Best French crime movies
Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch crime films from France, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!
The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)
The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)
A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.
Irreversible (2002)
Irreversible (2002)
A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.
Hannibal Rising (2007)
Hannibal Rising (2007)
The story of the early, murderous roots of the cannibalistic killer, Hannibal Lecter – from his hard-scrabble Lithuanian childhood, where he witnesses the repulsive lengths to which hungry soldiers will go to satiate themselves, through his sojourn in France, where as a medical student he hones his appetite for the kill.
The Night of the Generals (1967)
The Night of the Generals (1967)
A German intelligence officer investigates a prostitute's killing in Warsaw during World War II. He lands on three major Nazi generals as suspects, two of whom are also involved in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
The Crimson Rivers (2000)
The Crimson Rivers (2000)
Two French policemen, one investigating a grisly murder at a remote mountain college, the other working on the desecration of a young girl's grave by skinheads, are brought together by the clues from their respective cases. Soon after they start working together, more murders are committed, and the pair begin to discover just what dark secrets are behind the killings.
A Prophet (2009)
A Prophet (2009)
Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.
The Crime Is Mine (2023)
The Crime Is Mine (2023)
In 1930s Paris, Madeleine, a pretty, young, penniless, and talentless actress, is accused of murdering a famous producer. Helped by her best friend, Pauline, a young, unemployed lawyer, she is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. A new life of fame and success begins, until the truth comes out.
Tell No One (2006)
Tell No One (2006)
A man receives a mysterious e-mail appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.
5 Broken Cameras (2011)
5 Broken Cameras (2011)
Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.
Le Samouraï (1967)
Le Samouraï (1967)
After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts, finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him.
Les Misérables (2019)
Les Misérables (2019)
Stéphane has recently joined the Anti-Crime Squad in Montfermeil, in the suburbs of Paris, France, where Victor Hugo set his famed novel “Les Miserables”. Alongside his new colleagues Chris and Gwada – both experienced members of the team – he quickly discovers tensions running high between local gangs. When the trio finds themselves overrun during the course of an arrest, a drone captures the encounter, threatening to expose the reality of everyday life.
Mauvais Sang (1986)
Mauvais Sang (1986)
Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner's son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.
The Goldman Case (2023)
Frantic (1988)
Frantic (1988)
The wife of an American doctor suddenly vanishes in Paris. To find her, he navigates a puzzling web of language, locale, laissez-faire cops, triplicate-form filling bureaucrats and a defiant, mysterious waif who knows more than she tells.
Pickpocket (1959)
Pickpocket (1959)
Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.
The Bride Wore Black (1968)
The Bride Wore Black (1968)
Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves the town. She will track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?
Zulu (2013)
Zulu (2013)
As a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkhata, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Only he and his mother survived the carnage of those years. But as with many survivors, the psychological scars remain.
Dheepan (2015)
Dheepan (2015)
Three war-torn strangers posing as a family flee Sri Lanka’s civil war to start over in a troubled Paris suburb, but their past traumas resurface as they struggle to survive in their new environment.
I... For Icarus (1979)
I... For Icarus (1979)
Following the assassination of President Marc Jarry, a member of the investigation committee refuses to sign off on the committee's final findings.
Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
When French criminal Corey gets released from prison, he resolves to never return. He is quickly pulled back into the underworld, however, after a chance encounter with escaped murderer Vogel. Along with former policeman and current alcoholic Jansen, they plot an intricate jewel heist. All the while, quirky Police Commissioner Mattei, who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him.
Band of Outsiders (1964)
Band of Outsiders (1964)
Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.
The Sucker (1965)
The Sucker (1965)
In this Franco-Italian gangster parody, a shopkeeper on his way to an Italian holiday suffers a crash that totals his car. The culprit can only compensate his ruined trip by driving an American friend's car from Naples to Bordeaux, but as it happens to be filled with such contraband as stolen money, jewelry and drugs, the involuntary and unwitting companions in crime soon attract all but recreational attention from the "milieu".
Femme Fatale (2002)
Femme Fatale (2002)
A $10-million diamond rip-off, a stolen identity, a new life married to a diplomat. Laure Ash has risked big, won big. But then a tabloid shutterbug snaps her picture in Paris, and suddenly, enemies from Laure's secret past know who and where she is. And they all want their share of the diamond heist. Or her life. Or both.