This is the list I send students who ask what to watch. Everything on it is French-language and available on the major streaming platforms, and every entry has a one-line summary so you can pick by mood rather than by scrolling.
One piece of advice before the list. At A1 and A2, watch with English subtitles and accept that you are mostly training your ear to the rhythm. From A2 onwards, switch to French subtitles: the gap between what you hear and what you read is exactly where your listening improves. English subtitles past that point stop being useful.
Where to start, by level
If the full list feels like too much, start here.
| Level | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A1 to A2 | The Intouchables, Family Business, Plan Cœur | Contemporary, everyday speech, short scenes, plenty of visual context. |
| A2 to B1 | Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent!), Standing Up (Drôle), Lupin | Natural conversational pace and modern vocabulary, with plots simple enough to follow if you lose a line. |
| B1 to B2 | Anthracite, Black Butterflies, Ganglands, Athena | Fast dialogue, slang and regional accents, closer to how French is really spoken. |
| B2 and up | The true-crime documentaries, Oussekine, Class Act (Tapie) | Unscripted or journalistic French, plus the cultural references French people grew up with. |
Films
| Title | What it is about |
|---|---|
| The Climb | A heartfelt drama about a man's emotional journey to climb Mount Everest in memory of his best friend. |
| The Intouchables | A comedy-drama about the unlikely friendship between a quadriplegic aristocrat and his ex-convict caregiver. |
| Paris, je t'aime | An anthology film of stories set across the districts of Paris, capturing the city through different characters' lives. |
| La Vie en Rose | A biographical film about the life of French singer Édith Piaf, starring Marion Cotillard. |
| Blue Is the Warmest Color | A poignant romance about the intense relationship between two young women, exploring love, passion and identity. |
| The Artist | A silent film set in Hollywood, about a star of silent cinema struggling to adapt to the world of talkies. |
| An Impossible Love | A powerful drama about a love triangle and the complexities of relationships over time. |
| Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo | A sequel following a group of young friends in a beautiful Mediterranean coastal town. |
| The Dancer | A historical drama about Loïe Fuller, one of the pioneers of modern dance in the early 20th century. |
| Madame Claude | A biographical drama about the woman who ran an elite escort service in 1960s Paris. |
| Lost Bullet (Balle Perdue) | A fast-paced action thriller following Lino, a gifted mechanic specialising in ram cars, after a botched robbery. |
| The Connection | A gripping crime drama based on the true story of French police officers trying to take down a powerful drug cartel. |
| The African Doctor | A comedic drama about a Congolese doctor who moves to a small French town and works to gain the trust of the locals. |
| The Spanish Apartment | A lighthearted film about a French student in Barcelona who lands in a chaotic, multicultural flatshare. |
| Love at First Fight | A romantic comedy about a woman who falls for a man who is her complete opposite. |
| The Takedown (Loin du périph) | A buddy cop action-comedy featuring two officers with contrasting styles reunited for a new investigation. |
| Restless (Sans répit) | An action thriller about a corrupt cop who, after covering up an accident, is stalked by an unknown witness. |
| I Am Not an Easy Man (Je ne suis pas un homme facile) | A romantic comedy exploring gender dynamics, where a chauvinistic man wakes up in a matriarchal society. |
| The Swarm (La Nuée) | A horror drama about a single mother who breeds locusts as a protein source and discovers they have a taste for blood. |
| Athena | A gripping action drama by Romain Gavras, depicting escalating tensions in a French suburb after a tragic incident. |
| Rogue City (Bronx) | Set in Marseille, an anti-gang police unit investigates a mass shooting at a nightclub. |
| Mademoiselle de Joncquières (Lady J) | A historical drama in which a betrayed woman orchestrates an elaborate revenge against her former lover. |
| Sous emprise (No Limit) | Inspired by true events, a young woman falls in love with a freediving champion, with dangerous consequences. |
| Sentinelle | A high-intensity thriller about a French soldier with PTSD who seeks revenge after her sister is assaulted. |
| Ad Vitam | A framed federal agent must clear his name to save his family, with hand-to-hand combat and parkour chases across Paris rooftops. |
| Family Pack | An adventure fantasy comedy where a family playing a mysterious board game is transported to a medieval land of werewolves. |
| Under Paris | A disaster film where a marine biologist must face her past to save Paris from a giant shark in the Seine. |
| Vjeran Tomic: The Spider-Man of Paris | A documentary in which the burglar behind the 2010 Paris Museum of Modern Art robbery tells the story himself. |
| The Crime Is Mine (Mon Crime) | A darkly comedic crime story by François Ozon, set in 1930s Paris, about an actress acquitted of murder in self-defence. |
Series
| Title | What it is about |
|---|---|
| Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent!) | A comedy-drama inside a top Parisian talent agency, where agents manage the egos and crises of famous clients playing themselves. |
| Lupin | A crime thriller inspired by the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, following Assane Diop as he seeks revenge for his father. |
| Ganglands (Braqueurs) | A high-octane crime thriller following Mehdi, a getaway driver pulled deeper into the underworld when his brother-in-law joins a gang. |
| Fiasco | A sharp comedy about a first-time director whose passion project spirals into chaos when a saboteur dismantles the production from within. |
| Shafted (En Vrille) | A comedy following four middle-aged Parisian men adapting their identities to shifting social norms. |
| Cash Queens (Les Lionnes) | Inspired by real events, five women facing financial ruin form a gang and start robbing banks. |
| Tout Va Bien (Everything Is Fine) | An ordinary family faces the serious illness of one of their children, and each member sees their life upended. |
| L'Agence (The Agency) | A reality series following the Kretz family, luxury real estate agents in Paris and beyond. |
| Class Act (Tapie) | A fictionalised biopic of Bernard Tapie, from humble beginnings to Adidas and politics, then to a spectacular downfall. |
| Under a Dark Sun (Sous le soleil noir) | In the South of France, a young mother rebuilding her life on a flower farm becomes the prime suspect in a death. |
| Marseille | A political drama depicting the power struggle for control of the city of Marseille. |
| Plan Cœur (The Hook Up Plan) | A romantic comedy where friends hire an escort to help Elsa get over a tough breakup. |
| Anthracite | A thriller in the French Alps, where a journalist's disappearance leads his daughter to a mysterious cult from 1994. |
| Black Butterflies (Les Papillons Noirs) | A dark thriller about a novelist hired to write the memoirs of a dying man, and what he uncovers. |
| Osmosis | A sci-fi series exploring a dating app that decodes true love by accessing brain data. |
| Family Business | A comedy about a family that turns their kosher butcher shop into a cannabis café after legalisation. |
| Mortel | A supernatural drama where teenagers gain mysterious powers after making a pact with a voodoo spirit. |
| La Mante (The Mantis) | A notorious serial killer agrees to help the police catch a copycat, on condition she works only with her son, now a detective. |
| Criminal: France | A crime drama set entirely in an interrogation room, built on high-stakes psychological battles. |
| La Révolution | A fantasy reimagining of the French Revolution, where a mysterious disease drives the aristocracy to attack the common people. |
| Le Bazar de la Charité | Paris, 1897: three women whose lives are transformed by a fire at a charity bazaar. |
| Marianne | A horror series about a novelist who discovers the evil characters from her books are coming to life. |
| Inhuman Resources (Dérapages) | Éric Cantona plays a long-term unemployed man who joins a fake hostage-taking to get a job, and it spirals out of control. |
| The 7 Lives of Lea (Les 7 vies de Léa) | A young woman wakes each morning in a different person's body, trying to solve a death from 30 years ago. |
| Standing Up (Drôle) | Four friends try to make it in the Paris stand-up comedy scene while balancing their personal lives. |
| Represent (En Place) | A political satire where an idealistic educator unexpectedly becomes a leading presidential candidate. |
| Thicker Than Water (Jusqu'ici tout va bien) | A journalist and her sisters become entangled in a dangerous web after covering up a crime. |
| Dealer (Caïd) | A found-footage series where a music video director and his cameraman get caught in a gang war. |
True crime
Documentary French is slower and clearer than fiction, and the narration is close to written French, which makes this category surprisingly good practice from B1.
| Title | What it is about |
|---|---|
| From Rockstar to Killer | The case of Bertrand Cantat, lead singer of Noir Désir, convicted of the homicide of actress Marie Trintignant in 2003. |
| Grégory | The case of little Grégory, a 4-year-old found drowned in 1984, a mystery that gripped France for decades. |
| Monique Olivier: Accessory to Evil | The role of Monique Olivier, wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret, and the question of her complicity between 1987 and 2003. |
| The Women and the Murderer | How serial killer Guy Georges was caught, through the work of two women: a police chief and a victim's mother. |
| The Outreau Case: A French Nightmare | A major judicial scandal involving accusations of child sexual abuse and serious judicial error. |
| The Fourniret Affair: Inside Monique Olivier's Mind | A closer look at the psychology of Monique Olivier and her involvement in her husband's crimes. |
| My Daughter's Killer | A father fights for decades to bring his daughter's killer to justice in France and Germany before taking extreme measures. |
| The Lost Station Girls (Les Disparues de la Gare) | Between 1995 and 2001 near Perpignan station, a teenage girl disappears and three young women are murdered. |
| Oussekine | A historical drama on the night of 5 to 6 December 1986 and the death of Malik Oussekine, and his family's fight for justice. |
How to actually learn from a series
Watching passively for two hours does very little. Watching one scene three times does a lot. Play a two-minute scene with French subtitles, then again without, then a third time pausing to write down five expressions you did not know. That is twenty minutes and it beats a whole evening of half-listening.
Pick series over films if you are learning rather than just enjoying. A series repeats the same characters, the same settings and the same vocabulary across ten hours, and that repetition is what makes the words stick.