Best French horror movies

Given the country's overcrowded prisons, the U.S. government begins to allow 12-hour periods of time in which all illegal activity is legal. During one of these free-for-alls, a family must protect themselves from a home invasion.

One night per year, the government sanctions a 12-hour period in which citizens can commit any crime they wish -- including murder -- without fear of punishment or imprisonment. Leo, a sergeant who lost his son, plans a vigilante mission of revenge during the mayhem. However, instead of a death-dealing avenger, he becomes the unexpected protector of four innocent strangers who desperately need his help if they are to survive the night.

In Justine’s family everyone is a vet and a vegetarian. At 16, she’s a gifted teen ready to take on her first year in vet school, where her older sister also studies. There, she gets no time to settle: hazing starts right away. Justine is forced to eat raw meat for the first time in her life. Unexpected consequences emerge as her true self begins to form.

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.

Jen's romantic getaway with her wealthy married boyfriend is disrupted when his friends arrive for an impromptu hunting trip. Tension mounts at the house until the situation culminates in an unexpected way.

In order to save Paris from an international bloodbath, a grieving scientist is forced to face her tragic past when a giant shark appears in the Seine.

A mother of two inherits a home from her aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange...

When a dance troupe is lured to an empty school, a bowl of drug-laced sangria causes their jubilant rehearsal to descend into a dark and explosive nightmare as they try to survive the night—and find who's responsible—before it's too late.

A woman wakes in a cryogenic chamber with no recollection of how she got there, and must find a way out before running out of air.

A woman with a metal plate in her head from a childhood car accident embarks on a bizarre journey, bringing her into contact with a firefighter who's reunited with his missing son after 10 years.

In 18th century France, the Chevalier de Fronsac and his Native American friend Mani are sent by the King to the Gevaudan province to investigate the killings of hundreds by a mysterious beast.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

A group of people gather in the California desert to watch a "film" set in the late 1990s featuring a sentient, homicidal car tire named Robert. The assembled crowd of onlookers watch as Robert becomes obsessed with a beautiful and mysterious woman and goes on a rampage through a desert town.

Scarred for life after a harrowing near-death experience, emotionally fragile mother-to-be Sarah is still struggling to come to terms with her loss. Overcome with silent grief, Sarah now seeks solace in work; however, she is on a collision course with sheer terror when a knock at the door in the dead of night chills her bones to the marrow. Now, the raven-haired, late-night visitor in black wants something precious from Sarah, and will stop at nothing to get it.

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

After waking up to find himself all alone in an apartment where a massive party was being held the night before, Sam is immediately forced to face a terrifying reality: the living dead have invaded the streets of Paris.

Dr. Génessier is riddled with guilt after an accident that he caused disfigures the face of his daughter, the once beautiful Christiane, who outsiders believe is dead. Dr. Génessier, along with accomplice and laboratory assistant Louise, kidnaps young women and brings them to the Génessier mansion. After rendering his victims unconscious, Dr. Génessier removes their faces and attempts to graft them on to Christiane's.

A quiet and inconspicuous man rents an apartment in Paris where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.

What happens when the undead return to life? In a world ravaged for years by a virus that turns the infected into zombie-like cannibals, a cure is at last found and the wrenching process of reintegrating the survivors back into society begins.

A gang of young thieves flee Paris during the violent aftermath of a political election, only to hole up at an Inn run by neo-Nazis.

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 man's obsession with owning the designer deerskin jacket of his dreams leads him to turn his back on his humdrum life in the suburbs, blow his life savings, and even turn him to crime.

Lucas and Clementine live peacefully in their isolated country house, but one night they wake up to strange noise. They're not alone... and a group of hooded assailants begin to terrorize them throughout the night.

A single mother breeds locusts as high-protein foods but has trouble getting them to reproduce until she finds they have a taste for blood.

Sophie and Vincent’s small butcher shop is on the brink of bankruptcy and their marriage is falling apart. Their lives are turned upside down when Vincent accidentally kills a vegan activist who vandalized their shop. Overwhelmed and terrified of being accused of murder, their only solution is to get rid of the body by turning it into ham. To their surprise the ham is so popular that it may save their business… that is if they’re ready to keep “hunting"!

A teenager stops off to see his dealer to test a new drug before heading off for a night of partying. On the way home, he picks up an injured woman, and the night takes a surreal turn.

In an isolated rural community of Quebec, Canada, some inhabitants attack other people, hungry for human flesh. A few survivors gather and go deep into the forest to escape them.

A student of the occult encounters supernatural haunts and local evildoers in a village outside of Paris.

Susana leaves her life in Paris, where she works as a model, and returns to Madrid to take care of her grandmother Pilar.

A bunch of crooked cops raid a ruined building located in an impoverished suburb of Paris, determined to furiously avenge the death of one of them, murdered by the ruthless criminal gang hidden on top of the dark labyrinth that will become a deathly trap when the living, unexpectedly turned into the undead by a mysterious plague, begin to devour the world.

Accused of the genocide of Mayan people, retired general Enrique is trapped in his mansion by massive protests. Abandoned by his staff, the indignant old man and his family must face the devastating truth of his actions and the growing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes.

Things go badly for a small film crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie when they are attacked by real zombies.

11-year-old Nicolas lives with his mother in a seaside housing estate. The only place that ever sees any activity is the hospital. It is there that all the boys from the village are forced to undergo strange medical trials that attempt to disrupt the phases of evolution.

A group of friends on a climbing vacation ignore warnings that the mountains are closed and start their ascent anyway. Collapsing bridges, bear traps and other dangers threaten to splinter the group… when the real hell begins and an unseen villain begins picking them off one by one.

A few days before Christmas, traveling entertainer Marc Stevens is stuck at nightfall in a remote wood in the swampy Hautes Fagnes region of Liège when his van breaks down. An odd chap who's looking for a lost dog then leads Marc to a shuttered inn.

All girls volley ball team The Falcons end up stranded in the middle of nowhere after their mini-van breaks down. Little do they know they landed in degenerate hunters' territory and the hunt is on. Thus begins a very long night where they must run for their lives and test their team spirit. But the girls are more resourceful than it appears. In the heart of the forest, the tables are about to turn between hunter and hunted...

Lucie, Ben and William search an old woman's home for a hidden treasure and they encounter a series of supernatural events that change them forever.

A stranger called Allan goes to the House of Usher. He is the sole friend of Roderick Usher, who lives in the eerie house with his sick wife Madeleine. When she dies, Roderick does not accept her death, and in the dark night, Madeleine returns.

Two actresses, Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are on a film set telling stories about witches.

A band of students comes to celebrate the New Year in an old manor house isolated from everything. But soon after their arrival, strange events disrupt the atmosphere, before the party turns squarely to the nightmare ...

1956, in the north of France. A group of underground miners is forced to take a professor to take samples a thousand meters underground. After a landslide that prevents them from going back up, they discover a crypt from another time, and unknowingly awaken a legendary bloodthirsty creature.

Five kids wake up in a world where everybody has disappeared.

A group of young people leave a disco and bump into a shepherd who is ready to spend his night worshipping Satan.

In the summer of 1979, gay porn producer Anne sets out to film her most ambitious film yet, but her actors are picked off, one by one, by a mysterious killer.

Newlyweds Shane and June arrive in Paris for their honeymoon. In the process of trying to find a cure for his strange, bloodthirsty disease, Shane stumbles upon the story of a doctor and his flesh eating wife.

A man wakes up deep inside a cave. Suffering amnesia, he has no recollection of how he came to be here or of what happened to the man whose body he finds beside him. Tailed by a mysterious creature, he must continue through this strange and fantastic world. Enclosed, Tolbiac has no other option to reach the surface than to use REZO ZERO, secret observing cells in this cemetery-like abandoned mine.

Diana, a high-class prostitute trying to escape from a serial killer, suffers a car accident that leaves her blind and kills the family of Chin, a ten-year-old boy.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

The head of a failing French family thinks that fate has smiled down on him when the daughter of a wealthy man agrees to be married to his son. The daughter and her aunt then travel out to the French countryside to meet with the family, unaware that a mysterious 'beast' is stalking the vicinity.

Panic attacks and memory loss signal the plight of a writer whose body is inexplicably being taken over by another woman.

With a heavy haul of 250 kilograms of gold bullion, the grizzled criminal mastermind, Rhino, and his ruthless gang of cutthroats, head to a ramshackle retreat somewhere in the Mediterranean to lay low on a scorching day of July. However, the unexpected and rather unwelcome arrival of the bohemian writer, Bernier, his muse, Luce, along with a pair of no-joke gendarmes further complicates things, as the frail allegiances will soon be put to the test.

Thomas de Frémont, a precocious child obsessed with action films, sets himself up for a terrifying Christmas Eve after he unwittingly makes contact with a deranged psychopath who claims he's Santa Claus.

In a medieval castle, a dark magician thought to be Mephistopheles conjures up a series of bizarre creatures and events in order to torment a pair of interloping cavaliers.

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.

Returning home from a business trip to discover his wife missing, a man delves deeper and deeper into a surreal kaleidoscope of half-baked leads, seduction, deceit, and murder.

Esther's life is panning out nicely. She will soon move in with her boyfriend Vincent and she seems set to get a permanent position at the public relations company where she freelances. All would be fine if Esther didn't accidentally discover a piercing curiosity about her own body.

Anthology film from three European directors based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe: a cruel countess haunted by a ghostly horse, a sadistic young man haunted by his double, and an alcoholic actor haunted by the Devil.

Michel, a murderous womanizer, meets introverted Gloria online and treats her to a whirlwind one-night-stand. Offering herself as an accomplice in his seductive crimes, the unhinged lovers embark on a deadly odyssey amplified by wild sex, unbridled jealousy, and passionate forays into the dark arts. This smart and gory shocker breathes new life into the lovesick horror genre to serve up a chilling tale of white-hot desperation and terrifying devotion.

Four prisoners discover a handwritten book of black magic in their cell, and decide to use it to escape.

Laura, 25, is an actress in a L.A.R.P. (Live Action Role Playing) Game, where the participants play the survivors of an atomic war who live underground in a sealed bunker. After several mysterious accidents, the game is interrupted and the players leave the bunker while the staff remain behind to investigate the disappearance of Greg, the mastermind of the game. They soon find themselves trapped inside and in peril as they begin to die in mysterious ways and the group realizes that someone or something paranormal is playing a twisted game with them which quickly plunges into a terrifying fight for survival.

In a rural French town, twenty-something Teddy is scratched by an unknown beast and slowly undergoes frightening changes.

While searching for a solution to his serious health condition, David, a renowned neurosurgeon, discovers a sinister secret hidden in the past.

Haiti, 1962: A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. In Paris, 55 years later, at the prestigious Légion d’honneur boarding school, a Haitian girl confesses an old family secret to a group of new friends - never imagining that this strange tale will convince a heartbroken classmate to do the unthinkable.

Lost in a hostile forest, the Marquis d'Urfé, a noble emissary of the King of France, finds refuge in the home of a strange family.

Disowned in the past by his father, Kurt Menliff, a cruel and sadistic nobleman, returns to the family castle to reclaim his inheritance.

Two young English women go on a cycling tour of the French countryside. When one of them goes missing, the other begins to search for her. But who can she trust?