Classic French Cinema Discussion Thread

I haven't seen as many French movies as I probably should, but this is my favorite. It drags a bit here and there, but Moreau walking sullenly along the streets is beautifully moody.

Me too I think.
In fact the only years where an English language film is NOT my number 1, the top spot is French - as I recall:

The Wages of Fear (1953)
A Very Long Engagement (2004)

1955 has 2 French in my top 5 -

Rififi
Diabolique

As does 1986 -

Jean de Florette
Manon of the Spring

Hi there  Aj_June thanks a very interesting thread developing...

 Jean Grémillon
"The grandeur, the meaning, the significance of French cinema are finely and profoundly rooted in realism." 
Highly recommended are the excellent films of Jean Grémillon .  One of the many masterful French directors, a multi talented artist, he was also an accomplished musician, painter, and documentarian. Grémillon further developed and influenced the poetic realist movement with his unique and original craftsmanship, he had a precise and imaginative observation of place and character.  Producing many outstanding dramas which include some of the key films of the Occupation, he had a cinematic career that spanned thirty-five years. Grémillon's films reflect his own view of French realism, rejecting what he termed "mechanical naturalism"  expanding further he said of his filmmaking style,
"the discovery of that subtlety which the human eye does not perceive directly but which must be shown by establishing the harmonies, the unknown relations, between objects and beings; it is a vivifying, inexhaustible source of images that strike our imaginations and enchant our hearts"...
pictured L'étrange Monsieur Victor (1938)
        

Le Grand Jeu  (1934) was directed by Jacques Feyder It was co-written by Charles Spaak who is widely acclaimed particularly for his work in one of the French cinema's richest periods  during the 1930s. His screenplays are marked by a concern for realistic detail with sharply written dialogue, and are often fatalistic in tone. 
 Le Grand Jeu is an excellent romantic drama set in the colonial world of French North Africa and set against the background of the French Foreign Legion.  The marvellous film is a captivating early example of poetic realism in French cinema, it is a key film that defined a characteristically French mood of romantic despair, a mood shared by many classics that followed, such as Pépé le Moko, Hôtel du Nord, Le Quai des brumes, and Le jour se lève. 
                            

Of course!

The Bride Wore Black (1968)