Overview
Each autumn, Australian movie lovers score a super-sized French treat: a feast of flicks hitting the big screen in cinemas around the country, all thanks to the Alliance Française French Film Festival. In 2025, the fest marks its 36th year. On the lineup: 42 pictures that span the breadth and depth of Gallic filmmaking. So, when you're not enjoying the latest version of the The Count of Monte Cristo, you'll be diving into France's newest black comedies, then plunging into French drama and seeing a restored masterpiece.
AFFFF revealed eight of 2025's films late in 2024; now, however, arrives the full 42-title program. To venture to Paris and beyond from your cinema seat, you'll be heading along in March and April around Australia. Kicking off the fest: opening night's Tahar Rahim (Madame Web)-starring Monsieur Aznavour, about singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour — which has been doing big business in France, selling 1.8-million-plus tickets.
If you're in Sydney, the fun starts on Tuesday, March 4. Melbourne's season launches the following day, then Brisbane and Canberra the day after that — and Byron Bay the day following. Perth's stint arrives the next week, while Adelaide gets into the action the week afterwards and the Gold Coast joins in another week later.
There's more locations on the roster, too. Already the largest celebration of French cinema outside of France itself, AFFFF is even bigger in 2025, hitting up 18 cities — and adding five new locations, in Darwin, Ballina, Ballarat, Warriewood and Warrawong, to its slate. Across its full run, the festival is set to host 5500-plus screenings.
After Monsieur Aznavour gets the 2025 event started, the highlights keep coming, right through to closing night's rom-com In the Sub for Love. The aforementioned The Count of Monte Cristo features Pierre Niney (The Book of Solutions) in the lead and takes AFFFF's centrepiece slot, while Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 great Army of Shadows arrives in 4K Down Under after premiering its restored version at Cannes 2024. Or, catch a 50-years-later remake of Emmanuelle, this time starring Noémie Merlant (Lee) and Naomi Watts (Feud), with Audrey Diwan (Happening) directing — or see Mélanie Laurent (Freedom) and Guillaume Canet (All-Time High) portraying Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI in their final days in The Deluge.
Plus, Meet the Leroys is a road-trip dramedy that marks Charlotte Gainsbourg's (Alphonse) latest film, while Prodigies delivers a tale of sibling rivalry with Emily in Paris' Camille Razat. Viewers can also look forward to The Divine Sarah Bernhardt, with Sandrine Kiberlain (Meet the Barbarians) as the eponymous actor; All Stirred Up, a comedy focusing on a customs officer on the border between Quebec and the United States, plus her daughter's attempts to win a cooking contest; and Riviera Revenge, where an affair almost four decade prior sparks a quest for vengeance in the French Riviera.
Elsewhere, How to Make a Killing features regular AFFFF face and Call My Agent favourite Laure Calamy (The Origin of Evil), as does My Everything; Louis Garrel and Vincent Cassel (co-stars in the 2024 festival's The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady) team up in Saint-Ex, about Argentinian pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; When Fall Is Coming is the latest from acclaimed director François Ozon (The Crime Is Mine); and nonagenarian filmmaker Costa-Gavras (Adults in the Room) delivers the personal Before What Comes After.
Or, get excited Beating Hearts, which is helmed by Gilles Lellouche (Sink or Swim), stars Adèle Exarchopoulos (Inside Out 2) and François Civil (The Three Musketeers), and played at Cannes International Film Festival 2024 — as did the music-loving My Brother's Band from The Big Hit writer/director Emmanuel Courcol. Also in the Cannes contingent are a range of movies exploring the stories of a courier facing a interview to obtain residency, plus artist Niki de Saint-Phalle, a midlife crisis, pastoral France and being a teenager amid Corsican gang politics, aka The Story of Souleymane, Niki, This Life of Mine, Holy Cow and The Kingdom.
The lineup goes on — and so do your reasons to lock in more than a few French movie dates.
Alliance Française French Film Festival 2025 Dates
Tuesday, March 4–Wednesday, April 9 — Palace Central, Palace Norton Street, Chauvel Cinema, Palace Moore Park, Hayden Orpheum Cremorne, Roseville Cinemas, Warriewood, Sydney
Wednesday, March 5–Wednesday, April 9 — Palace Cinema Como, The Kino, Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Westgarth, Pentridge Cinema,The Astor Theatre, Palace Penny Lane, Palace Regent Ballarat, Melbourne
Thursday, March 6–Tuesday, April 8 — Palace Cinema James Street, Palace Cinema Barracks, Brisbane
Thursday, March 6–Wednesday, April 9 — Palace Electric Cinemas, Canberra
Friday, March 7–Wednesday, April 2 — Palace Byron Bay, Byron Bay
Thursday, March 13–Wednesday, April 16 — Palace Raine Square, Luna on SX, Luna Leedeerville, Windsor Cinema, Perth
Wednesday, March 19–Wednesday, April 23 — Palace Nova Prospect Cinemas, Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, Adelaide
Tuesday, March 25–Tuesday, April 15 — Dendy Southport, Gold Coast
The Alliance Française French Film Festival tours Australia in March and April 2025. For more information and tickets, visit the AFFFF website.