I like Italian films by the likes of Leone and Bertolucci and I've enjoyed the eastern European films I've seen, but from the plot synopsis of a lot of French films they seem kind of shallow, like Band of Outsiders. I think it might be the fact that the nouvelle vague directors are the ones constantly in the spotlight with French cinema, but are there any French films on the scale and emotional level of movies like Once Upon a Time in America? Are there any big French directors out there to compare to the likes of auteurs like Luchino Visconti?

Jean Renoir

the films of Robert Bresson, Louis Malle

Nope.

Does The Transporter count?

You're kidding, right?

Emotional scale? BLUE comes to mind...

Is this a joke?

Egads.

Haha.

nouvelle vague?

Bertolucci? France is probably the leading country in the world in grand cinema.

The City of Lost Children?

The Triplettes of Belleville?

Oh. My. God.

Sorry, but my mind boggles at the question. If you think that France is devoid of great cinema, then you ain't seen much French cinema.

I think a lot of you misread what I was talking about. I'm not knocking French cinema. I'm not very familiar with French cinema at all and I want to dig into it, but from what I've read a lot of them sound very much like Italian neo-realism films and I'm looking for something more different than that kind of cinema, something that isn't the "poster boy" of French cinema like Godard.

I was just saying that my taste in films is more for bigger movies nowadays and I'm looking for something on the level of the more deep, complex Italian films than something that's like neo-realism and I don't want to start out with a short, quickie of a French film. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just my current taste in movies right now. Yeah, "shallow" was the wrong thing to say I admit :-X

I didn't mean to come off sounding ignorant or opinionated if I did.

La Grand Illusion, Passion of Joan of Arc....

France has been the epicenter of art/science the longest since medieval times; celluloid is just another medium to project it.
My two favorite nations that produced film are France and Germany, simply greatness.

New Wave is Nouvelle Vague in French. That's actually kinda funny.

Deep and complex are in the eye of the beholder, but if you want grand and spectacular, check out Les Enfants du Paradis.

That was from Canada.

Jeunet's Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004) -War, Romance, Mystery-An epic love story.

No it wasn't.