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Your First French Movie?


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What was the first French speaking movie you saw? My first french movie was Jean de Florette with Gérard Depardieu. I went on to see the sequel Manon of the Spring (Manon des Sources) a few months later. I was that hooked and then, emotionally scarred. I cried and cried at the injustices. I was very young then. But I think that movie helped shape my opinion of and desire to learn French.

What about you???

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The first I can remember watching, and knowing it was French (as opposed to seeing dubbed stuff when I was little) was a comedy called Les Visiteurs, with Jean Reno as a time travelling medieval knight.

I really should track it down again and see how it holds up.

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My earliest memory of a movie in French is of one of the old animated Asterix movies - Asterix and Cleopatra, I think. I really can't recall my first live-action French movie, but it was probably of the comedies of Louis de Funès, which were often shown on television.

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My first French movie was Les Miserables. My French teacher in High School thought that it would be a good way for us to become immersed further into the language without turning on the subtitles and seeing what we could translate based off of the visuals, their tone of voice, and of course whatever words we were able to translate as the dialogues occurred.

At the time I was so lost! Later on though once I learned more about the language I found myself more interested in the movie!

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My first French movie that I actually sat and watched was called "Aurore". It was one of the saddest movies I have ever watched. I could say I really think the director has done a great job making the such a poignant movie. It was about a girl named Aurore, who badly abused by her stepmother. In the end of the movie, Aurore died from the pain. I could not think of anything to describe how sad the movie was because it was also kind of dark.

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I am sure my first French movie was "Romance." My friend's brother had it in his room and we would watch 30 minutes of it each day after school. It was more of an erotic and adult movie than anything about "Romance." We were just fascinated by it.

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  • 1 month later...

Amélie! And I'm so glad I watched it because it was the film that made me fall in love with French :).

I have heard about this movie when I was in college. I didnt know it was a French movie, although its name sounded quite interesting and powerful. I will check it out someday.

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I watched my first French movie while studying abroad in Mexico (strange, right?). At a university showing, I watched "Un conte de Noël" with Spanish subtitles with some friends. It was kind of a weird movie, but it got me interested in French. It wasn't until a few years later, though, when I took a semester of French and then started studying the language on my own as a hobby. Anyway, I'm glad I saw that movie!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm pretty sure the first film I saw was Astérix & Obélix contre César, which I watched when they showed it at my school when I was a kid.  On my own initiative, it was  Banlieue 13 which I really enjoyed, and got me very interested in learning French.  After a bit of a hiatus, I recently watched La Haine, which was an incredibly good film. One of the best I've ever seen!

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  • 1 month later...

The first I can remember watching, and knowing it was French (as opposed to seeing dubbed stuff when I was little) was a comedy called Les Visiteurs, with Jean Reno as a time travelling medieval knight.

I really should track it down again and see how it holds up.

I've seen part of Les visiteurs before. It was part of a  bundle of movies dubbed for learning foreign languages actually. I wasn't really studying french much at the time though but I did find it funny in itself. I would definitely recommend to others are it's certainly not a chore to watch.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I recently watched Un Monstre à Paris for the first time in French (I'm not very well watched when it comes to French movies...). It was beautiful and although I had to watch it with subtitles (French) I was able to understand most of what was being said. It's really motivated me to listen to more French media and improve my listening.

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Banleiue 13. I saw it before I even had an interest in learning French. It's a rather awesome action movie. They do have an English dubbed version...but dubs annoy me with how the words don't align with their mouth movements, so I opted to watch the French one with subtitles in English.

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I've seen Les visiteurs too, both the first and second movie. But I was about eight or nine and probably didn't even realise they were speaking French. I don't remember I paid it any attention, anyway. Apart from that, from what I can remember off the top of my head I've pretty much only seen Amélie - I love that movie! So charming, and very French.

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My first french movie was probably 'La Haine', which features the amazing actor 'Vincent Cassel'. You probably all know him from the film 'Black Swan'. If you haven't seen 'La Haine' yet, you should definitely give it a try! It's superb.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

It's not the first french film I've ever seen, but I have to highly recommend "The Intouchables" The film gives a cool perspective of both the more affluent french and that which is spoken by the lower 'class.' Basically, the movie focuses around the friendship of a poor, black, algerian caretaker who becomes the unlikely caretaker of a filthy-rich quadriplegic.

I'm normally not into that sentimental nonsense, but it's a solid french-film that exposes you to different facets of the language--

Enjoy!

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  • 1 month later...

The first French movie I ever saw was La Mariee Etait En Noir (The Bride Wore Black).  It is about a woman who takes revenge on the men who killed her husband on their wedding day.  The way the movie was filmed is very reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock movies. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Amélie! And I'm so glad I watched it because it was the film that made me fall in love with French :).

I love that movie.  It is so beautiful visually.  I agree that Amelie is a movie that can easily make you fall in love with all things French.  It certainly rekindled my love for the French language. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

It probably was ''LA FAUTE A VOLTAIRE'', I remember that film almost like it was yesterday, I had a good time watching it, but the ending was so sad.  Isn't like I was expecting a happy ending for that kind of situation or anything like that, but woah... it really was a sad incident after another.  I guess life is like that for most of us tho, but we don't really see it that way because we are not observing our life from outside, like someone watching a movie.

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  • 7 months later...

I've stated this elsewhere, somewhere. My first movie to be spoken entirely in French was likely called "La Jardin" and was about someone murdering his next door neighbor. It was a relatively decent movie I watched way back in high school. It stayed with my memory as easy to understand due to it's not-as-quick pace movies usually have as well as it's laid-back atmoshpere despite the subject matter.

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  • 1 month later...

I watched Maigret Tend Un Piège in French class at school after we read the book, that must have been the first. A bit later I became a fan of French actress Clémence Poésy and watched some of her movies that had no English translation available, without understanding very much however.

I have also seen some Buffy episodes in French, because my friend accidentally bought the wrong DVD box, so we watched those for a laugh when we had only just started learning French at school.

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  • 1 month later...

At my school, every year 9(generally 13/14 year old) who learns French watches the same movie at the end of the year. I forgot what it was about because I forgot my glasses and couldn't read the subtitles that day, but it was something about kids in an boarding school or orphanage at Christmas. I didn't really understand it at all because at that point, we had only learned very basic conversation and vocabulary. 

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The first French movie I watched must have been 'Les Choristes.' We watched it in French class. I liked it but French cinema wasn't what made me love the language initially, as apart from that movie, I wasn't really exposed to it. It definitely gave me an insight into French culture though.

We later watched 'Amelie' and 'La Haine' which I loved.

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