An Ideal FatherMovies like An Ideal Father
- Key Features:
- Wrongful accusation, Small town secrets, Murder investigation, Distrust, Loss of innocence, Parental grief, Social isolation, Psychological thriller, Paranoia
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Fans of crime thrillers, Viewers interested in social commentary, People who enjoy suspenseful dramas, Those who appreciate character-driven narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Trust → Suspicion → Despair
An Ideal Father

Michel, the jovial owner of the only café in a small Normandy town, sees his life turned upside down when his teenage daughter is murdered. The community has his back but soon rumor spreads and Michel is singled out. From the ideal father, he becomes the ideal culprit.
An Ideal Father
A cop investigates whether the man convicted of murdering his daughter is really guilty.

When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.

In a small Breton town, a 10-year-old girl is found murdered. René, her art teacher, a professional painter, is the last person to have seen her alive. The inspector in charge of the investigation immediately questions him. In this small provincial town where people all know each other and regularly meet at the Bar des Amis, René is increasingly unsettled by the other inhabitants' suspicions and by the inspector's investigation. Children stop coming to him for lessons. His wife, Viviane, a district nurse, protects him and supports him with her love. However, a self-centred media-star writer adds to René's confusion...

Investigates the corrupt judicial system under which Alain Mar'caux and his wife Edith were arrested on accusations of pedophilia horrific acts they never committed- and the years he spent fighting to get out of prison, clear his name and keep his family.

Gerard is tired of being taken for a good apple by his beautiful family. He leaves everything and starts a garage in a village nestled at the bottom of the Gâtinais ... In front of the garage, there is a lovely inn, run by Barbara: a beautiful woman, disconcerting, mysterious, unpredictable. Their encounter will spark ...

Alexandre finds out his wife Juliette is cheating on him. They quarrel with each over, Juliette runs away during the night, and has a fatal fall. The next day, torrential rain have taken her body away. The police force is investigating and Patrick, Juliette's father, shows up to find out what happened. Fearing to be charged, Alexandre convinces his 18 years old daughter Lison to cover him. But his lies make things worse, and Patrick has doubts about him. It's the beginning of a dreadful chain of events.

A French man spies on a lovely younger woman across the way. When he's spotted by the woman shortly after being questioned by the police about a local murder, the man's simple life becomes more complicated.

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

A divorced teacher suddenly becomes jealous of everyone, including her daughter, friends and neighbors.

Grégoire Canvel has everything a man could want. A wife he loves, three delightful children and a stimulating job. He's a film producer. Discovering talented filmmakers and developing films that fit his conception of the cinema-free and true to life-is precisely his reason for living. Yet his prestigious production company, Moon Films, is on its last legs. Too many productions, too many risks, too many debts. Storm clouds are gathering. But Grégoire ploughs on at all costs. Where will his blind obstinacy lead him?

A struggling writer finds a shortcut to fame, but a blackmailer threatens to ruin his perfect life.

The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.

In 1982, André Bamberski learns about the death of his 14 year-old daughter, Kalinka, while she was on vacation with her mother and stepfather in Germany. Convinced that Kalinka’s death was not an accident, Bamberski begins to investigate. A botched autopsy report raises his suspicions and leads him to accuse Kalinka’s stepfather, Dr Dieter Krombach, as the murderer. Unable to indict Krombach in Germany, Bamberski attempts to take the trial to France, where he will dedicate his life to Kalinka’s justice and the imprisonment of Krombach.

Veronique, living with her divorced mother, is going on holiday to Mauritius with her father. To impress a local boy, Benjamin, she manages to complicate the situation by making up stories about her father. She presents him as her lover, a mercenary and even a secret agent which gets her into trouble and then her father has to start playing along...

Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of crossing boundaries against his best friend at elementary school. While no one knows what actually happened between the two boys, the incident triggers a series of events, forcing parents and school staff into a captivating battle of redemption where madness, desire and obsession arise.

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

Like every weekend senator Henri Pagès and his wife entertain guests at their beautiful mansion in a peaceful village near Paris. But this time around, things go awry: Pierre Collier, a psychoanalyst and consummate womanizer, is brutally murdered. Claire, his wife, dazed and confused by his corpse, with a smoking gun still in her hand, seems to be the ideal culprit...

When a teenager suddenly disappears without a trace, the case is assigned to an alcoholic police officer who maintains a complicated relationship with his own troubled teenage son, suspected of drug trafficking.

The Farels are a power couple: Jean is a prominent French pundit and his wife Claire an essayist known for her radical feminism. Together they have a model son, Alexandre, who is a student at a prestigious American university. During a brief visit to Paris, Alexandre meets Mila, the daughter of his mother’s new partner, and invites her to a party. The next day, Mila files a complaint against Alexandre for rape, destroying family harmony and setting in motion an inextricable media-judicial machine that posits opposing truths.

Forbach, East of France, today. Mario, a man without much ambition, except where love is concerned, is back to square one after his wife left home. He now must raise his two adolescent daughters by himself, while going through some sort of a teenage crisis of his own. 14-year-old Frida blames her father for their mother's leaving and she develops ambivalent feelings towards her new girlfriend. 17-year-old Niki will soon leave home. Until then, she lives the good life. Mario can't help but lose the women he loves. Yet they must all agree to let one another go.

At 40, Molina is the most famous radio host in France: she hosts a nightly call-in show where she answers questions from callers with sexual and emotional problems. When she decides to look for her mother whom she never knew, she discovers her living in the suburbs.

An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.

Drama about a father and son who set out to find their missing daughter/sister with the help of an American headhunter.

The story of a busy man, who fills his time travelling to Africa, South America and the Middle East. His passion for his job has distanced him from his loved ones. He’s been divorced for three years and has since seen his son very little. When the latter disappears, he is forced to stand still, and soon discovers things about his ex-wife and, above all, his son. A terrible feeling of guilt overwhelms him and he decides to find his son at all costs...

Like many happy people, Bruno Hamel is leading an uneventful life until one afternoon, when his daughter is raped and murdered. When the murderer is arrested, a terrible project germinates in Bruno's darkened mind. He plans to capture the "monster" and make him pay for his crime.

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

Claude Massoulier is murdered while hunting at the same place as Julien Vercel, an estate agent who knew him and whose fingerprints are found on Massoulier's car. As the police discover that Marie-Christine Vercel, Julien's wife, was Massoulier's mistress, Julien is the prime suspect. But his secretary, Barbara Becker, while not quite convinced he is innocent, defends him and leads her private investigations.

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.

Ten years have gone by since Elena's six-year old son has disappeared. The last thing she heard of him was a phone call he gave her, saying that he was lost on a beach in France and couldn't find his father. Nowadays, Elena lives on this same beach and manages a restaurant. She is finally beginning to emerge from this tragic episode when she meets a French teenager who strongly reminds her of her lost son. The two of them will embark on a relationship which will sow chaos and distrust around them.

Young and ambitious Captain Vivés has just been appointed group leader at the Grenoble Criminal Squad when Clara's murder case lands on his desk. Vivés and his team investigate Clara's complex life and relations, but what starts as a professional and methodical immersion into the victim's life soon turns into a haunting obsession.

Laurent, a young brigade commander in a gendarmerie in a small town in Normandy is planning his wedding with Marie, his partner and mother of his daughter. He loves his job despite facing social misery on a daily basis. One day, a farmer who might try to kill himself runs away.

Unorthodox detective Jean Lavardin is called to a provincial French town after a prank turns deadly.

Forced out of his elite unit, a troubled cop launches his own rogue investigation when mysterious killings claim the lives of his former colleagues.

Ex-government operative Bryan Mills finds his life is shattered when he's falsely accused of a murder that hits close to home. As he's pursued by a savvy police inspector, Mills employs his particular set of skills to track the real killer and exact his unique brand of justice.

Inspector Lavardin is called to a provincial village to investigate a murder – only to find that one of his ex-lovers is the victim’s widow.

Marie has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa committed suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Now she wants to unravel her past and find her father whom she blames for her mother's death.

Georges Lajoie is a Parisian café owner. As every summer, Georges, his wife Ginette and grown-up son Léon go on holiday to Loulou's campsite, where they meet up with the Schumacher family (whose father is a bailiff) and the Colin family (who sells bras in the markets). This year, their peace is slightly disturbed by the proximity of a construction site where foreign workers are employed. Xenophobic comments are made. One evening at the ball, a fight breaks out between Lajoie, Albert Schumacher and two algerian immigrant workers...

Marc, in his 40s, is a professor of literature at the University of Lausanne. Still a bachelor — and still living with his sister Marianne in a huge, isolated chalet that they inherited when they were very young — he carries on one love affair after another with his students. Winter has almost ended when one of his most brilliant students, Barbara, suddenly disappears. Two days later, Marc meets Barbara’s mother, Anna, who wants to find out more about her vanished daughter.

Police Commissioner Jules Maigret returns to the small village where he spent his childhood at the request of the Countess of Saint-Fiacre, who has received a disturbing anonymous letter.

With a father suffering from neurodegenerative disease, a young woman lives with her eight-year-old daughter. While struggling to secure a decent nursing home, she runs into an unavailable friend with whom she embarks on an affair.

A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.

In a quiet little French town, two detectives are tasked with investigating the brutal rape and murder of a preteen girl.

Étienne Meunier (Benoît Magimel) is a young executive who has everything going for him. His career is skyrocketing and he is about to become #1 at work, he is married to a picture-perfect wife, has a dream home and money. To top it off, he's charming, healthy and everyone likes him and seems to consider him "a great guy". But beneath the surface, not everything is perfect. Meunier feels some pressure at work, knowing others eye his future position and he and his wife have been unable to have children so far. One day, Meunier bumps into a childhood friend, Patrick Chambon (François-Xavier Demaison) and the two resume their friendship, despite Chambon having struggled as a petty criminal.

Alice Tomaso gets out of jail, and goes looking for Léo and Julien, one of whom, it appears, is her father. On the way, she steals the wrong car - one belonging to the Russian mafia, and arrives at her destination with a gang of thugs out looking for her and the car.

A British crime novelist travels to her publisher's upmarket summer house in Southern France to seek solitude in order to work on her next book. However, the unexpected arrival of the publisher's daughter induces complications and a subsequent crime.

Matthieu is a 33 year old Parisian who finds out that the father he never knew has died and decides to go to his funeral in order to meet his two siblings in Quebec. But once in Montréal, he realizes that nobody is aware of his existence or even interested in it. He is alone, in hostile territory…

Julien, a young teacher, is wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct by a teenage girl from his class. As he faces mounting pressures from the girl’s older brother and her classmates, the situation spirals out of control. Allegations spread, the entire school is thrown into turmoil, and the teacher has to fight to clear his name.

Divorced private detective Francois Maneri is assigned by his agency to investigate the disappearance of Rachel, a young student who has been missing for six months. After interviewing Rachel's family, friends and classmates, Francois is attacked and injured by an anonymous assailant and becomes reluctant to continue his search. But when Rachel's body is found, Francois is drawn deeper into the investigation as he discovers the dead girl's secret life.

In the harbor city of Le Havre, France, a woman is stabbed during the night, just below the windows of her neighborhood. Pierre (Yvan Attal) has witnessed the murder, and heard the wails of the women crying for help. So have the neighbors, certainly. But at the end, nobody called the police. Nevertheless, sorrows are too heavy for Pierre, which feel the needs to tell everything to his wife (Sophie Quinton), and to the police. During the investigation, it appears that 38 people witnessed the murdering, and none reacted...

Stéphane defers his frustration at not having had a son on his sons-in-law. So when her younger daughter decides to leave a rugby player than the idolatrous father for a doctor he can not stand, he will do everything to get his son-in-law back. His daughter will not let it go.

Greg founded a company called Alibi.com that creates any type of alibi. With his associate, Augustin, and Medhi his new employee, they devise unstoppable stratagems and stagings to cover their clients. But meeting Flo, a pretty blonde who hates men who lie, will complicate Greg's life, which begins by hiding the true nature of his activity. During the presentation to parents, Greg understands that Gérard, the father of Flo, is also one of their clients.

Harry knew Michel in high school; they meet again by accident, Harry inserts himself in Michel's life... and things take a sinister turn.

Miriam and Antoine have recently separated. While she’s willing to permit their 17-year-old daughter Josephine to decide living arrangements for herself, Miriam is desperate to keep her youngest, 11-year-old Julien, away from his father. But the magistrate rules in favour of joint custody, and suddenly the boy is thrown directly into the middle of an escalating parental conflict, where it seems inevitable that sides must be chosen.

Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.

Ève and Henri are among the happy few of the French community in Vienna. They are “la crème de la crème”. The perfect picture crumbles when Ève discovers that Henri is cheating on her. On an impulse, she finds revenge with Jonas, a perfect young Austrian guy. But he’s not who she thought he was. This will lead them to an irreversible spiral.

Max is 6 years old. She lives with her dad Toni, a small time crook with a golden heart. For Xmas, Max offers him Rose, a call-girl found on the street whom she’s very fond of. Despite the complicated situation, Toni’s gonna have a hard time refusing her daughter’s «gift» and must coexist with Rose.

Lyons, France. Michel Descombes is a watchmaker who lives alone with his teenage son Bernard. When the police visit and informs him that Bernard killed a man and is on the run with a girl, Michel realizes that he knew far less about his son than he thought.

A steely special ops agent finds his morality put to the test when he infiltrates a crime syndicate and unexpectedly bonds with the boss' young son.

Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.

Twenty year old Antoine has made enemies of a gang of young thugs, to whom he owes money. Fed up with his scams and petty crimes, his mother and older brother decide to send Antoine to his father's place in Saint-Etienne. The two men haven't seen each other for several years.

George, host of a television show focusing on literature, receives videos shot on the sly that feature his family, along with disturbing drawings that are difficult to interpret. He has no idea who has made and sent him the videos. Progressively, the contents of the videos become more personal, indicating that the sender has known George for a long time.

In Paris, two cops are competing for the vacant job of chief of police, in the middle of the search for a gang of violent thieves. The movie is directed by Olivier Marchal, a former police officer who spent 12 years with the French police before creating this story, taken in part from real events of the 1980s.

The Interrogator Erik Backstrom is forced to return to his former home village to solve a murder mystery, in which the local polices and some hunters and even Erik's family seems to be involved. Soon, the conflicts are in full action, especially between Erik and the local police Torsten. Torsten does not support Erik very much in his job and has, for some personal reasons, already arrested a suspected perpetrator. Eric takes great risks when he starts digging in the criminal material of the horrible murder case.

A policeman takes his family on a holiday, and after almost hitting a wild hog, the car won't start. They get hike with a guy scrutinizing his pretty wife. Shortly after, she disappears.

Vincent, a police officer, and his partner Manuel steal a large amount of cocaine from José Marciano, a ruthless crime lord who is quick to seek revenge, endangering Vincent's life, career and family.

While on a joyride with the headlights turned off, two men hit and kill another man carrying a satchel full of money. The two men decide to take the money and throw the body into a pond and bury the money in a coal hill. The next morning the police discover the body of a kidnapped 12-year blind girl, Melody, in a warehouse near the site of the hit-and-run. They determine that the kidnapper saw the girl's father bringing the ransom to him and also witnessed the hit-and-run and the men stealing the ransom.

Three generations of a wealthy Bordeaux family are caught in the crossfire when Anne decides to run for mayor, thanks to a political pamphlet that revives an old murder scandal.

A French chef swears revenge after a violent attack on his daughter's family in Macau, during which her husband and her two children are murdered. To help him find the killers, he hires three local hit-men working for the mafia.

The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.

Lea and her husband Marc have known Francis and his wife Karine for a very long time. Over the years, each one of them has been assigned a specific role. The balance and dynamic of the group is blown up when Lea decides to write a novel, which turns into an immediate bestseller…

A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages and, as he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.

A Parisian criminal gang fall apart after challenges to the gang's leader lessen his influence.

Pierre Gastié-Leroy is the son of a wealthy director of a factory of weapon manufacturing. Despite his parents, two generous uncles and a bishop godfather who try to inculcate him the rigid values of his social level, Pierre is a dreamer, antimilitaristic, social educator who dreams of saving three thugs, his "little guys" at the limit of delinquency. After several resounding failures that sent him to prison, Pierre is ordered by his father to join his factory to direct the social service. Tired of the venality of his father and the foolishness of the "little guys", Pierre hires them at the factory...

Since his wife died, Inspector Louis Baroni (Philippe Noiret) has become a virtual recluse, preferring the solitude of his quiet house to the company of others. His period of mournful contemplation is broken when he is called out to look into the suspicious death of Madame Morlaix who, according to her husband Edouard (Michel Serrault), fell from an upstairs window. Curious to find out more, Baroni begins his inquiry.

Sarah tells Paul that she wants out of their marriage; the next day she disappears. A year later and Paul along with their children return to his childhood town to start anew after the loss of his wife and their mother.

Sylvie, a nearly sixty-year-old woman, has fallen in love with Michel, a thug she marries in prison. The couple dream of starting again with a clean slate by opening a flower shop. But Sylvie’s son Abel, convinced that Michel will fall into a life of crime, disapproves of this relationship.

Denis struggles to raise his boisterous daughters Janine and Mercredi on his own while holding down two jobs. Everything goes sour when Denis forgets Mercredi one too many times at the school gates. Séverine, a cheerful social worker, is appointed to scrutinize the family’s daily lives.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

When Antoine returns to the island of Noirmoutier, secrets kept in the past resurfaces and threatens to change his family’s present.

Jean Monier is a disillusioned lawyer, appointed to defend Nicolas Milik, a man accused of murdering his wife. While everything points to his guilt, Monier takes up the case, convinced of his innocence.

Alice, a perfect wife and mother, lives happily with her husband and child until the day she discovers he is living a double life that has ruined her financially and left her a single mother. Alice fights back and dives into a world beyond anything she has ever known.

When Myriam, the mother of two young children, decides, despite the reluctance of her husband to resume her activity in a law firm, the couple is looking for a nanny. After a severe casting, they hire Louise, who quickly conquers the affection of children and gradually occupies a central place in the home. Gradually the trap of mutual dependence will close, until the tragedy.

Simone inherits a dilapidated farmhouse in France and makes her way there with her husband Eric and their two children. Her dream is to turn the house into a bed and breakfast but as the hectic pace of the rebuilding gets underway, she gets caught up in the romance and chaos of it all. Losing sight of her goals, she must find her way back to the dreams and ambitions which brought her there in the first place.

Roman loves Camille as much as he loves his two daughters. But he is hiding from all of them a serious problem of addiction, which could endanger his dearest. Does love have a chance to survive when trust is broken?

Bruno is released from prison. He looks for a job and tries to start a new life. His first stop is at his father's apartment.

An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.

Victor Valance, an absent father and gambler, works with shady casino operations abroad. When he returns to Paris in need of money, he plans to take advantage that Pauline, his eldest daughter now fully responsible for the whole family, has begun to work for the Ministry of Finance. Pauline thwarts his new projects but when she realizes gangsters are looking for Victor she will put her life at risk to help him and save their family.

The professional and emotional cross-currents between two romantically entwined theater actors played by the director’s son Louis and Anna Mouglalis.

The story revolves around Alain, a busy businessman who is always in a rush. In his life, there is no room for spare time or family. But one day, he suffers a stroke, which makes him lose his grasp of language and use one word in place of another.

As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a picture of the kind of relationship the two used to share.

Aymeric runs into Florence, a former coworker, one evening in Saint-Claude in the Haut-Jura. She is six months pregnant and single. When she gives birth to Jim, Aymeric is there. They spend happy years together until Christophe, Jim's biological father, shows up... It could be the start of a melodrama, it's also the start of an odyssey into fatherhood.

Magali plays in a brass band. Guillaume drives a small tourist train. Both spin a perfect love, they share modest dreams and their baby is about to come. But an unexpected news upsets their routine: a man appears and announces that he is Guillaume's estranged father and also reveals that Guillaume is his legitimate heir of a kingdom offshore of France and England. Guillaume and Magali start to dream of a life as monarchs, surrounded by faithful subjects in their castle, enjoying their wealth. But reality is often different to what you can imagine.

A Parisian teacher loses his cool when his teenage daughter tells him she plans to drop out of school and move in with her boyfriend.

A tough nightclub bouncer struggling to raise his 8-year-old daughter is forced to go undercover after an unfortunate event.

A cop and his son have to put away their differences while undercover on a therapeutic trip.

A great French restaurant's owner, Monsieur Septime, is thrust into intrigue and crime, when one of his famous guests disappears.

When political thugs murder an opponent's volunteer and also kill a cop, chief inspector Verjeat believes the politician who hired them is as guilty as the murderous goon. Verjeat's pursuit of the councilman, Lardatte, gets him a warning from his superiors. When he embarrasses Lardatte while disarming a hostage (the dead volunteer's father), Verjeat is told he's being transferred within a week. He speeds up his hunt for the goon and, with Lefévre, one of his young detectives, he engineers a complicated scheme to buy more time before the transfer. How should Verjeat play out his values of honor and duty?

Louise meets Nathan, her dreams resurface. It's also the story of her ailing brother, their mother, and the destiny of a leading family of wealthy Italian industrialists. The story of a family falling apart, a world coming to an end and love beginning.

