Prime Films Filmed within the South of France for These Seeking to Dream of a Getaway

The 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant formally closed Saturday with the anointing of newly minted Palme d’Or winner “It Was Simply an Accident.” The award thrust Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi right into a rarefied group of administrators to win high honors at Berlin, Cannes and Venice, the so-called “Large Three” worldwide movie festivals. (The others so honored, Henri-Georges Cluzot, Michelangelo Antonioni and Robert Altman, make for a circle of legendary good firm).

The prize ceremony marked the top of two weeks of celebrating the perfect in world cinema from one of the crucial beautiful locations on Earth, occasions most of us might solely watch from environs far much less glamorous than Cannes’ La Croisette. Even the fortunate few who did attend have doubtless disembarked to their extra humdrum hometowns.

Thank heavens, then, for good outdated film magic, which may convey the French Riviera dwelling with the press of a distant.

Most silver-screen sojourns to the area start with Alfred Hitchcock’s trés charmant 1955 traditional “To Catch a Thief.” And with good motive. Watching Cary Grant’s reformed larcenist John “The Cat” Robie try to clear his identify after a spate of latest seaside burglaries by no means grows outdated. His mission is intensified by a romantic pas-de-deux with American heiress Frances “Francie” Stevens, performed by Grace Kelly in her third, and remaining, flip as a Hitchcock blonde. Certain, there’s a twisty thriller concerned, nevertheless it principally serves as an excuse to marvel as Kelly, not but a princess however each bit display screen royalty, glides by means of the proceedings in a sequence of Edith Head costumes, together with a wonderful gold lamé quantity, bringing flinty élan to an heiress with extra mettle than first meets the attention.

However as soon as the credit roll on John and Francie’s Côte d’Azur courtship caper, worry not. Seems, the evergreen attraction of an attractive pure backdrop has led to a reasonably expansive movie library. And so, with the 2025 competition now over, these nonetheless seeking to ogle the surroundings can embark upon a cinematic tour of the South of France by watching these films:

“Two for the Street” (1967): {Couples} journeys. Generally they’re nice. Generally they’re fraught. By way of 4 pilgrimages to the French Riviera in Stanley Donen’s time-hopping melodrama, Audrey Hepburn’s Joanna and Albert Finney’s Mark meet, fall in love, honeymoon and collapse. Hepburn’s thorny efficiency veers away from her typical glowing ingenue presence towards one thing extra brittle (watching Holly Golightly restrain herself from cursing out a precocious, irritating youngster delights). Shedding her well-known onscreen Givenchy armor, Hepburn takes Joanna from Keds-wearing coed to Paco Rabanne-clad girl scorned. By no means has a celluloid marriage dissolved in prettier environment than on this movie, at turns charming, bittersweet and miserable.

“Beneath the Cherry Moon” (1986): How does the largest star on the planet observe up the success of his bespoke, box-office smash rock film musical? Why, with a story of star-crossed lovers set within the French Riviera, written by a screenwriter with no expertise and shot (in opposition to the studio’s needs) in black-and-white. His Purple Highness Prince performs soulful expat Christopher Tracy, layabout by day, pianist by night time and gigolo by later night time. He meets, snipes at and falls in love with Mary Sharon, a spoiled debutante (Saint-Tropez is awful with them, it appears), performed by Kristin Scott Thomas in a job initially supposed for Madonna. An unqualified bomb critically and financially, with hindsight, “Cherry Moon” is much less misunderstood masterpiece than a fantastic oddity that makes one lengthy for the times when pop-star aspect hustles tended towards audacious vainness initiatives fairly than magnificence manufacturers.

“La Piscine [Swimming Pool]” (1969): A seminal entry within the canon of “impossibly beautiful, stylish individuals are unfathomably depressing in a surprising setting” cinema. In Jacques Deray’s sun-drenched psycho-drama, Romy Schneider and Alain Delon play Marianne and Jean-Paul, a pair vacationing at an opulent villa close to Saint-Tropez. Their vacation bliss comes throughout extra as vacation existential unease, and that’s earlier than the arrival of a pair of interlopers — Marianne’s outdated flame Harry (Maurice Ronet) and his daughter Penelope (a lip-biting Jane Birkin). Outdated resentments simmer, new transgressions come to mild, and the titular swimming pool performs a crucial, climactic half. It’s all contrasted by among the finest collections of attractive swimwear to ever hit the display screen.

“Swimming Pool” (2003): A writer sends a novelist affected by author’s block to his nation dwelling within the South of France to reset. However is there sufficient wine in all of Provence to unwind a Brit as icy and buttoned-up as Charlotte Rampling’s Sarah Morton in François Ozon’s sharp, erotic thriller? Clad in tweeds, Rampling telegraphs the unsettled discomfort of a girl not naturally predisposed to enjoyable within the solar. Her Sarah struggles to complete her newest detective novel, and issues worsen with the arrival of an intruder, the writer’s daughter Julie (performed by a wild-eyed Ludivine Sagnier). Julie shortly embraces the native life-style of loud, passionate late-night imbroglios. In response, Sarah’s emotional state swings between consternation and compulsion as her solitary author’s retreat morphs right into a poolside battle of wills between stuffy dame and barely unhinged French gamine.

“Ronin” (1998): Certain, the South of France lures lovely individuals desirous to take pleasure in sunning, day consuming and looking out divine in a maillot. However it may additionally entice Russian gangsters, IRA operatives and many explosions. John Frankenheimer’s gritty heist flick is full of shifting loyalties, shady motives and never one, however two, figure-skating set items. Robert De Niro (who was this yr’s Cannes Honorary Palme d’Or recipient) performs Sam, an American mercenary member of a multinational crew making an attempt to swipe a Rimowa-esque suitcase from some closely armed goons. This happens at a relentless, ’90s-thriller, edge-of-your-seat tempo. Bonus factors, too, for the protagonist’s clear American pragmatism. Requested by a fellow conspirator if he lacks braveness, Sam bites again, “After all I’m afraid. You assume I’m reluctant as a result of I’m glad?”

“La Cage aux Folles” (1978): Life’s a drag for Saint-Tropez nightclub proprietor Renato Baldi (Ugo Tognazzi) and his longtime accomplice Albin Mougeotte, aka Zaza Napoli (Michel Serrault). However calamity lurks when Laurent, Renato’s spoiled-ingrate son, comes dwelling to announce his engagement, and that he has invited his fiancée and her dad and mom for a go to. Un problème: his dearly beloved’s father is a standard-bearer of the Custom, Household and Morality Occasion, which isn’t huge on males in fishnets, boas and pretend lashes. Laurent callously asks Albin to make himself scarce so Laurent’s estranged mom can step in for the night. However when Mommie Dearest will get caught in site visitors, Albin involves the rescue, donning frumpy drag to pose because the mater familias. Primarily based on the 1973 play of the identical identify, Édouard Molinaro’s crazy farce has had a protracted afterlife in Harvey Fierstein’s oft-restaged 1983 musical and the 1996 American remake, “The Birdcage.” Which fits to indicate that comedy is tragedy plus thigh-highs.

“Titane” (2021): Ah, the South of France. Beautiful. Luxurious. Sunny. Effectively, more often than not. By way of the twisted lens of Julia Ducournau, the usually idyllic locale curdles into one thing a lot darker. Set in and round Marseilles, this wild, bizarre physique horror movie facilities on the seemingly stoic Alexia (Agathe Rousselle). After a childhood auto accident leaves her with a titanium plate in her head, Alexia develops a love affair with automobiles. Actually. The movie is a remarkably auteur-y and clever supply mechanism for top — and extremely artistic — shock worth. Its ample guts and gore embody an ear-canal stabbing which will ship some viewers working. Happily for Ducournau, Spike Lee’s 2021 Cannes jury was fabricated from stronger stuff and awarded “Titane” the Palme d’Or. Ducournau’s follow-up, the AIDS allegory “Alpha,” premiered at this yr’s competition to an Eleven-plus-minute standing ovation and a raft of combined opinions. These ranged from “absolute knockout” to “unbearable misfire,” indicating a thorny, divisive departure from the clearly extra apparent attraction of a traditional “girl-does-car” story.

These movies every put a particular spin on the French Riviera — as does that the majority apparent, aforementioned traditional. “The Riviera,” ever splendorous. Excessive jewellery, ever tempting. Grace Kelly, ever enchanting. And Cary Grant, ever debonair, even in his character’s shameless clarification of his lifetime of crime: “Why did I take up stealing? To reside higher, to personal issues I couldn’t afford, to accumulate this good style…which I ought to be very reluctant to surrender.” Ah, the great life, Cannes fashion.