RANKING – It has been ten years since no French film crossed this symbolic limit.
There you have it, it’s done. After a promising start that suggested the best, Artus’ film A little something extra crossed the ten million admissions mark this week. Joining the very select club of Visitorsd’Untouchablesd’Asterix Mission Cleopatra…
But also of the Little World of Don Camillo released in 1952, The Great Illusiona huge success in 1937. French or subtle comedies which all benefited from the dual support of critics and the public. The Figaro invites you to rediscover the ten most popular ones.
10 – Les Bronzés 3, friends for life : 10.4 million admissions
Even though it is not the finest of the triptych, The Bronzed 3, theatrical release on February 1, 2006, was crowned by the public, too happy to find 27 years after the first opus, Jean-Claude Dus, Gigi, Nathalie, the whole gang reunited in Sardinia in a superb hotel run by Popeye who promised them that they would not pay anything. If the scenario is a little weak and some gags heavy-handed, the pleasure is to see them all again, for the last time.
9 – The Corniauds : 11,7 millions
A rigged Cadillac goes from Naples to Carcassonne, driven by a naive man and watched by operetta gangsters. It loses almost all the contraband it was hiding along the way. This is roughly the plot of the Corniaud. The naive one is of course Bourvil. The bad guy, Louis de Funès. They travel together without really wanting to. “Adventure is joyful” approves the writer Louis Chauvet in our pages. The France of 1965, that of Pompidou, of the miniskirt, of the inauguration of the Mont-Blanc tunnel, is having fun and applauding, eleven million tickets are sold in six months.
8 – What have we done to the good Lord? : 12,3 millions
In the Verneuil family, a provincial, bourgeois and Catholic family, three of the four daughters are married to men who are not part of the inner circle. When the fourth wants to introduce them to her fiancé, Charles, the Verneuil parents (Chantal Lauby and Christian Clavier) begin to hope… Released in April 2014, Philippe Chauveron’s comedy is “well written, well done, well acted“, greets our journalist Jean-Christophe Buisson. In June 2014, more than ten million spectators had already laughed at the tasty dialogues of this good-natured vaudeville, a bit “daring” according to Release who still approves.
7 – The Great Illusion : 12,5 millions
During the First World War, in a camp in Germany, a group of French prisoners, including the aristocrat Captain de Boëldieu, the foreman Maréchal and the banker of Jewish origin Rosenthal, prepare their escape… The Great Illusion, Jean Renoir’s film released in 1937, has a crazy story. The first foreign film to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture in 1939, it was stolen by the Nazis in 1944 and did not reappear at the Toulouse cinematheque until the early 1980s. In the meantime, Renoir spent years trying to reconstruct it.
6 – The Little World of Don Camillo : 12,8 millions
Although he initially refused to take it on – asking for a higher fee than usual – Fernandel would say of the role of don Camillo that he was «the one of [s]for life”. In the film released in 1952 by Julien Duvivier as in the book by Giovannino Guareschi, the priest confronts (but kindly) Peponne, the communist mayor of Brescello, a city in the North of Italy. The joy, the humor, the quality of the dialogues written by René Barjavel immediately catch the audience. Five sequels will see the light of day, Fernandel will die before the completion of the sixth.
5 – The Visitors : 13,7 millions
On January 29, 1993, Claude Baignières, critic in Figarolooks perplexed. He has just seen The Visitorsthe new film by Jean-Marie Poiré, and talks about it as a “good big joke” at the end of which “we remain hungry.” Our journalist’s relative disappointment will be little shared. The film attracts many spectators in theaters, rises to the top of the 1993 charts, is nominated eight times at the 19th César ceremony, and carves out a place in the national imagination. Poiré and Clavier will let themselves be carried away by the success, to the point of writing a second and then a third opus described as “shit» by our culture department.
Visitors by Jean-Marie Poire with Jean Reno and Christian Clavier 1992 Jérôme Prebois / Bridgeman Images
4 – Asterix and Obelix Mission Cleopatra : 14,3 millions
There have been several Asterix and Obelix. Some forgettable ones like Asterix at the Olympic Games or Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. A nice one: Asterix and Obelix against Caesar. And a “little marvel of balance» according to our journalist Olivier Delcroix: Asterix and Obelix Mission Cleopatra released in 2002. Featuring a five-star cast (Depardieu, Clavier, Bellucci, Debbouze, Darmon, Baer), Alain Chabat’s film accumulates gags, including Otis’ monologue and Caius Céplus’ dream, which are references for a generation.
Édouard Baer, Gérard Depardieu, Claude Rich and Jamel Debouzze © George Etienne / Bridgeman Images
3 – The Great Stroll : 17,3 millions
“I wanted to ask you. How do you find me, physically?” ; “Don’t look, don’t look, he’s spying on us, let’s not look like we’re doing anything” ; “It wasn’t bad, it was very bad!”
The cult lines from Gérard Oury’s film have survived the 58 years since its theatrical release on December 8, 1966. The comedy, which reunites Bourvil and Louis de Funès after The Corniaudswill perhaps be showered by the Cinema Notebooks who denounce “gags as old as Nebuchadnezzar, called in a quarter of an hour in advance: very stupid Teutons, ruddy faces” but until 2008 and the release of Welcome to the Ch’tis of Dany Boonit was the most seen of French feature films.
2 – Untouchables : 19,4 millions
Inspired by the friendship between the quadriplegic aristocrat Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and his “guardian devil”Abdel Yasmin Sellou, Untouchables is a year after its release in 2011, has become the most viewed French film abroad, dethroning The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain. In 2017, an American version with Nicole Kidman, Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart will even see the light of day. In France, two million people saw it in theaters in the space of two weeks. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a French comedy of this quality!” exclaims the writer Anthony Palou in our pages.
In 2017, an American version of Intouchables with Nicole Kidman, Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart will even see the light of day.
1 – Welcome to the Ch’tis : 20,4 millions
Punished for lying to the HR director of La Poste, the head of the Salon-de-Provence agency is transferred to Bergues. For this lover of pastis and sunshine, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, with its rustic inhabitants, its inaudible dialect and its polar climate, is a region close to hell. Released in 2008, Dany Boon’s film is the biggest popular success in French cinema. Not having seen it is today a quick way to stand out in a conversation.
