This may sound obvious, but avoid translated movies/series — pick ones which are natively in French. There aren’t so many French series, though. A list of French television series is maintained on Wikipedia.

I’d probably recommend starting with animated series. Being targeted at children, the language may be easier. The “Once upon a time…” (Il était une fois…) ones are very educative in general, too.

“Plus belle la vie” is quite easy to follow. However, while it deals about everyday life, it is not about real life in Marseille, there are not that many murders there. 🙂

Not exactly a series per se, but I found “Qui veut gagner des millions?” to be very interesting to watch to improve my own French. The questions (and answers) are comparable to the English version, with say 50% being cultural (which I mostly hadn’t a clue on, but learned a lot from) and 50% being general knowledge (which I knew or could guess at in English), but exposing me to quite a wide vocabulary compared to many TV shows.

For the general knowledge it’s easy to infer meaning to some unknown words purely from the context and better yet you can use the “suspense building” time for a quick dictionary check!

This may be off-topic (downvote if you think so!) but I think books are just as useful for learning a language as movies, if not more so. I especially recommend the Harry Potter series, for the following reasons:

• It was written for children, so it’s fairly easy to understand, especially the first two books.
• It’s very long (the English version is about 3,500 pages), so it’ll keep you occupied for a while.
• You probably already know the story.

I know reading children’s books translated from English sounds stupid, but the hurdle of learning how to read French is so enormous that it’s good to make it as easy as possible. And you’ll learn an enormous amount of vocabulary; after I had read the first 6 tomes and a few other popular novels, I was ready for Maupassant and Zola.

If you’re fairly new to French, then I’d suggest you try watching easier French films with English subtitles on them. You want something that doesn’t have a lot of slang (argot) in them. Comedy films often work well, as do quite a few RomComs. There are loads of films in this category that you can watch, so your easiest way is probably just to watch out for them being shown on English TV – they’ll usually be shown with the French soundtrack and English subtitles which is what you want.

Once you’re feeling you have a better handle on it, you probably want to switch to watching that style of movie, but with the French soundtrack and the French subtitles. If need be, pause it when you can’t understand either the spoken or the written version, but usually you’ll get at least one of them.

Finally, graduate onto something with more slang, probably still with French soundtrack and subtitles (though that can be a problem with some DVDs). Crime thrillers can be quite good, as they often give you an insight into French society at the same time. Engrenages / Spiral is one such TV series that’s good for this, it has great stories, you learn a lot about the French justice system, and you get to practice a lot of listening!

If you like humor you can watch “Kaamelot” ou “Caméra Café”, but I think it’s a bit complicated to understand for a novice.

There is a web-serie on Youtube called Extr@ French.

Here are some observations while learning French.

1. The French spoken by native French is very fast. For beginners its very hard to catch up. Also the pronunciation is not always clear or sometimes there is no distinction between two words. As our brain is not trained yet for these sound patterns, for beginners its hard to understand.

2. For beginners, I would suggest guided speech like
   documentaries: in English/foreign documentaries which are dubbed in French, the speech is clearly pronounced and speed is not very fast.

3. I watched a French documentary TV series which has good pronunciation and moderate speed: “Enquête Exclusive”. It has greatly increased my comprehension and vocabulary.

4. French In Action: A video series for learning French.

5. Extra: extr@ (Wikipedia).

6. C’est pas sorcier -BONBONS : C’est si bon… ?!
   as suggested by Random.

Juste came across a link: The 15 Best TV Series to Learn French for All Levels.

I like to use the TV5 app in my mobile. It has a lot of videos in native French, most with the option to use subtitles and they are updated very often.

I recommend you “Ma france” series by BBC. It’s really a wonderful training programme.
Visit: Ma France – French video course for post-beginners (BBC).

I recommend both Jean de Florette and Manon des sources (Manon of the Spring), based on the novels of the respected author, Marcel Pagnol. The language is clear, unhurried, and nuanced.
If you watch literary films like these, you can use the books as companion material (or vice versa).

I recommend both Jean de Florette and Manon des sources (Manon of the Spring), based on the novels of the respected author, Marcel Pagnol. The language is clear, unhurried, and nuanced.
If you watch literary films like these, you can use the books as companion material (or vice versa).

Try News in Slow French…. https://www.newsinslowfrench.com/.

I would recommend "Le Château de ma mère" and "Le Gloire de mon père," both excellent movies and spoken slowly enough to understand. But I suspect you’d like something online and free. So, "A French Village" on Amazon Prime. Some of the seasons are free; others require membership in some other service. The really good part for learning French, though, is the short oral histories that accompany some of the seasons. There, you get French as real people speak it and, since unscripted, it’s generally slow. These oral histories run about 6 minutes each, which makes repeated listening relatively easy.