Last Updated on 9 January 2026 by frenchflicks
Ever wonder why some of the most exciting movies feel harder to see nowadays? If your love of cinema stretches past sequels, here’s a guide to where real artistic daring survives—and how you can find it, especially French films right here in America.
A Different Way of Making — and Seeing — Films
Whether American or foreign, films made outside the major studio system often struggle to find their audience.
These studios make big, expensive movies and spend enormous amounts on advertising so they’re impossible to miss. Their films get the lion’s share of screens because they almost guarantee big profits and have the muscle to make deals with major multiplex chains. That’s great if you love spectacle—but it can make it much tougher for smaller, artistic films to get seen.
This does not mean that artistic ambition is absent from mainstream cinema. Big studio films are often technologically impressive and carefully crafted. But originality, formal experimentation, and risk-taking are more likely to appear in independent films, where filmmakers are less constrained by commercial expectations.
Directors working with small budgets tend to approach their films as personal artistic projects rather than products. The problem is not the quality of these films, but their visibility: without advertising power or large distribution networks, these films struggle to find screens outside niche venues. That’s where art-house cinemas come in: they’re the last refuges for adventurous cinema.
Why Art-House Theaters Matter (More Than Ever)
Art-house theaters are scattered across the U.S.—about 5,000 of roughly 40,000 total screens—but most still devote much of their schedules to films from the Big Five (Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Sony Pictures, Paramount) because that’s what pays the bills. This allows them to survive financially and, in return, take risks on less profitable auteur cinema.
Subtitled, foreign films like most French releases are even harder to secure. We estimate that around 400 U.S. theaters regularly show French films. This is a rather impressive number, thanks in part to the heritage of French cinema, the vibrancy of the new generation of filmmakers, and the support and resources of UniFrance and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, both of which are deeply involved in promoting French cinema.
Why Fewer New French Release Reach U.S. Theaters Today
Very few French films find a distributor in the United States. At FrenchFlicks, we estimate that the number of new French-language films has gone down by 20 to 30% compared to the pre-Covid era. Why? Because streaming continues to gain momentum while theatrical distribution as a whole is struggling; studios are taking fewer and fewer risks, and many independent theaters have closed in recent years or been bought by multiplex chains, which has led to changes in their programming.
Festivals therefore play a crucial role. They allow audiences to see films that might never receive a theatrical release and sometimes to discover new films in the same year they are released in France — or even earlier.
Rediscovering the History of French Cinema
Even as fewer new French movies get a theatrical release, classic French films continue to shine. American art-house theaters show what you will not find elsewhere: forgotten classics, cult films, festival standouts and important works that have shaped film history but have disappeared from mainstream circulation.
These theaters make it possible to rediscover early cinema and the great stars of the prewar and postwar periods: figures such as Jean Gabin, Arletty, Fernandel, Raimu, Michel Simon, or Michèle Morgan. These films belong to a period when cinema was still deeply connected to novels, theater, poetry, and painting. Performance and dialogue carried a different rhythm and weight than in contemporary films.
Retrospectives organized around a director, an actor, or a particular movement offer a rare opportunity to see a body of work as a whole and to understand how a filmmaker’s style evolved over time.
Among these programs, film noir occupies a special place. The term itself was coined by French critics to describe a type of dark, fatalistic cinema that flourished in the 1940s and 1950s. These films often tell stories of characters trapped by fate, desire, or social forces, echoing the structure of classical tragedy. Although many were modest productions at the time, they remain influential and are rediscovered today through retrospectives.
Other regular subjects include filmmakers whose work examined society through very different lenses: Jacques Tati with his gentle, visual comedy; Robert Bresson with his spare, moral cinema; Claude Chabrol with his ironic and critical view of the bourgeoisie; and Jean-Luc Godard, whose radical formal experiments reshaped the language of film.
Independent theaters also give a second life to films that have been restored by cultural institutions. This does not concern only very old works. Thanks to large-scale restoration efforts, many films made before 2010 can now be shown again in digital form. This allows contemporary audiences to rediscover films by Éric Rohmer, Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, as well as later filmmakers such as Chantal Akerman and Leos Carax.
Communities of Viewers
Independent theaters are often connected to film societies run by volunteers, university cinemas, museum theaters, cinematheques, and cultural institutions. These spaces often provide introductions, discussions, and contextual information offered by critics, teachers, or dedicated cinephiles.
They also create communities. Going to these screenings is not just about watching a film, but about sharing an experience with others who are curious, attentive, and open to discovery.
How to Find French Films in America
If you are interested in cinema as an art form, checking the programs of independent theaters near you remains one of the best ways to encounter films that are challenging, surprising, or simply different. Art-house cinemas are not just places where films are shown. They are places where film culture is preserved, transmitted, and kept alive.
Good news: there’s a great tool to see which theaters near you might be showing art-house films, and especially French cinema—and you’re already on it! FrenchFlicks is a website dedicated to helping you find French films playing in the United States. You can check where current French releases are showing near you. You’ll also find dedicated pages for each major city that list theaters regularly screening classic or cult French movies. For example, there are pages for New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and 30 other cities.
FrenchFlicks’ mission is all about promoting French cinema in the U.S., celebrating its unique storytelling, and making it actually accessible—not buried in a tiny theater on the other side of town. Which is why for tiny-screen cinephiles, many French films (especially art-house ones) are very much available online. Some fantastic streaming destinations for French language films include:
TV5MONDE / TV5MONDEplus – Dedicated French language network with tons of cinema and series.
FilmMovement+ – Rich catalog of independent and international films.
The Criterion Channel – Curated classics and modern auteurs (many French).
Cohen Media Channel (on Amazon) – Boutique cinema, including French fare.
OviD – A dive into arthouse and world cinema gems.
You can even find French movies to stream for free on FrenchFlicks!
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