An author is talked into running for office in a remote country district her party is unlikely to win.  Videotaping her misadventures on the campaign trail are two hapless filmmakers with their own agendas.  Directed by Agnes Jaoui, Let It Rain has a 78 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

A petty criminal goes too far and is sentenced to hard time in a brutal French prison.  Behind bars, he is forced to work for the Corsican faction that runs the place but senses that their dominance may be waning and makes plans of his own. A film by Jacques Audiard, A Prophet was nominated for an Academy Award and has a 90 percent rating at Metacritic.

Bazil survives a shootout between gangs but is left unemployed and has a bullet lodged precariously in his skull.  When he identifies the arms manufacturers he holds responsible for his injuries and the death of his father years earlier from a landmine, he plots revenge, Yojimbo style, with some unusually talented friends.  A film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Micmacs has a 73 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

Growing up in postwar France, Maxime has always suspected that his family history is somehow incomplete.  A casual conversation with a neighbor one day turns his life upside down; he learns that his last name was changed, that his father was previously married and that he had a brother he never knew.  A film by Claude Miller, A Secret was nominated for a number of awards and has a 72 percent rating at Metacritic.

A young woman is sent to a small town to teach school for a year.  A chance encounter with the father of one of her students exposes repressed emotions neither can afford to indulge in.  A contemporary French reworking of a classic British film, Mademoiselle Chambon stars Sandrine Kiberlain and has an 83 percent rating at Metacritic.

Like many French youth, Jeanne is educated but unemployed; she spends her time rollerblading through her Paris suburb, listening to her iPod, going nowhere in particular. One day she comes home with cuts and bruises, saying she's been the victim of a hate crime; a national uproar ensues, but friends and family begin to doubt her story.  Directed by Andre Techine, The Girl On The Train stars Catherine Deneuve and has a 79 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes.