French films with English subtitles to watch in December 2026

A special screening La Haine to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the film club, L'Âge d’Or in the presence of the director, two films from Leos Carax, and a couple of Christmas classics

Lost in Frenchlation is a Paris-based club that runs screenings of French films, both new releases and timeless classics, with English subtitles, in order to allow language learners to appreciate the offerings of French cinema.

Where? Le Saint-Germain-des-Prés 22 rue Guillaume-Apollinaire, Paris

When? Screening at 7pm, drinks after the film, behind the cinema screen, in Saint-Germain speakeasy

Tickets Prices range from €5, €11. Order them online here .

Marion Cotillard is in full-on wild-eyed scenery-chewing form in ex-partner Guillaume Canet’s lurid psychological thriller about a woman implicated in the disappearance of her young godson, who seeks refuge in the sinister community in which she had grown up.

When? Screening at 6pm, drinks at 7.30pm at the cinema bar, or screening at 8pm, Drinks at 9.30pm at the cinema bar. Confirm your attendance at either screening here to enjoy a free drink to celebrate 11 years of Lost in Frenchlation.

Tickets Prices range from €5.50, €12. Order them for the 6pm screening here and for the 8pm screening here .

Vincent Cassel was nominated for two Césars in 1995 - for best young actor and best actor - for his unforgettable role in this gritty and uncompromising cult tale of a single day and night in the lives of three friends from a poor immigrant neighbourhood in the suburbs of Paris.

Tickets Prices range from €5.50, €12. Order them online here .

If your only acquaintance with Victor Hugo’s classic novel is someone warbling I Dreamed A Dream , then why not get acquainted with the source material? This French release has some big names for a serious crack at the timeless classic in which the fates of four very different people become intertwined in a turbulent Paris riven by social unrest. Do you hear the people sing? (No. There is no singing in this one).

When? Drinks at 7pm in the salon of the cinema upstairs and screening at 8pm.

Tickets Prices range from €5.40, €9.90. Order them online here .

Juliette Binoche is the homeless artist whose vision is failing, who falls for drug-and-drink-addled firebreather Denis Lavant under the bridges of Paris in Leos Carax’s timeless romance, as famous for the cost of production as it is for its glorious simple tale, stunningly told.

When? Agnès Varda Movie-themed walking tour at 4.30pm; drinks at 7pm in the cinema bar and screening at 8pm, followed by a Q&A with director Bérenger Thouin.

Tickets Prices range from €5, €9.50. Order them online here .

A butcher’s daughter with social climbing ambitions follows her dream from the vibrant Paris of the Golden Twenties through the turmoil of two world wars, refusing to be held back by the class barriers she was born into.

When? Tea Bar at 7pm in the cinema (bring your own mug!) and screening at 7.30pm.

Tickets Prices range from €5.40, €9.40. Order them online here .

Catherine Deneuve steals scenes, even with Isabelle Huppert and Fanny Ardant in the cast, in a way only she can in this ensemble Christmas murder mystery set in a typically bougie country house in the 1950s. Cue arguments, betrayals and revelations as the investigation unfolds.

Tickets Prices range from €5, €9.90. Order them online here .

The title may have you slightly concerned, but this is much more than your average festive film fare. A pair of neurotics working for a suicide hotline on Christmas Eve get caught up in catastrophe when a pregnant woman, her abusive boyfriend, and a transvestite visit their offices.

Few punches are pulled in this retelling of the capture of French Resistance leader Jean Moulin and his torture at the hands of ‘Butcher of Lyon’ Klaus Barbie in June 1943.

Omar ‘Lupin’ Sy’s breakout role, he became the first black recipient of a César for Best Actor for his performance, was this perennially popular feelgood drama about a grumpy tetraplegic aristocrat who rediscovers life when he hires a young black man from the Parisian banlieues to be his carer.

Where? Le Saint-Germain-des-Prés 22 Rue Guillaume Apollinaire, Paris

When? Midnight in Paris movie-themed walking tour at 3.30pm; screening at 7pm, drinks after the film behind the cinema screen, in Saint Germain speakeasy.

Tickets Prices range from €5 - €11. Order them online here .

No Sarah Brightman here… Or Gerard Butler, for that matter. And definitely no Joel Schumacher. Alexandre Castagnetti’s luscious and lavish update of Gaston Leroux’s novel tells the story of a young dancer in modern-day Paris who falls in love with a mysterious pianist while in rehearsals for an opera supposedly composed by the Phantom, only to be plunged into an impossible love story that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.

Tickets Prices range from €5 - €9.90. Order them online here .

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s modern French classic is just as good now as it was on its release back in 2001. Painfully shy waitress Amélie (a delightful Audrey Tatou) spends her days working at a Parisian cafe, playing matchmaker, guardian angel and doer of good deeds. But the arrival of a handsome stranger thrusts her into a romantic limelight she had previously shunned.

Tickets Prices range from €6 - €11. Order them online here .

Leos Carax’s second film, released in 1986, is an important but not-always easy-to-watch drama dealing with, metaphorically, the Aids epidemic of the time. Set in a near-future, where a cure for a mysterious sexually transmitted disease exists but is cruelly controlled, two ageing criminals recruit a rebellious teenager to help steal it from a pharmaceutical company’s heavily guarded offices.