By the early 1900s, French cinema led globally, with pioneers like Méliès creating cinematic techniques and the first sci-fi film, A Trip to the Moon (1902).

From the 1940s to the 1970s, French cinema flourished with the advent of the New Wave, led by critics-turned-directors like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, producing groundbreaking films such as Breathless (1960) and The 400 Blows (1959).

France was able to produce several major box office successes into the 1990s such as Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), while certain film like La Femme Nikita (1990) and The Fifth Element (1997) reached an international audience.

In 2013, France was the second largest exporter of films in the world after the United States, and a 2014 study showed that French cinema was the most appreciated by global audiences after that of the US.

[6] Les frères Lumière released the first projection with the Cinematograph, in Paris on 28 December 1895, with first public showing in the Eden Theatre, La Ciotat.

Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinématographe and their L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat in Paris in 1895 is considered by many historians as the official birth of cinematography.

[9] Méliès invented many of the techniques of cinematic grammar, and among his fantastic, surreal short subjects is the first science fiction film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) in 1902.

Other notable films of the 1930s included René Clair's Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Jean Vigo's L'Atalante (1934), Jacques Feyder's Carnival in Flanders (1935), and Julien Duvivier's La belle equipe (1936).

Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise) was filmed during World War II and released in 1945.

Several of the Cahiers critics, including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Éric Rohmer, went on to make films themselves, creating what was to become known as the French New Wave.

The war comedy La Grande Vadrouille (1966), from Gérard Oury with Bourvil, de Funès and Terry-Thomas, was the most successful film in French theaters for more than 30 years.

Popular actors of the period included Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo and still Jean Gabin.

Since the Sixties and the early Seventies they are completed and followed by Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret as character actors, Annie Girardot, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, Isabelle Huppert, Anny Duperey, Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Miou-Miou, Brigitte Fossey, Stéphane Audran and Isabelle Adjani.

During the Eightees they are added by a new generation including Sophie Marceau, Emmanuelle Béart, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Sabine Azema, Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil.

Chabrol continues his vivisection of the bourgeoisie (The Unfaithful Wife) and Truffaut explores the possibility of bourgeois marital happiness (Bed and Board).

Other directors of the 1970s in this effect are Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Sautet, Eric Rohmer, Claude Lelouch, Georges Lautner, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Michel Deville Yves Boisset, Maurice Pialat, Bertrand Blier, Coline Serreau and André Téchiné in purely entertainment films, it is Gérard Oury and Édouard Molinaro.

The 1979 film La Cage aux Folles ran for well over a year at the Paris Theatre, an arthouse cinema in New York City, and was a commercial success at theaters throughout the country, in both urban and rural areas.

According to Raphaël Bassan, in his article «The Angel: Un météore dans le ciel de l'animation,» La Revue du cinéma, n° 393, avril 1984.

Indeed, in the film, the human may be viewed as a fetish object (for example, the doll hanging by a thread), with reference to Kafkaesque and Freudian theories on automata and the fear of man faced with something as complex as him.

Luc Besson made La Femme Nikita in 1990, a movie that inspired remakes in both United States and in Hong Kong.

In 1994, he also made Léon (starring Jean Reno and a young Natalie Portman), and in 1997 The Fifth Element, which became a cult favorite and launched the career of Milla Jovovich.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet made Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children (La Cité des enfants perdus), both of which featured a distinctly fantastical style.

Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film Hate (La Haine) received critical praise and made Vincent Cassel a star, and in 1997, Juliette Binoche won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The English Patient.

The success of Michel Ocelot's Kirikou and the Sorceress in 1998 rejuvenated the production of original feature-length animated films by such filmmakers as Jean-François Laguionie and Sylvain Chomet.

[12][13][14] In 2001, after a brief stint in Hollywood, Jean-Pierre Jeunet returned to France with Amélie (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) starring Audrey Tautou.

The 2000s also saw an increase in the number of individual competitive awards won by French artists at the Cannes Festival, for direction (Tony Gatlif, Exils, 2004), screenplay (Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri, Look at Me, 2004), female acting (Isabelle Huppert, The Piano Teacher, 2001; Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist, 2009) and male acting (Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila and Bernard Blancan, Days of Glory, 2006).

[27] In 2013, France was the second largest exporter of films in the world after the United States, and a 2014 study showed that French cinema was the most appreciated by global audiences after that of the US.

For example, the award-winning documentary In the Land of the Deaf (Le Pays des sourds), created by Nicolas Philibert in 1992, was co-produced by multinational partners, reducing the financial risks inherent in the project and ensuring enhanced distribution opportunities.