François Ozon reunites with Summer of 85 star Benjamin Voisin for a sensitive, queer-inflected adaptation of Albert Camus’s existential classic, bringing Algeria to the thematic and visual foreground. Nominated for four César Awards, winner of Best Supporting Actor (Pierre Lottin).

Maxime Matray and Alexia Walther’s playfully enigmatic sophomore feature stars Agathe Bonitzer as a woman investigating the disappearance of her partner and stepdaughter amid sinister disturbances in an off-season French resort town.

The audacious Julia Ducournau (Titane) returns with a haunting and unpredictable new film, centered on a single mother (Golshifteh Farahani) and teenage daughter (Mélissa Boros) in the midst of an eerie epidemic.

Valérie Donzelli (Just the Two of Us, Rendez-Vous 2024) returns with a smaller-scaled human drama starring a riveting Bastien Bouillon as an artist in search of spiritual satisfaction no matter the economic cost.

Internal affairs police officer Stéphanie (Léa Drucker) is assigned to investigate a civil disturbance case during the 2018 populist “yellow-jacket protests” in the latest from Dominik Moll. Nominated for eight César Awards, winner of Best Actress (Drucker).

Cédric Klapisch’s (Rise, Rendez-Vous 2022) lavish, effervescent latest follows the present-day reunion of four cousins in Normandy alongside their ancestor’s late-19th-century adventures at the dawn of the Belle Époque in Paris.

In this film by Laurent Cantet, directed by Robin Campillo (BPM (Beats Per Minute), Red Island), a burgeoning friendship with a migrant Ukrainian laborer stirs 16-year-old Enzo out of his unmotivated slump.

In acclaimed documentarian Louise Hémon’s boldly ambitious first narrative feature, an idealistic young teacher newly arrived in a remote Alpine village is blamed for every misfortune that befalls the villagers during the harsh winter. Winner of the Jean Vigo Prize and the André Bazin Prize.

Stéphane Demoustier’s immersive drama tells the true story of Johan Otto von Spreckelsen (Claes Bang, The Square), the Danish architect who won a competition to design the Grande Arche in Paris in 1983—but faced daunting obstacles to making his vision a reality. Nominated for eight César Awards, including Best Director and Actor (Bang).

An unlikely friendship forms when a stand-up comic (Salif Cissé) agrees to impersonate a novelist (Denis Podalydès) for his personal and professional communications in this wry comedy from Fabienne Godet (Lifelines, Rendez-Vous 2021).

In his feature debut, Aurélien Peyre brings acute sensitivity and wisdom to an affecting story of young love in the modern age, with Summer of 85 star Félix Lefebvre and talented newcomer Anja Verderosa—both César Award nominees for Best Newcomer—in an opposites-attract relationship.

Pascal Bonitzer’s latest—from a sly final screenplay by the late filmmaker Sophie Fillières—stars Fabrice Luchini as an actor reconnecting with his estranged daughter while preparing a one-man show about Victor Hugo.

In Leyla Bouzid’s (A Tale of Love and Desire, Rendez-Vous 2022) latest, Lilia (Eya Bouteraa) returns to her native Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral to discover surprising details about his personal life that resonate with the secrets she keeps from her family.

Devout Muslim teenager Fatima (Cannes Best Actress winner Nadia Melliti) takes a journey of self-discovery amid her Algerian immigrant family in Paris in Hafsia Herzi’s queer coming-of-age story. Nominated for six César Awards, winner of Best Female Newcomer (Melliti).

Vicky Krieps gives a towering performance as a passionate, caring mother fighting for custody of her 8-year-old son against a legal system slanted against women who don’t conform to traditional images of motherhood.

Pascal Bonitzer takes on one of France’s most-loved characters, the gruff but humane Inspector Jules Maigret—portrayed by the equally legendary Denis Podalydès—as the methodical sleuth investigates the murder of a former ambassador.

The dynamics of fraught male friendships and eastern France’s controversial economic dependence on nuclear waste disposal take center stage in Hubert Charuel’s meticulously naturalistic study of rural masculinity in crisis.

Jean-Paul Salomé meticulously recreates the WWII-era battle of wits between a Polish immigrant (Reda Kateb) dubbed the “Cézanne of counterfeit money” and the French cop (Bastien Bouillon) on an epic quest to take him down.

Théodore Pellerin (Lurker, ND/NF 2025) gives a quietly magnetic performance as a man diagnosed with cancer on his 29th birthday in Pauline Loquès’s sensitive debut feature, winner of the César Awards for Best First Film and Best Male Newcomer (Pellerin).

Pianist Mathias (François Civil) returns home to Lyon to duet with his demanding mentor Elena (Charlotte Rampling) during her final concerts—and runs into a charismatic but erratic ex—in the latest from Arnaud Desplechin.

Olivier Assayas adapts diplomat Giuliano da Empoli’s lightly fictionalized look at Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, starring Jude Law as Putin and Paul Dano as his mysterious Kremlin advisor, with Alicia Vikander and Jeffrey Wright.

Claire Simon (I Want to Talk About Duras, NYFF59) travels to high schools across France, as well as French Guinea, to document young people of all backgrounds reacting to the work of acclaimed author Annie Ernaux.

This panel brings together trailblazing film producers from France and the United States to explore how producing first and second feature films raises shared challenges, including access to financing, risk management, and the balance between creative ambition and market expectations.