10 French Musicals You Must Watch

This is another Jacques Demy-Catherine Deneuve musical. This movie also stars Deneuve’s sister, Françoise Dorléac and American star Gene Kelly (Singing in the Rain). It was nominated for an Oscar for Music (score of a musical picture-original or adaptation) in 1969. This film tells the story of twin sisters (Delphine and Solange) who both want to find romance and leave their small-town. Both girls love to sing and dance and when a crew of carnival workers stop in their town, they ask the two ladies to sing during the carnival. Solange falls in love with a musician and Delphine ditches her man to find a better one.

Again, here is a Jacques Demy & Catherine Deneuve musical. The film was inspired by the 17th-century French fairy tale with the same name written by Charles Perrault. It was not as well-received as their other collaborations but it is still a must-see of French cinema and French musicals. If you don’t already know the story of this fairytale, then here it is: this young princess is forced to marry her father when he becomes widowed. His wife told him he could only marry a woman that is more beautiful than her so his daughter is the only choice. The princess runs away from her castle, desperate to escape this fate, and disguises herself as a donkey with the help of a magical fairy, and falls in love with a prince along the way.

Une chambre en ville is another film directed by Jacques Demy, but this time it does not star Catherine Deneuve but Dominique Sanda and Danielle Darrieux. Demy’s film was inspired by the workers’ strike in Nantes in 1955. Like in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, every line is sung. The film was nominated for nine César awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars) including Best Film and Best Music. The film is about a shipyard worker named François Guilbaud who has an affair with a young woman who’s unhappily married. They plan to run away together but alas, this is a dramatic love story, not a simple happy one.