20 Best French Films Of The Last Decade

1. The Diving Bell & The Butterfly

And yet, perhaps no French film of the last decade has had quite as profound and lasting an effect as Julian Schnabel's sublimely affecting biopic of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), a former Elle magazine editor who was struck down by locked-in syndrome, paralysed from the neck down and only able to communicate with blinks from his left eye. Mathieu Amalric gives an awards-worthy performance in the central role, though the real reason the movie work so well is Schnabel's incredible directing job, using POV visuals to immerse viewers in Bauby's condition, interspersing the present with lingering memories of a better time. You'd need a heart of stone not to be moved by this story, particularly that Bauby penned his own memoir while in the throes of his condition by painstakingly dictating a letter at a time through blinks. At the Oscars, the movie received four nominations, for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, but because it was produced by an American company, it was weirdly ineligible for Best Foreign Language Film honours. What are your favourite French movies from the last 10 years? Shout it out in the comments!