10 of the best films set in Paris

This article is more than 13 years old

From a masterpiece of film noir to classic Gene Kelly musical An American in Paris, French film critic Agnès Poirier chooses her favourite sets in the city
As featured in our Paris city guide

Les Enfants du Paradis, Marcel Carné, 1943-45

Penned by poet Jacques Prévert and featuring the enigmatic Arletty, dashing Pierre Brasseur and melancholic Jean-Louis Barrault, Les Enfants du Paradis takes place in Paris in the 1840s and tells the story of the contrarian love of Garance and Baptiste. One key scene takes place in the boulevard du Temple, known at the time as boulevard du Crime. "You smiled at me! Don't deny it, you smiled at me. Ah, life's beautiful and so are you. And now, I shall never leave your side. Where are we going? What! We've only been together for two minutes and already you want to leave me. When will I see you again?" Arletty playing Garance replies "Soon, perhaps. Who knows what chance will bring?" "Oh, but Paris is such a big place," Pierre Brasseur laments. "No, Paris is very small for those, like us, with such a grand love."
Boulevard du Temple, 3rd and 11th arrondissements

An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli, 1952

The melody and the words may have been written in 1938, but they are forever associated with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, improvising a pas-de-deux by the Seine underneath the Pont Neuf. "It's very clear/our love is here to stay/not for a year but for ever and a day/In time the Rockies may tumble, Gibraltar may crumble/They're only made of clay/but our love is here to stay"
Pont Neuf, 1st

Rififi, Jules Dassin, 1955

A masterpiece of film noir, Rififi stars stylish Jean Servais as an ex-convict who wants to mastermind one last big heist in a jewellery store, at the corner of rue de la Paix and place Vendôme. The place is still filled with jewellers, elegant people and those grand Haussmanian buildings which, like in the film, offer the most discreet place to organise the perfect robbery.
Place Vendôme, 2nd

Funny Face, Stanley Donen, 1957

At one point, Hollywood couldn't get enough of French existentialism, as witnessed by one of the best scenes in Stanley Donen's Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Dressed all in black with the de rigueur polo neck, Fred and Audrey go to visit a jazz cellar, Le Caveau de la Huchette, where they smoke, dance and have a discussion with a Parisian philosopher – a very Hollywood looking Jean-Paul Sartre ... For the occasion, Donen renamed existentialism as "basal metabolism".
Le Caveau de la Huchette, rue de la Huchette, 5th

Bande à Part, Jean-Luc Godard, 1964

In the seminal Bande à Part, Jean-Luc Godard has Anna Karina, flanked by Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur, race against time to beat the world record for running through the Louvre galleries. Some 37 years later, Bernardo Bertolucci pays homage to the French film-maker by having Eva Green, Louis Garrel and Michael Pitt do the same in The Dreamers. No coincidence that Quentin Tarantino named his production company Band Apart. "They read in France Soir that an American tourist had run through the Louvre galleries in nine minutes and 45 seconds. They decided to beat his record," says Godard himself in the voiceover.
Louvre Museum, 1st

La Maman et la Putain, Jean Eustache, 1973

Many Parisians will tell you that Le Café des Deux Magots is for American tourists only, or for lovers of Sartre and de Beauvoir. It is, however, also for film lovers. This is where iconic scenes from Jean Eustache's masterpiece The Mother and The Whore were filmed, starring Nouvelle Vague enfant terrible Jean-Pierre Léaud. In one of the scenes, after confessing he doesn't have any money to pay the bill for the sumptuous lunch he is having, he says, "Not having money is no reason to eat badly." Indeed.
Le Café des Deux Magots, place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 6th

Last Tango In Paris, Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972

No cinephile can walk on the Pont Bir-Hakeim, just underneath the Passy métro, without hearing Gato Barbieri's lascivious trumpet and thinking of Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's sulphurous Last Tango In Paris. A shiver runs down my spine each time I walk there. "Let's drink a toast to our life in the country," a drunken Marlon Brando says. "I'll be your cow," answers an equally drunken Maria Schneider.
Pont Bir-Hakeim, 16th

Three colours: Blue, Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993

The world discovered Juliette Binoche in this film and consequently fell in love with the French gamine. In one mesmerising scene, Binoche dives into a turquoise pool under a glass skylight. After the release of the film, Parisians rushed to the rue de Pontoise swimming pool, with its art deco galleries and individual cabins, to feel just like a Binoche in water. "Before, I was happy. They loved me and I loved them too. Now, I have one thing left to do: nothing. I don't want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. They are all traps."
Piscine de Pontoise, 5th

Everyone Says I Love You, Woody Allen, 1996

Woody Allen is no Gene Kelly and Goldie Hawn no Leslie Caron. However, Allen's homage to the Hollywood golden age in Everyone Says I Love You proves as charming. The New-York film-maker chose quai de la Tournelle on the Left Bank, under the arches of Notre-Dame, to film Goldie Hawn dancing, literally, in the air. Woody Allen asks Goldie Hawn: "Do you remember this? I held you in my arms and the street lights came up. Do you remember the song you sang?" Goldie starts humming: "I'm through with love, I'll never fall again..."
Quai de la Tournelle, 5th