Feature · Paris on film
Paris on film: from The 400 Blows to Midnight in Paris
Cinema went public in Paris in 1895, and the city has been on screen ever since. Here are the films to watch before you go, with their official trailers where the distributors publish them. By the ULTIMATE Paris Editorial Team.
Updated October 2026
Where cinema went public
On 28 December 1895 the Lumière brothers held the first paying screening of their Cinématographe in the Salon indien of the Grand Café, on the boulevard des Capucines, a few steps from today’s Opéra. Paris has never quite left the screen since.
Hôtel du Nord (1938)
Marcel Carné’s classic of poetic realism gathers its lovers, lodgers and drifters in a modest hotel on the Canal Saint-Martin. The canal, with its locks and iron footbridges, is still one of the most cinematic walks in the city.
Funny Face (1957) and Charade (1963)
Stanley Donen made two of Hollywood’s most stylish Paris films. Funny Face is a fashion musical in which a New York bookshop assistant is whisked to Paris to model the new collections; Charade is a romantic thriller of murder and missing money, played out across the city. Watch them for the clothes as much as the streets.
The 400 Blows (1959)
François Truffaut’s first feature follows Antoine Doinel, a boy slipping through the cracks of school and family, through the streets of late-1950s Paris. It won Truffaut the prize for Best Director at Cannes in 1959 and opened the door for the French New Wave.
Breathless (1960)
Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature, À bout de souffle, follows a small-time criminal and an American student who sells the New York Herald Tribune on the Champs-Élysées. Shot on the streets with a light camera and jump cuts, it changed how films were made.
Zazie dans le Métro (1960)
Louis Malle’s comedy, from Raymond Queneau’s novel, brings a girl to Paris for a weekend to ride the métro, only to find it closed by a strike. She sees the city with her uncle instead, up to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Agnès Varda follows a young singer through Paris in close to real time as she waits for the result of a medical test: from the Left Bank cafés to the Parc Montsouris. It is a portrait of a woman and of the city on one summer afternoon.
The Last Metro (1980)
Truffaut returned to Paris under the Occupation for this drama of a Paris theatre company putting on a play while its director hides in the cellar. It won ten César awards.
The Lovers on the Bridge (1991)
Leos Carax’s Les Amants du Pont-Neuf sets a love story between two people living on the streets on the Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge in Paris, in the summer of the bicentenary of the Revolution in 1989.
Walk the Seine quays from the Pont Neuf
Amélie (2001)
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain follows a shy waitress in Montmartre who decides to quietly improve the lives of those around her. It made the lanes below the Sacré-Cœur a place of pilgrimage.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Baz Luhrmann’s musical is set in Montmartre around 1900, in and around the famous cabaret on the boulevard de Clichy: a penniless writer, a star of the revue and a feast of costume and song. The real Moulin Rouge still stages its revue; book on its own website.
Ratatouille (2007)
Pixar’s animated film, directed by Brad Bird, follows Rémy, a rat with a gift for cooking, into the kitchen of a grand Parisian restaurant. It is a celebration of French cooking, and the best way to get children excited about a meal in Paris.
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Woody Allen’s comedy sends an American writer back to the Paris of the 1920s each night at the stroke of midnight. It opens with a montage of the city from morning to night, as good an introduction to Paris as any.
Lost Illusions (2021)
Xavier Giannoli’s adaptation of Balzac follows a young poet from Angoulême into the newspapers, theatres and salons of 1820s Paris, where everything, he learns, is for sale. It won seven César awards, including Best Film.
Where to see a film in Paris
Our advice: see a restored classic at La Cinémathèque française by the Parc de Bercy, a new release in the great Art Deco hall of Le Grand Rex, and read our portrait of the city, Paris, the classic and the new.
La Cinémathèque française Le Grand Rex Paris, the classic and the new
Questions and answers
Where was the first public film screening?
In the Salon indien of the Grand Café, on the boulevard des Capucines, on 28 December 1895.
Where was Amélie set?
In Montmartre, below the Sacré-Cœur.
Trailers play from the official distributor channels named under each film (BFI, Rialto Pictures, Curzon and Warner Bros. UK & Ireland; checked 27 October 2026). Films without an official trailer online are described only.