If you’re swooning for Paris while watching the Summer Olympics, these movies will make you want to go there even more.
Have you watched the Opening Ceremony for Paris 2024? Between the singing disembodied Marie Antoinette heads, the accidentally queer Last Supper, the upside-down Olympic flag, and the rousing Celine Dion comeback, it was chaotic and magnificent all at once. I meaaaan! If you watched the whole lead-up to Celine’s performance without bursting into tears by the final note, then you need therapy. Between Celine’s post-Stiff Person Syndrome power ballad and Simone Biles’ post-”twisties” gold medal run, Paris 2024 has officially become the Summer Olympics with the most comebacks made by people with fake-sounding diseases.
Even if you didn’t cry during Celine’s performance (and again, how could you not, you soulless monster), you probably felt another understandable sensation: An insatiable need for baguettes. After all, the Opening Ceremony was more than a spectacle – it was a celebration of France. Amid sweeping views of Paris landmarks, the telecast featured videos and performances that highlighted the fashion, values, history, and traditions of a country that has seduced and mystified the world. The goal, unspoken but still clear, was to make you book a ticket to Paris ASAP.
It made me think of some other cultural products that have contributed to France’s “soft power” in the international tourism industry. Ironically, my brainstorm didn’t turn up many movies made by actual French people. French-made movies set in Paris tend to dwell on the city’s unsavory aspects; think 1960’s Breathless, or 2019’s crime drama Les Misérables. In other words, they don’t make you want to go. Still, Paris is internationally famous for a reason, and the following five movies spotlight its facets that appeal most to you and me (a.k.a. non-Parisians, a.k.a. culturally bereft Neanderthals).
The Paris of Amélie is a lot glossier than the real thing – especially with regards to the titular character’s Montmartre neighborhood. That said, both Amélie and Montmartre have views and whimsical residents to spare, and this unabashedly romantic movie will make you want to experience them yourself. I’ll always remember the moment when an old woman at a Montmartre restaurant squeezed my cheek, clicked her tongue, and told me I had a punchable face. I think something was lost in translation.
This anthology is actually a collection of 18 shorts, with each one set in one of Paris’ 20 arrondissements, or districts. Directed by a range of French and international directors, the movie whisks you from Paris’s glamorous center to its dusty fringes, introducing you to scoundrels and poets along the way. There are some famous faces in the mix: Natalie Portman, Elijah Wood, Willem Dafoe. Still, its most relatable – and FOMO-inducing – short may be its last one, in which Character Actress Margo Martindale embarks upon a touching, life-changing journey through Paris. Her broken, clumsy French will inspire you to not just buy a plane ticket, but buy a French lesson on iTalki.
Though the Before trilogy’s talkiness does not usually appeal to people with my level of ADHD-adjacentness, I miraculously focused for an entire one hour and twenty minutes in order to watch this Before Sunrise sequel on DVD. (Remember when DVDs were a thing?) Anyway, this movie made me want to fall in love in Paris before I could vote. Though Before Sunset doesn’t shy away from Paris’s realities – homelessness, pointlessly long walks – it still makes you swoon. And practice your table manners. (Because you already booked your flight to Paris after the second movie on this list and don’t want to embarrass yourself when you get there.)
The less said about this movie’s director the better (it’s Woody Allen), but we shouldn’t let the sins of the man detract from the fine work of his cast and crew. Nor should we cancel every movie that was ever made by a terrible person; otherwise, there’d be five movies left. In any case, I’d like to separate the art from the artist here, because Midnight in Paris perfectly captures the hypnotic effect that this city can have on tourists. As it follows Owen Wilson’s unserious writer on an epic time-traveling adventure through the City of Light, it sells a Paris that gleams with art, fulfillment, and inspiration.
The music! The promise of fine cuisine! The young love! This movie has everything that non-French people have come to associate with Paris, plus a talking rat. Of course, by this point, you’ve probably already booked your Paris ticket, but Ratatouille will seal the deal if you’re a straggler.
