountryFrance
Duration01:50

Paris, France, early 19th century. The legendary convict François Vidocq lives in disguise trying to escape from a tragic past that torments him. When, after an unfortunate event, he crosses paths with the police chief, he makes a bold decision that will turn the ruthless mastermind of the Parisian underworld against him.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genredrama, crime, history
CountryFrance

France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier attempts to shoot his love who refused to marry him and to commit suicide. Upon release from the filthy asylum where he was placed, with bullets still remaining in his head, he wanders the country roads and rapes and murders many teenagers over years. The judge Rousseau captures him, but to serve his ambition seeks to avoid that Bouvier is simply declared insane.

Markimdb: 6
Genredrama, military, history
CountryPortugal, France

Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genrecomedy, adventure, family, cartoon, music
CountryCanada, France
Duration01:58

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.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genremelodrama, drama, detective
CountryPortugal, France
Duration04:32

The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure and misfortune in the convulsed Europe of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genredrama
CountryFrance, Belgium

Normandy, 1819. Jeanne is a young woman full of childish dreams and innocence when she returns home after finishing her schooling in a convent. She marries a local Viscount, Julien de Lamare, who soon reveals himself to be a miserly and unfaithful man. Little by little Jeanne’s illusions are stripped away.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genredrama, history
CountryFrance
Duration01:45

Alexandre Dumas, at the height of his career, takes Auguste Maquet, his chief literary collaborator or 'ghost writer' ten years his junior, to meet a young unknown admirer, Charlotte Desrives. The two men are at the summit of their artistic collaboration for they have just published "The Count of Monte Christo", "Queen Margot" and "The Three Musketeers". If it's Maquet who writes the majority of the texts, both the honours and fame go to Dumas.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama, history
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration01:52

Paris, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two children, desperate and penniless, he persuades the great actor Constant Coquelin to perform the main role in his new play. But there is a problem: Coquelin wants to premiere it at Christmas and Edmond has not written a single word.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genredrama
CountryHungary, France, Luxembourg, Germany, USA
Duration02:26

A monumental windstorm and an abused horse's refusal to work or eat signals the beginning of the end for a poor farmer and his daughter.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryFrance
Duration02:38

The life of Camille Claudel, a french sculptor who becomes the apprentice of Auguste Rodin and later his lover. Her passion for her art and Rodin drive her further away from reason and rationality.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryUnited Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, France, USA
Duration01:53

Albert Nobbs struggles to survive in late 19th century Ireland, where women aren't encouraged to be independent. Posing as a man, so she can work as a butler in Dublin's most posh hotel, Albert meets a handsome painter and looks to escape the lie she has been living.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrecomedy, melodrama, history
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration01:59

1809, France. Captain Neuville is called to the front, leaving his future bride heartbroken. Her sister decides to write letters on his behalf to cheer her up.

Markimdb: 5.5
Genredrama
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration02:22

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…

Markimdb: 5.4
Genremelodrama, history
CountryFrance
Duration01:38

A passionate love story set against a backdrop of sexual freedom, loosely based on the relationship between 19th century authors Pierre Louÿs and Marie de Régnier

Markimdb: 6.8
Genrecomedy, melodrama, music, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, USA
Duration01:47

In 1830s France, pianist/composer Frédéric Chopin is pursued romantically by the determined, individualistic woman who uses the name George Sand.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genrefantastic, fantasy, comedy, adventure, family, cartoon, detective
CountryFrance
Duration01:20

Ever since the world was born, two forces have been locked in perpetual battle. Their struggle is so Manichean, so ferocious, so Herculean that it makes the clash between good and evil look like a game of checkers! This ancestral duel is so ancient and so merciless that it can only be, Oggy against the Cockroaches!

Markimdb: 6.5
Genremelodrama, drama, biography
CountryFrance, United Kingdom, Belgium
Duration01:51

Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance
Duration02:23

Bored with the limited and tedious nature of provincial life in 19th-century France, the fierce and sensual Emma Bovary finds herself in calamitous debt and purses scandalous sexual liaisons with absolute abandon. However, when her volatile lifestyle catches up to her, the lives of everyone around her are endangered.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genredrama
CountryFrance, Portugal
Duration01:35

Despite his age and general weariness, Gebo keeps on working as an accountant to provide for his family. He lives with his wife, Doroteia, and his daughter-in-law, Sofia, but it is the absence of João, son and husband, that worries them.Gebo seems to be hiding something, especially to Doroteia, who is anxiously waiting to see her son again. Sofia is also waiting for her husband to come home, and yet she fears him. All of a sudden, João arrives and everything changes.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA, France, Hungary, Netherlands
Duration02:37

After marrying a successful Parisian writer known commonly as Willy, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is transplanted from her childhood home in rural France to the intellectual and artistic splendor of Paris. Soon after, Willy convinces Colette to ghostwrite for him. She pens a semi-autobiographical novel about a witty and brazen country girl named Claudine, sparking a bestseller and a cultural sensation. After its success, Colette and Willy become the talk of Paris and their adventures inspire additional Claudine novels.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance, Italy

It's no holds barred for Julian in pursuit of upward mobility. Although expected to channel career aspirations into the Church of the post-Napoleonic era, his intensely romantic liaisons propel him forward at a pace he cannot control.

Markimdb: 5.5
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryNorway, United Kingdom, France, Republic of Ireland

Over the course of a midsummer night in Fermanagh in 1890, an unsettled daughter of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy encourages her father's valet to seduce her.

Markimdb: 3.5
Genrehorror, thriller, melodrama, drama
CountryItaly, France, Spain
Duration01:50

When Englishman Jonathan Harker visits the exotic castle of Count Dracula, he is entranced by the mysterious aristocrat. But upon learning that the count has sinister designs on his wife, Mina, Harker seeks help from vampire slayer Van Helsing.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama, musical
CountryFrance, Italy

Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, Germany, USA
Duration02:30

Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.

Markimdb: 4.7
Genremelodrama
CountryFrance, Portugal

On the night of New Year's Eve, a small group penetrates into the room of an old hotel in ruins. Carmine, the oldest of the group, poses a challenge to one of the men, Furio: he has 4 months to restore the hotel and inaugurate it with great pomp. Aware of the difficulties but anxious to prove the point, Furio accepts encouraged by his wife Margo who believes that this assignment will allow the couple to rediscover the lost momentum.

Markimdb: 5.7
Genreaction, adventure
CountryUSA, Germany, France, United Kingdom
Duration01:50

The hot-headed young D'Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.

Markimdb: 4.4
Genrecomedy, melodrama
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration01:46

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Markimdb: 6.1
Genremelodrama, drama, military, history
CountryPoland, France

A grand and patriotic tale of Poland's struggle for freedom just before Napoleon's war with Russia. Written in poetic style by Adam Mickiewicz, this story follows two feuding Polish families as they overcome their old conflicts and petty lives. However, they are able to unite as one with their patriotic and rebellious efforts to free the country they deeply love from Russian control.

Markimdb: 5.2
Genrecomedy
CountryFrance
Duration01:28

Alex is in love with Sandra since childhood but has never dared approach her.He asks Antoine, a lonely writer to help him seduce her, because in his time he was the only one to conquer the heart of the mother.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genrethriller, drama
CountryUSA, France

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.

Markimdb: 4.7
Genrecomedy, family
CountryFrance
Duration01:36

Ducoboo is a very inventive dunce and joker, he is very resourceful at finding new ways to copy from his neighbor, to cheat or to defy the teacher's authority.

Markimdb: 8
Genredocumentary
CountryFrance, Spain
Duration01:15

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.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genredrama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:40

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.

Markimdb: 5.5
Genrefantasy, comedy
CountryFrance

Éric and Patrice have been friends since high school. Over the years, they have both taken very different paths: Éric has become a hedonist, has a string of girlfriends and is always on the look out for a new one; Patrice has become a monogamous father with a very ordered life. After a drunken evening, the two childhood friends find themselves cast back into 1986, when they were 17 years old. This return to the past is a dream opportunity to try to change the path their lives will take. What will they do with this second chance?

Markimdb: 7
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryFrance, Germany

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.

Markimdb: 5.3
Genrecomedy, melodrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:25

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.




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