This book argues for the power of literature as a secular religion within the French context, and the effect it has had on filmmakers as they challenge its cultural dominance. It examines the medium of literature – both printed and spoken words – as it is represented in a range of French films from the 1950s to the present. The chapters contain new interpretations of mid twentieth-century films by major directors such as Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras, and François Truffaut, as well as more recent ones by Christophe Honoré, Régis Sauder, and Guillaume Nicloux. The analyses of individual films rely on a long tradition of theoretical and critical works that explore the film-literature relationship including, but not limited to, the fields of adaptation studies, auteur theory, and intermediality.