In 2008 French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma compiled a list of the 100 greatest films of all time. 76 people in the French industry were each asked to name their 100 best films. The list is notable for the absence of British made films such as Lawrence of Arabia and The Third Man.
- Citizen Kane – Orson Welles
- The Night of the Hunter – Charles Laughton
- The Rules of the Game (La Règle du jeu) – Jean Renoir
- Sunrise – Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
- L’Atalante – Jean Vigo
- M – Fritz Lang
- Singin’ in the Rain – Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
- Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock
- Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis) – Marcel Carné
- The Searchers – John Ford
- Greed – Erich von Stroheim
- Rio Bravo – Howard Hawkes
- To Be or Not to Be – Ernst Lubitsch
- Tokyo Story – Yasujiro Ozu
- Contempt (Le Mépris) – Jean-Luc Godard
- Tales of Ugetsu (Ugetsu monogatari) – Kenji Mizoguchi
- City Lights – Charlie Chaplin
- The General – Buster Keaton
- Nosferatu the Vampire – Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
- The Music Room – Satyajit Ray
- Freaks – Tod Browning
- Johnny Guitar – Nicholas Ray
- The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) – Jean Eustache
- The Great Dictator – Charlie Chaplin
- The Leopard (Le Guépard) – Luchino Visconti
- Hiroshima, My Love – Alain Resnais
- The Box of Pandora (Loulou) – Georg Wilhelm Pabst
- North by Northwest – Alfred Hitchcock
- Pickpocket – Robert Bresson
- Golden Helmet (Casque d’or) – Jacques Becker
- The Barefoot Contessa – Joseph Mankiewitz
- Moonfleet – Fritz Lang
- Diamond Earrings (Madame de…) – Max Ophüls
- Pleasure – Max Ophüls
- The Deer Hunter – Michael Cimino
- The Adventure – Michelangelo Antonioni
- Battleship Potemkin – Sergei M. Eisenstein
- Notorious – Alfred Hitchcock
- Ivan the Terrible – Sergei M. Eisenstein
- The Godfather – Francis Ford Coppola
- Touch of Evil – Orson Welles
- The Wind – Victor Sjöström
- 2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick
- Fanny and Alexander – Ingmar Bergman
- The Crowd – King Vidor
- 8 1/2 – Federico Fellini
- La Jetée – Chris Marker
- Pierrot le Fou – Jean-Luc Godard
- Confessions of a Cheat (Le Roman d’un tricheur) – Sacha Guitry
- Amarcord – Federico Fellini
51. Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) – Jean Cocteau
52. Some Like It Hot – Billy Wilder
53. Some Came Running – Vincente Minnelli
54. Gertrud – Carl Theodor Dreyer
55. King Kong – Ernst Shoedsack & Merian J. Cooper
56. Laura – Otto Preminger
57. The Seven Samurai – Akira Kurosawa
58. The 400 Blows – François Truffaut
59. La Dolce Vita – Federico Fellini
60. The Dead – John Huston
61. Trouble in Paradise – Ernst Lubitsch
62. It’s a Wonderful Life – Frank Capra
63. Monsieur Verdoux – Charlie Chaplin
64. The Passion of Joan of Arc – Carl Theodor Dreyer
65. À bout de souffle – Jean-Luc Godard
66. Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola
67. Barry Lyndon – Stanley Kubrick
68. La Grande Illusion – Jean Renoir
69. Intolerance – David Wark Griffith
70. A Day in the Country (Partie de campagne) – Jean Renoir
71. Playtime – Jacques Tati
72. Rome, Open City – Roberto Rossellini
73. Livia (Senso) – Luchino Visconti
74. Modern Times – Charlie Chaplin
75. Van Gogh – Maurice Pialat
76. An Affair to Remember – Leo McCarey
77. Andrei Rublev – Andrei Tarkovsky
78. The Scarlet Empress – Joseph von Sternberg
79. Sansho the Bailiff – Kenji Mizoguchi
80. Talk to Her – Pedro Almodóvar
81. The Party – Blake Edwards
82. Tabu – Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
83. The Bandwagon – Vincente Minnelli
84. A Star Is Born – George Cukor
85. Mr. Hulot’s Holiday – Jacques Tati
86. America, America – Elia Kazan
87. El – Luis Buñuel
88. Kiss Me Deadly – Robert Aldrich
89. Once Upon a Time in America – Sergio Leone
90. Daybreak (Le Jour se lève) – Marcel Carné
91. Letter from an Unknown Woman – Max Ophüls
92. Lola – Jacques Demy
93. Manhattan – Woody Allen
94. Mulholland Dr. – David Lynch
95. My Night at Maud’s (Ma nuit chez Maud) – Eric Rohmer
96. Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard) – Alain Resnais
97. The Gold Rush – Charlie Chaplin
98. Scarface – Howard Hawks
99. Bicycle Thieves – Vittorio de Sica
100. Napoléon – Abel Gance