Though I can't claim to have seen much, I do think the French are particularly invested in solid crime films, though it's been ages since I've seen a great one. I found Olivier Marchal's 36 (2004) tiresome; starring Daniel Auteuil and Gérard Depardieu, it's set up as a kind of post-Heat playoff between the two, but it's just too formulaic.

I liked A Prophet but feel it's Audiard's least interesting film. I rate Read My Lips (2001) and The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), both crime dramas, higher than his latest film; the former stars Vincent Cassell and the latter is a reworking of James Toback's 1977 film Fingers, with Harvey Keitel.

Cassell is also in La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 crime film, and in the same director's later film Crimson Rivers (2000) opposite Jean Reno; old board member Anthony Lombardi was a fan of that film, though I've not seen it myself.

I think Cassell's best performance is in Gaspar Noé's gut-wrenching Irreversible (2002), which instills an extreme hyperreality into one traumatic incident (a rape) and the emotional and moral response in its immediate aftermath (drug-fuelled violent rage) so as to make a horror film out of a 'crime'. It's quite incredible, and if you're a fan of him - or Monica Bellucci for that matter, who also gives the best performance I've seen of her - check it out.

I'll add praise to the Melville films: Le samourai, Le cercle rouge, Le dolous are all brilliant films (I haven't seen Un flic or Bob le flambeur; Godard's own reworkings of American B noirs, Breathless (dedicated to Monogram) and Bande a part are both excellent too.

Tracing back even further through French films noirs, Dassin's Rififi (1955) and Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1936) are must-sees.

I really recommend Bob Swaim's La balance (1982), which was so self-consciously of its time (it's the Eighties after all) that it feels a bit dated now, but there's an overall worthy feel to it. I also love Plein soleil (1965), René Clément's colour-saturated, taut adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, which might be forgotten these days in favour of the Hollywood treatment starring Matt Damon and Jude Law...