Skip to main content

Festival coverage

French Film Festival

6 November – 14 December 2025

Nouvelle Vague opens the festival
Nouvelle Vague opens the festival

The 33rd edition of the Frech Film Festival UK runs at venues across the country from November 6 to 24. It opens with Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague, a zesty take on the making of Jean-Luc Godard's classic Breathless and features 32 UK premieres. We'll be bringing you coverage throughout.

Other years (19)

Box office and information

Latest reviews

  • The Stranger
    Review preview for The Stranger

    Ozon remains faithful to the source and keeps its sense of mystery but has strengthened the female characters

    Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
    Adaptation of Camus' classic.
  • Arco
    Review preview for Arco

    It’s the sort of sweet-natured fable that makes adults nostalgic for childhood, but both the near and far futures it presents are, to children themselves, already likely to seem out of date.

    Jennie Kermode · 2.5 out of 5
    In 2075, a 10-year-old girl, Iris, witnesses a mysterious boy in a rainbow suit fall from the sky. It’s Arco. He comes from an idyllic far future where time travel is possible. Iris shelters him and will do whatever it takes to help him return to his time.
  • The Shepherd And The Bear
    Review preview for The Shepherd And The Bear

    Max Keegan’s documentary sings a beguiling pastoral song, but has keen powers of observation.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    Documentary exploring a conflict after the re-introduction of brown bears into the traditional shepherding community of the Pyrenees.
  • Alpha
    Review preview for Alpha

    Alpha exists in the intersection of the probable and the parable.

    Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
    Alpha, a troubled 13-year-old, lives with her single mother. Their world collapses the day she returns from school with a tattoo on her arm.
  • Wild Foxes
    Review preview for Wild Foxes

    The Belgian filmmaker quickly proves to be a director who is quite nimble with a feint in his own terms, so that when his punches come they often hit in unexpected places.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    At a sports boarding school, talented young boxer Camille is knocked back by an accident that starts to make him question his place inside the ring.
  • Out Of Love
    Review preview for Out Of Love

    Ambrosioni extracts lived-in performances from Cottin and the whole cast which lifts what could have been a straight-forward drama into a profound and moving portrait of families and motherhood.

    Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
    After many years, Suzanne and her two children unexpectedly show up at the home of her sister Jeanne. It initially looks like Suzanne is tentatively attempting to re-establish a relationship with her sister. But this illusion is shattered with the morning light: Suzanne is gone and Jeanne is forced to become a mother to children she barely knows.
  • Colours of Time
    Review preview for Colours of Time

    There’s a fairy-tale element to this – and once the famous names start to be introduced, including Sarah Bernhardt, it becomes obvious it’s no history lesson – but that suits the crowdpleasing material well.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    After a group of distant relatives inherit a house, they begin to investigate the life of their predecessor.
  • Sirât
    Review preview for Sirât

    The film looks amazing, but it sounds even more incredible.

    Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
    A father arrives at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco with his son, looking for his daughter who has been missing for months.
  • Leave One Day
    Review preview for Leave One Day

    The narrative bowls along from one set piece-chanson to another.

    Richard Mowe · 3 out of 5
    Cécile is about to open her own gourmet restaurant, finally making her dream come true, when suddenly her father has a heart attack and she is called back to the village where she was born... and runs into her teenage crush.
  • Enzo
    Review preview for Enzo

    Yet Pohu’s performance sums up all the conflicted feelings, desires and anxieties of someone at the crossroads of entering adulthood.

    Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
    A 16-year-old boy breaks out from his bourgeois family and starts an apprenticeship as a stonemason. He also meets a Ukrainian colleague who turns his world upside down.

A–Z of French Film Festival 2025 reviews

Features

News