Best French Revolution Movies & TV Shows

Live from ROH 1985. Giordano's Andrea Chenier is one of the greatest of verismo operas, full of heart-stopping big tunes and powerful emotional situations. If it is not as well-known as it should be, it is because in summary it sounds a little too like Puccini's Tosca: there is a tussle between political opponents over a woman, an attempt to save a condemned man, a tenor aria about writing poetry on the eve of execution. The difference is that Gerard (Giorgio Zancanaro) is not a villain like Scarpia, he is an idealist whom the French Revolution has betrayed as much as it has his rival the poet Chenier (Placido Domingo). His temptation to abuse his power to seduce the virtuous Maddalena (Anna Tomowa-Sintow) is a momentary one, though its consequences are terrible. There is a streak of post-Wagnerian decadence in much of this--Maddalena is at least as much in love with death as she is with Chenier, and the final love duet has a deeply sinister aspect. -- From Amazon.co.uk

In the thick of the French Revolution, members of the so-called lower classes are rising up to fight inequality. Meanwhile, Richter Belmont senses a far grimmer and greater danger. He's picked up his family's long-held tradition of vampire hunting, a vocation that goes back almost as long as a vampiric life span (in other words, forever) but he's never seen anything quite like what he's witnessing now.

Hornblower and his comrades come under the command of a revered but mentally unstable captain and are forced to mutiny in order to save their ship, the HMS Renown.

When lovely and virtuous governess Henriette Deluzy comes to educate the children of the debonair Duc de Praslin, a royal subject to King Louis-Philippe and the husband of the volatile and obsessive Duchesse de Praslin, she instantly incurs the wrath of her mistress, who is insanely jealous of anyone who comes near her estranged husband. Though she saves the duchess's little son from a near-death illness and warms herself to all the children, she is nevertheless dismissed by the vengeful duchess. Meanwhile, the attraction between the duke and Henriette continues to grow, eventually leading to tragedy.

A history of the French Revolution from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. The first part of the movie tells the story from 1789 until August 10, 1792 (when the King Louis XVI lost all his authority and was put in prison). The second part carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794, including the deaths by guillotine of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Danton, and Desmoulins.

An adaptation of the successful stage musical based on Victor Hugo's classic novel set in 19th-century France, in which a paroled prisoner named Jean Valjean seeks redemption.

This was a very human account of the lives and deaths of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI focusing primarily on Marie. It is an account of their lives from birth to death and the circumstances leading to the downfall of the French monarchy.

A revolutionary leader romances a French aristocrat in Louisiana.

Hosted by Orson Welles, this documentary utilizes a grab bag of dramatized scenes, stock footage, TV news clips and interviews to ask: Did 16th century French astrologer and physician Nostradamus actually predict such events as the fall of King Louis XVI, the rise of Napoleon, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? And are there prophecies that have yet to come true?

Norfolk, England, 1770. The nephew of an innkeeper and the son of a reverend maintain a very close friendship until, after living a great adventure, they must separate their paths. The former will head his footsteps to London and bound his destiny to Lloyd's, a thriving insurance company; the latter will eventually become one of the greatest heroes in the history of the British Empire.

Admiral Pellew interrupts Hornblower's wedding reception and tasks him to locate a British ship which has disappeared off the French coast, where Napoleon's troops are engaged in covert activities.

Jean Valjean, a Frenchman imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a police officer named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

A nobleman with a literary flair, the Marquis de Sade lives in a madhouse where a beautiful laundry maid smuggles his erotic stories to a printer, defying orders from the asylum's resident priest. The titillating passages whip all of France into a sexual frenzy, until a fiercely conservative doctor tries to put an end to the fun.

Set in 19th-century New York, this mystery begins when a Frenchwoman shows up at the home of one of Napoleon's former marshals. The alcoholic man is badly crippled and slowly dying, but this doesn't stop the forthright lady from pushing him to change his will to include his estranged grandson so that he can help out the struggling French Republic. Unfortunately, the dying man's conniving housekeeper and butler, already planning murder to get the money themselves, overhear her and begin plotting her demise.

In 18th-century France, a young man masquerades as an actor to avenge his friend's murder.

A law student becomes an outlaw French revolutionary when he decides to avenge the unjust killing of his friend. To get close to the aristocrat who has killed his friend, the student adopts the identity of Scaramouche the clown.

A masterful soldier, tactician and statesmen, Napoleon Bonaparte's courage and love for his country sees him rise from an unpaid general consumed with ambition to the most powerful man in Europe, then his fall, and exile.

Documentary presented by Professor Simon Schaffer which charts the amazing and untold story of automata - extraordinary clockwork machines designed hundreds of years ago to mimic and recreate life. The film brings the past to life in vivid detail as we see how and why these masterpieces were built. Travelling around Europe, Simon uncovers the history of these machines and shows us some of the most spectacular examples, from an entire working automaton city to a small boy who can be programmed to write and even a device that can play chess. All the machines Simon visits show a level of technical sophistication and ambition that still amazes today.

18th century English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life. He appears to be merely the effete aristocrat, but in reality is part of an underground effort to free French nobles from Robespierre's Reign of Terror.

During the French Revolution, a mysterious English nobleman known only as The Scarlet Pimpernel (a humble wayside flower), snatches French aristos from the jaws of the guillotine, while posing as the foppish Sir Percy Blakeney in society. Percy falls for and marries the beautiful actress Marguerite St. Just, but she is involved with Chauvelin and Robespierre, and Percy's marriage to her may endanger the Pimpernel's plans to save the little Dauphin

France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.

The French Revolution, 1794. The Marquis de Lafayette asks Charles D'Aubigny to infiltrate the Jacobin Party to overthrow Maximilian Robespierre, who, after gaining supreme power and establishing a reign of terror ruled by death, now intends to become the dictator of France.

Jean Valjean, convicted of stealing bread, is hounded for decades by the relentless and cruel policeman Javert.

British barrister Sydney Carton lives an insubstantial and unhappy life. He falls under the spell of Lucie Manette, but Lucie marries Charles Darnay. When Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned family retainer, he becomes entangled in the snares of the brutal French Revolution and is himself jailed and condemned to the guillotine. But Sydney Carton, in love with a woman he cannot have, comes up with a daring plan to save her husband.

A guide to human history through its most audacious power grabs. From Julius Caesar to Napoleon; from Mussolini to the strongmen of the present day - we see how the world we know has been shaped by those who dream big.

An uproarious version of history that proves nothing is sacred – not even the Roman Empire, the French Revolution and the Spanish Inquisition.

The exciting story of Dr. Manette, who escapes the horrors of the infamous Bastille prison in Paris. The action switches between London and Paris on the eve of the revolution where we witness 'the best of times and the worst of times' - love, hope, the uncaring French Aristocrats and the terror of a revolutionary citizen's army intent on exacting revenge.

A retelling of France's iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette, from her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at 15 to her reign as queen at 19 and ultimately the fall of Versailles.

Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well; first, the journey proves more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food.

In Marseilles, France in 1794, Desiree Clary, a young millinery clerk, becomes infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte, but winds up wedding Genaral Jean-Baptiste Berandotte, an aid to Napoleon who later joins the forces that bring about the Emperor's downfall. Josephine Beauharnais, a worldly courtesan marries Napoleon and becomes Empress of France, but is then cast aside by her spouse when she proves unable to produce an heir to the throne.

The time of the French revolution, and Citizen Robespierre is beheading the French aristocracy. When word gets to England, two noblemen, Sir Rodney Ffing and Lord Darcy Pue take it upon themselves to aid their French counterparts. Sir Rodney is a master of disguise, and becomes "The Black Fingernail", scourge of Camembert and Bidet, leaders of the French secret police.

The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Bologne rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with an ill-fated love affair and a falling out with Marie Antoinette and her court. Inspired by the incredible true story of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

This film covers the last years of the Emperor's life, imprisoned by the British on St Helena, a remote island off the west coast of Africa. Napoleon retains a loyal entourage of officers who help him plot his escape and evade the attentions of the island's overzealous governor, Sir Hudson Lowe.

The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.

Dangerous Exile is a 1957 British historical drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Louis Jourdan, Belinda Lee, Anne Heywood and Richard O'Sullivan. It concerns the fate of Louis XVII, who died in 1795 as a boy, yet was popularly believed to have escaped from his French revolutionary captors.

In Charenton Asylum, the Marquis de Sade directs a play about Jean Paul Marat's death, using the patients as actors. Based on 'The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.

A British aristocrat goes in disguise to France to rescue people from The Terror of the guillotine.

An account of the adventures of two sets of identical twins, badly scrambled at birth, on the eve of the French Revolution. One set is haughty and aristocratic, the other poor and somewhat dim. They find themselves involved in palace intrigues as history happens around them. Based, very loosely, on Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities," Dumas's "The Corsican Brothers," etc.

In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee Of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Zizek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp. The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the Committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic.

Dissolute barrister Sydney Carton becomes enchanted and then hopelessly in love with the beautiful Lucie Manette. But Lucie loves and marries Charles Darnay, and remains oblivious to Carton's undimmed devotion to her. When Darnay is ensnared in the deadly web of the French Revolution and condemned to die by the guillotine, Sydney Carton concocts a dangerous plot to free the husband of the woman he loves.

In pre-Revolutionary France, a young aristocratic woman left penniless by the political unrest in the country, must avenge her family's fall from grace by scheming to steal a priceless necklace.

A music promoter sends a young woman on a road trip in search of a band who hasn't been showing up for their gigs.

Lady Hamilton's love affair with Admiral Horatio Nelson rocks the British Empire.

Jeannette Vaubernier, an impulsive shopgirl en route to deliver a hat, dreams of luxury and position as she saunters through the woods, and attracted by a pool of water, she disrobes and plunges in. Cosse de Brissac, a handsome private in the King's Guards, comes to her rescue and they become sweethearts. Meanwhile, Jean Du Barry, a shrewd roué, takes note of her at the millinery shop and tricks her into staying at La Gourda's, where she soon becomes a favorite among the men.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an unstable but brilliant poet, becomes friends with the unknown William Wordsworth, and together they set out to recreate English poetry in the spirt of liberty and democracy. As time goes by, cracks begin to appear in the relationship. Sam becomes addicted to opium, while William's ego and ambition distance him further from his friend.

His wife having recently died, Thomas Jefferson accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, though he finds it difficult to adjust to life in a country where the aristocracy subjugates an increasingly restless peasantry. In Paris, he becomes smitten with cultured artist Maria Cosway, but, when his daughter visits from Virginia accompanied by her attractive slave, Sally Hemings, Jefferson's attentions are diverted.

Two brothers who can feel each others' pain and pleasure mess up the French revolution.

A condensed silent film version of the Charles Dickens classic about the French Revolution and its subsequent Reign of Terror.

1815. A soldier becomes the governor of St. Helena and jailer of Napoleon

France, 1803: 11 years after the Revolution, a royalist underground is led by a new 'Scarlet Pimpernel', the Purple Mask, who rescues nobles in distress and kidnaps Napoleon's officials for ransom, aided by the spy services of a group of lovely models headed by Laurette (really the Duc de Latour's daughter). But even she doesn't know the Purple Mask's real identity as foppish dancing master Rene...