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Some of these are movies that actual French audiences have made into hits, although it looks like we’ll still have to wait another year for the smash crowd-pleaser “Welcome to the Sticks.’’ Romance and the struggles of the underclass are overarching themes. But films about hookers, actresses, mothers, daughters, and a poet in revolt await.

What follows are a look at some highs (and not-so-highs) of the festival, which kicks off Thursday and runs through July 26 at the Museum of Fine Arts. The closing night film, “Séraphine,’’ which swept the French Oscars, will open in theaters and be reviewed later on. For a full schedule, visit www.mfa.org/film.

THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE It has the personnel of a family saga but the wit of a television drama on the CW. Writer-director Rémi Bezançon’s opening-night film begins in 1988 and uses the ensuing 20 years to tell the story of the Duvals, their relationships, their fights, their deaths, and, evidently their hair. A deflowering goes bad, hearts break, people exasperate, and Bezançon contrives situations that most sitcoms wouldn’t bother with. It’s like watching a handful of Skittles mime a soap opera. (July 9, 8 p.m.; July 18, 4:30 p.m.) WESLEY MORRIS

SPY(IES) Nicolas Saada’s intriguing thriller begins at a Paris airport, where Victor (Guillaume Canet) is a thieving baggage handler. He’s hunky but brainy, clearly slumming in this job, and dallying over a book. “What are you reading?’’ his partner asks. “It’s great,’’ Victor says. “ ‘The In formed Heart.’ Bettelheim.’’ Then something in a diplomatic pouch they’re rifling through explodes in flames. The partner dies, and Victor has to assume a new identity (or face jail time, a la “La Femme Nikita’’) to help stop a plot involving Syrian terrorists, a London businessman, and the businessman’s beautiful wife. But Victor keeps disobeying orders from his MI5 handler (Stephen Rea). Why can’t he get with “le programme’’? Blame it on Bettelheim, whose tome is subtitled “Autonomy in a Mass Age.’’ Yes, only the French would bury the key to the hero’s behavior in the pages of a book. (July 11, 8 p.m.; July 17, 3:30 p.m.) REBECCA OSTRIKER

FRONTIER OF DAWN Louis Garrel may not be the biggest young star in France, but he’s almost certainly the best. On most actors that unusual bone structure and hair would be more suitable for the Muppets, but Garrel has the personality to make it all sexy. This year’s festival presents at least two chances to see him: in Honoré’s “Beautiful Person’’ and here working again for his father, Philippe Garrel, as a photographer in love with an actor (Laura Smet) who starts to lose her mind. For Garrel père, the smoky black-and-white photography and the romantic atmosphere are both a kind of sequel to, and a far cry from, his last film, “Regular Lovers,’’ about the student riots in 1968 Paris. For us, it’s a movie more sensual than anything we’re likely to see in English this year. (July 12, noon; July 18, 7 p.m.) WESLEY MORRIS

35 SHOTS OF RUM Ozu’s “Late Spring’’ is the inspiration for this bittersweet gem from director Claire Denis. In an anonymous apartment block far from the center of Paris, an immigrant railway driver (Alex Descas), his upwardly minded daughter (Mati Diop), his old flame (Nicole Dogue), and a brooding neighbor (Gregoire Colin) come together, hesitantly. Working again with cinematographer Agnes Godard and a score by Tindersticks, Denis finds poignance in the small rituals that give meaning to the lives of her displaced persons. Rarely has an unopened rice cooker - or the music of the Commodores - come to mean so much. (July 12, 5:30 p.m.; July 16, 3:30 p.m.) SCOTT HELLER

RUMBA Oh, boy. The filmmaking team of Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, and Bruno Romy try a highly choreographed, highly physical, quasi-silent comedy in which Abel and Gordon play married schoolteachers joined at the hip until a car accident leaves them with no memory of each other. For a sense of how they are together, imagine the plastic couple atop a wedding cake come to life. Abel and Gordon work hard to charm you, but the work is all you see. This is either the most charming thing ever or the most annoying. (July 16, 5:45 p.m.; July 18, noon) WESLEY MORRIS

STELLA is the name of the self-reflective 11-year-old heroine of Sylvie Verheyde’s scattered dramedy, which splits time between her school days and nights at home in her parents’ raucous Paris hotel-bar in 1977. On one hand, Stella (Léora Barbara) reads Balzac and Duras, rightly thinks Marlene Dietrich is a queen, and learns about the Holocaust. On the other, she’s a terrible student, increasingly prone to fights more suitable for a women’s prison film. Verheyde has a tender touch with Barbara, but the movie strains for decadence and personal awakening. As mom and dad, Karole Rocher and Benjamin Biolay are as handsome as you could ever want two indulgent parents to be. (July 19, 5 p.m.) WESLEY MORRIS

CLIENTE Judith, a no-nonsense television host who isn’t looking for love, hires male escorts to minister to her erotic needs. Patrick, a happily-married house painter, finances his wife Fanny’s hair salon with gigolo gigs on the side. Arrangements are muddied when Patrick’s cover is blown and the three venture into complex emotional terrain that illuminates all kinds of blurred lines: between independence and connection, love and desire, safety and satisfaction. “Cliente’’ may be about the oldest profession in the world, but the astute writer-director Josiane Balasko brings freshness and sensitivity to a plethora of timeless topics: sex, money, age, class, family, and freedom. Is there anything else? (July 19, 7:30 p.m.; July 24, 5:30 pm) JOAN ANDERMAN

ALL ABOUT ACTRESSES In this faux documentary, writer/director Maiwenn sets out to strip the veneers off a cadre of camera-ready egomaniacs. Maiwenn follows her fellow actresses, played by real-life French stars, as they strain to stave off obsolescence with Botox, crazed publicity stunts, and prescription drugs. The women - notably Karin Viard as an ingénue pining for Hollywood, Melanie Doutey as an Angelina Jolie doppelganger, and Romane Bohringer as a diva nursing a wilted career - provide batty histrionics interspersed with musical numbers and moments of raw drama. Though the film is rife with acid wit and winking insight, it begins to fade into a monochromatic wash of sulky prima donnas. (July 23, 3 p.m.; July 25, 4:45 p.m.) LAURA BENNETT

WELCOME The French Immigration minister was apparently none too thrilled with “Welcome,’’ which highlights France’s most un-welcoming policies toward desperate illegal immigrants living in Calais. Directed by Philippe Lioret, the film manages to be political without being heavy-handed. It helps that it stars popular actor Vincent Lindon who is très charmant as Simon, a rumpled and disillusioned swimming instructor who’s reluctantly getting divorced. To impress his soon-to-be ex-wife, he coaches a 17-year-old Kurdish refugee who wants to learn to swim so he can cross the English Channel in order to sneak into Britain to join his girlfriend - and play for his favorite soccer team, Manchester United. Their fates intertwine in unexpected ways. (July 24, 7:45 p.m.; July 26, 3:15 p.m.) LINDA MATCHAN