20 best movies like Second Chances (2012)

Lisa and Marine live a life of relative companionship together, where the only man permitted into the equation is Lisa’s young son, Leo. However, their simple existence is thrown into disarray when Marie meets and falls in love with Alex, a customer at her bookshop. Lisa is left feeling excluded, and tension develop. But soon an unexpected accident forces all of those involved to reassess the situation and adopt a different position in each other’s lives.

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...

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…

A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.

Deneuve plays sassy grandmother Cathy who takes to the road after being betrayed by her lover and learning her business is on the verge of bankruptcy on the same day. During a weeklong odyssey across France, she spends time with a grandson she hardly knows and reconnects with her past as former Miss Brittany through a reunion for former beauty queens.

An enigmatic actress (Emmanuelle Seigner) may have a hidden agenda when she auditions for a part in a misogynistic writer's (Mathieu Amalric) play.

When a novelist realizes her terrifying stories are coming true, she returns to her hometown to face the demons from her past that inspire her writing.

An average guy meets an actress who is more beautiful than he could ever imagine. But then a pesky girl materializes to make his life a living hell. His perfect girlfriend now thinks that he is involved with this Caprice.

Thirty-year-old Ben is about to marry Juliette. His quiet, ordered life will fall to pieces when he meets up again with the person he secretly wants to see the most: Vanessa, the high school bombshell who never so much as looked in his direction. She's back in Paris, and the only person she now knows is him…

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?

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

Transport Minister Bertrand Saint-Jean is awoken in the middle of the night by his head of staff. A bus has gone off the road into a gully. He has no choice but to go to the scene of the accident. Thus begins the odyssey of a politician in a world that is increasingly more complex and hostile.

Christian, a visionary scientist, studies wild geese. For his son, a teenager obsessed with video games, the idea of spending a holiday with his father in the wilderness is a nightmare. However, father and son will get together around a crazy project: save a species endangered, thanks to the ultralight of Christian! Then begins an incredible and perilous journey ...

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.

On a business trip to the Cannes Film Festival, Manhee is accused of being dishonest and fired. A teacher named Claire goes around taking photos with a Polaroid camera. She gets to know Manhee and sympathizes with her. Through taking photos, Claire has acquired the ability to look slowly at things and to transform objects.

Pierre has been married for 15 years and has two kids. He still loves his wife and is fulfilled in his role as a father. Overall, he’s a contented man. Until one evening, he meets Elsa. They chat, laugh, and joke around in a way that doesn’t happen every day. Two weeks later, they run into each other again by chance. The same easy mutual attraction they felt for one another is just as strong, and they tell each other as much. A line has been crossed. But Elsa has a golden rule never to get involved with married men, and Pierre wants to remain faithful. They go their separate ways without swapping phone numbers, preferring to let life take its own course. As the line blurs between how they imagine their relationship and what has actually happened, their fantasies start to mingle with reality

Michel, who's crazy about jazz, has just found a rare album that he dreams of quietly listening to in his living room. But the world seems to have conspired against him: his wife chooses this moment to divulge an ill-timed revelation, his adult son makes a surprise visit, one of his friends knocks on the door, while his mother keeps calling him on his smartphone. Not to mention that today the residents in his apartment building are holding their annual House Party. Manipulative and a liar, Michel is ready to do anything to have a moment of peace and quiet. Is it still possible, in this day and age, to just have one hour of peace?

She drove me into a corner, then forced me to go beyond my limits. She made me confront the absolute: love, sacrifice, tenderness, abandonment. She dislocated me, transformed me. Why didn't anyone warn me? Why doesn't anyone ever talk about this?" Un heureux événement, or an intimate view of motherhood, sincere and with no taboos.

The story of a friendship between Victor, owner of a magazine, and Bruno, a car thief.

Inspired by events that took place in Massachusetts, Delphine and Muriel Coulin's provocative debut focuses on a group of bored teenage girls who all make an irrevocable pact. When Camille (Louise Grinberg) accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It's only a matter of time, before 17 girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos. Set in the writer/directors' small, seaside hometown of Lorient in Brittany, 17 Girls is a reflection on adolescence, body image, friendship and the perplexing realities of growing up.

A man tries that his wife fall in love with him again, after to wake up in an alternate reality where she never knew him.

A banker strikes up a sadomasochistic relationship with a mistress.

In the nineteenth century, a French adventurer sets off to establish a kingdom in the inhospitable South of Chile, uniting the feared Mapuche under him. The response of the Chilean army is devastating.

Yassine asks his best friend Fred to marry him in order to avoid deportation...

Lucas and his team are after a gang of Serbian criminals using NATO-issued weapons. As the investigation leads him to Paris, Lucas attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter, a young narc officer.

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting.

The story revolves around Alain, a busy businessman who is always in a rush. In his life, there is no room for spare time or family. But one day, he suffers a stroke, which makes him lose his grasp of language and use one word in place of another.

A romantic comedy about two Parisian therapists who are so obsessed about getting into the sack with anyone they meet, they can’t ever get it on with each other.

A young man paying the rent for himself and his lifelong friends at an apartment, ends up flat-broke and resorts to selling marijuana to pay the bills - only to get caught up in the dangerous world of drugs.

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]

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...

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.

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.

A hotel clerk searches all over Le Havre for the fairy who made two of his three wishes come true before disappearing.

In November 2009, French security van driver Toni Musulin makes off with nearly 12 million euros, then turns himself over to the authorities a week later.

Agathe runs an art gallery. Her husband François is a publisher. Together they have one son, and in every way seem to be the picture of normality — but emotions are stewing under the surface. All it takes is the arrival of a complete stranger for things to start unravelling. Patrick is brash, uncouth and totally unselfconscious...

Alexandre Taillard de Vorms is a force to be reckoned with. With his silver mane and tanned, athletic body, he stalks the world stage as Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, waging his own war backed up by the holy trinity of diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity, and efficacy. Enter Arthur Vlaminck. Hired to write the minister's speeches, Arthur must contend with the sensibilities of his boss and the dirty dealings within the Quai d'Orsay, the ministry's home.

Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.

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

After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret...