(Luc Besson, 1988, DVD, amazon.fr or region 1)
A cult film par excellence, The Big Blue has never been a critics’ favourite, but it is cherished by legions of fans around the world for its dreamy marine ambience, ravishing cinematography by Carlo Varini, and beautiful synth score by Eric Serra. Besson was the son of two professional scuba divers, and planned to become a marine biologist until an accident at 17 prevented him from diving. He wrote the first draft of the screenplay shortly afterwards. The Big Blue is his most personal movie, and expresses a mystical fascination with the hero, Jacques (Jean-Marc Barr), who is more dolphin than man. Besson was aiming for the widest possible audience but, despite the English dialogue, the film failed in the US, where Serra’s score was replaced and the ending changed.

DELICATESSEN

(Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1991, DVD)
His chimp Doctor Livingstone having been eaten by a ravenous crowd, an unemployed circus clown (Dominique Pinon) takes a job as a handyman with a landlord butcher, in return for free board in the dilapidated house above the shop. There he falls for the butcher’s daughter, and tries not to go the way of all flesh. The first feature-length collaboration between the director Jeunet and the art director/design supremo Marc Caro, Delicatessen is a virtuoso exercise in black comic grotesquerie, cannibalising bits and pieces of Marcel Carné, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch and the Coens, while throwing up plenty of new ideas of its own.

CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (LA CITÉ DES ENFANTS PERDUS)

(Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1995, DVD region 1)
Bolder, bigger, and even more dramatic than Delicatessen, this sorely overlooked fantasy film is a dark, carnivalesque fairytale, and probably Jeunet’s greatest masterpiece. Like Monsters, Inc, it hinges on the theft of children’s dreams, with Ron Perlman’s hulking strongman trying to save the tiny Denree (Joseph Lucien) from the evil Krank (Daniel Emilfork). Unlike Monsters, Inc, however, City of Lost Children is too scary for kids, though adults will enjoy immersing themselves in Jeunet and Caro’s Baroque surrealistic dream world, with its labyrinthine tunnels and lavishly stunning vistas.

MY SEX LIFE (OR HOW TO GET INTO AN ARGUMENT) (COMMENT JE ME SUIS DISPUTÉ . . . MA VIE SEXUELLE)

(Arnaud Desplechin, 1996, DVD)
Despite the come-on title, this three-hour film is almost all talk. Paul (Mathieu Amalric) is a young academic torn between long-term girlfriend Esther (Emmanuelle Devos), his ex (Marianne Denicourt), and the crazy/beautiful Valérie (Jeanne Balibar). It takes itself seriously, but not without a certain droll self-mockery.

I STAND ALONE (SEUL CONTRE TOUS)

(Gaspar Noé, 1998, VHS or DVD region 1)
Another highly confrontational, controversial drama, I Stand Alone is an unflinching portrait of a bilious, racist anti-hero (Philippe Nahon), an out-of-work butcher whose only cause in life is to “rescue” his mentally retarded daughter from an institution. The film is fashioned as an endurance test, and even dares the audience to walk out. Noé’s next was even more reviled: Irréversible.

THE DINNER GAME (LE DÎNER DE CONS)

(Francis Veber, 1998, DVD amazon.fr with English subtitles)
Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte) and his smug friends like nothing better than their weekly dinner party, to which they invite the dumbest guests they can find. Pierre thinks he’s found a prize idiot in Pignon (Jacques Villeret). Unfortunately, this is the evening his wife leaves him and his back gives out, while Pignon only wants to help.

HARRY, HE’S HERE TO HELP (HARRY, UN AMI QUI VOUS VEUT DU BIEN)

(Dominik Moll, 2000, DVD)
This is an ingenious permutation on the Hitchcockian thriller, in particular Strangers on a Train. Harry (Sergi López) claims to be an old school friend of Michel (Laurent Lucas), and though the latter can’t quite place him, he allows him into his holiday home. Though contrived, Moll’s witty psychological thriller is compelling.

DEMONLOVER

(Olivier Assayas, 2002, DVD region 1 or amazon.fr, no English subtitles)
Booed at Cannes, and then cut by nine minutes, Assayas’s corporate espionage thriller is ripe for reassessment, even if, as most critics contend, its reach finally exceeds its grasp. Starring Connie Nielsen, Chloë Sevigny, Charles Berling and Gina Gershon, it’s a cold, alienating techno thriller about a cold, alienated techno world.

BELLEVILLE RENDEZ-VOUS (LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE)

(Sylvain Chomet, 2003, DVD)
This blithely idiosyncratic, almost dialogue-free animated film concerns an old lady’s quest to recover her grandson after he is mysteriously kidnapped during the Tour de France. Crossing the Atlantic, Madame Souza and Bruno the dog take on the Mafia with the aid of the Triplets of Belleville — syncopated singing sensations of yesteryear.

HATE (LA HAINE)

(Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995, b/w, DVD)
This angry, polemical film about three disaffected youths (one Jew, one Arab and one black) in a down-at-heel Parisian banlieue caught a raw nerve that it continues to trouble (at its premiere in Cannes, the police officers on security detail pointedly turned their backs on the film-makers). If the volatile mix of Taxi Driver and Do the Right Thing has lost none of its incendiary appeal, it is also a brutally funny film. Asked for his number one influence, Kassovitz claimed Monty Python. “C’est à moi que tu parles?”