1 Audrey Tautou
Best known for: Amelie (2001), The Da Vinci Code (2006)Pout rating: 4/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: Where better th start than the inspiration for this? Audrey is the ultimate fringey, foppish ingénue, her sparkling eyes and shy smile an irresistible draw to all bookish/film nerd/hipster/indie kids everywhere.
Parlez-vous français? “I believe in God, but I am not sure to trust Him so much.”
2 Brigitte Bardot
Best known for: And God Created Woman (1956), Contempt (1963)Pout rating: 3/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: A full-force blonde bombshell, and perhaps the screen’s greatest ever out-and-out sex symbol.
Bardot played smiling, wide-eyed blondes to knee-weakening effect, but also had a knowing glint of smartness and sharpness behind her heavy-lashed eyes.
Parlez-vous français? “I have always adored beautiful young men. Just because I grow older, my taste doesn’t change. So if I can still have them, why not?”
3 Juliette Binoche
Best known for: Damage (1992), The English Patient (1996)Pout rating: 4/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: Smart, private, effortlessly intriguing if not straightforwardly beautiful, Binoche is a continental fantasy - the dark-haired and introspective girl you fall madly, elusively in love with but can never fully understand. Sigh…
Parlez-vous français? “I have been proposed to four times. Twice at the beginning of a relationship and twice at the end of a relationship. I’ve never said no. I just didn’t give an answer!”
4 Emmanuelle Béart
Best known for: Mission Impossible (1996), 8 Women (2002)Pout rating: 5/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: With her round, heavy-lidded eyes and full, pillowy lips, Béart has a doeish vulnerability which, when combined with long-legged hotness, is all kinds of irresistible.
Parlez-vous français?: “I give everything I have to give on the screen. I feel I don’t owe the public anything else.”
5 Julie Delpy
Best known for: Before Sunrise (1995), Broken Flowers (2005)Pout rating: 3/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: As she showed in Richard Linklater’s heartbreaking brace of dallying romances Before Sunrise and After Sunset, Delpy is piercingly pretty and bright, but also elusive in that way which makes men abandon all reason.
Parlez-vous français?: “I’ve never made the first move in my whole life. I’m too scared. I don’t think I’ve ever been with someone I really loved, because the people I really cared for - I didn’t have the nerve to go after.”
6 Eva Green
Best known for: Casino Royale (2006), The Dreamers (2003)Pout rating: 4/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: She’s beautiful, obviously, but not fluffy-pretty. That thick dark hair gives her an air of troubled gothic romance.
She’s radiant when she breaks into a full smile, but usually offers a mysterious, concerned half-smile instead. Maddening and mesmeric.
Parlez-vous français?: “It’s a way to exteriorise all my shit. To scream and cry and laugh on-screen, it’s almost like black magic. You can do anything. I’m a dreamer, so that’s a good job for me.”
7 Sophie Marceau
Best known for: Braveheart (1996), The World Is Not Enough (1996)Pout rating: 4/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: Marceau’s long legs and statuesque frame made her sizzlingly sultry as a villainess opposite Pierce Brosnan’s Bond, but she’s at her best when tousled, natural and breathless.
Parlez-vous français?: “I hate those kisses - you know, American kisses, with the tongues out. They’re disgusting. I can’t look, it’s like porno!”
8 Marion Cotillard
Best known for: Taxi (1998), La Vie En Rose (2007)Pout rating: 3/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: Effortlessly talented (not just an actress but an accomplished singer and musician) and wonderfully alive - that impish grin and sharp, sparkling eyes are so playful it’s easy to forget what a knockout she is.
Parlez-vous français?: “I have a tendency to often share the point of view of the conspiracy theory. I think that we are told lies about lots of things.”
9 Beatrice Dalle
Best known for: Betty Blue (1986), Night On Earth (2001)Pout rating: 5/5
Je Ne Sais Quoi factor: More firebrand than French fancy. She’d eat you all up but it’d be a hell of a way to go.
Student Betty Blue poster-girl in the ’80s, Dalle’s high-maintenance rep has sadly held her back from a major breakthrough. (She was due to play alongside Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense but was denied a US work permit because of drug-use allegations).
Parlez-vous français?: “I don’t act in the way other actresses act, in terms of building or creating a character. I don’t transform myself into the role, I invest myself in it.”
