Superlative Dubbing / French Dubs

• Many dubbings by Richard Darbois fall into this category.
  • Aside from being the French voice of many, MANY well-known actors like Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Jeff Goldblum or even sometimes Sylvester Stallone, he is also known for voicing Biff Tannen, Buzz Lightyear, The Genie in Aladdin, and Batman in all his 90s animated incarnations. All done with an exceptionally natural and invested delivery. In fact, his performance as Batman was so well-received that when Warner released a Blu-ray of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm with the Québec dub instead, many fans from the province sent complaints to the company, which unusual since they usually complain about only getting European French dubs for TV series.
  • The dub of Batman: The Animated Series has Darbois as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Pierre Hatet (official French voice of Christopher Lloyd) as the Joker. The translation is full of Woolseyism and the acting is top notch.
• Speaking of Richard Darbois, special mention goes out to not only the European French dub of All Dogs Go to Heaven, but the Canadian French dub as well. Personally, this troper finds both dubs on par with the original, if not better. Sadly, the Canadian French dub was only released to VHS, as all DVD releases in Canada use the European dub.
  • To top it off, the Canadian French version of the infamous Big-Lipped Alligator Moment ("Let's Make Music Together") sounds AMAZING and possibly better than the original.
  • Both of Itchy's French voice actors have unique portrayals of the character in terms of performance: Jacques Frantz (European) does a great job in sounding more closely to Dom DeLuise at times, while Guy Nadon (Canadian) does a good job in giving Itchy his own character.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's French dubbing voice, Daniel Beretta, may sound nothing like him, but is still a perfect mix of suave and badass. It's telling that he was chosen by Arnie himself after simply hearing him imitate a Russian accent on the phone (at the time of Red Heat). Beretta will really be a Tough Act to Follow the day he decides to retire or passes away (the former happened starting with FUBAR).
• The voice of Alain Dorval on Sylvester Stallone has played a lot on the success of his films in France. His voice was even parodied (as a variant of The Ahnold) in the puppet show Les Guignols de l'Info. He is also the well known French voice of Pete in the Disney cartoons since Goof Troop.
• The French dub of comedy TV shows like Malcolm in the Middle or Brooklyn Nine-Nine are of excellent quality, they have gained public loyalty to the point that few people watch these series in their original version
• Borderlands: Many French players prefer to play the game in their language, mainly prefering the more caricatural and fitting voices of some characters, being played by prolific cartoon voice actors. Handsome Jack in particular, being played by Christophe Lemoine giving him a much distinguished voice.
• The Simpsons
  • The Québec French version is regarded as this by many Quebecers that are fans of the show due to the excellent localization of the script (and, like the Spain dub, it also received Matt Groening's praise). Of course, it might be a bit unusual to hear Hubert Gagnon's Homer sound like Norio Wakamoto IN FRENCH!
  • Well, it also has a great dub in France (where they can't think of Homer without the voice of Philippe Peythieu), and most French people find the Quebec one weird, and vice versa.
• The French dub of Samurai Champloo is considered one of the best French anime dubs ever (especially when you consider some other dubs), with a spot-on cast, decent acting and even a few extras — it has Mugen giving Jin the nickname "Lennon", for instance.
• The French dub of Back to the Future. It appropriately Woolseyized all the colorful slang, all the cursing, and had a brilliant cast of voice actors, especially Marty and Biff. (The best not-in-the-original moment would be Biff's Brief Accent Imitation when pronouncing McFly in the first diner scene).
• The French dub of Who Framed Roger Rabbit; it was done by the same people who did the French version of Back to the Future, the voice actors of Marty McFly, Doc Brown, and Biff Tannen are respectively Roger Rabbit, Judge Doom, and Baby Herman
• The French dub version of Around the World with Willy Fog makes a few improvements to the series. For example: such the two main male characters from the book, Around the World in Eighty Days, are given their proper names, Phileas Fogg and Passepartout. In addition, Romy (who regrettably is not renamed Aouda as with the book) is given a voice fitting a charming lady like herself.
• The French dub of Howl's Moving Castle easily surpasses both the Japanese and English versions. Something about the authenticity of a film set in (alternate-universe) France being spoken in French helps, but the voice acting is also spot-on. Howl's screams of terror at his hair are FANTASTIC, and Sophie's voices are each beautiful in their own right.
• South Park has an overall great French translation and dub. Cussing and Christophe Lemoine as Cartman are particularly great.
  • For the "Cartoon Wars" episodes, they even manage to get the french voice actors of Peter Griffin and Bart Simpson.
• The French dub of Dawn of War up to Dark Crusade is mind-bogglingly awesome; they somehow managed to make it even hammier.
• The French dubs of some '90s Warner Bros. cartoons like Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs or Batman: The Animated Series were really great. Most of the voice actors already worked on the French version of Back to the Future, The Simpsons and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
  • Fun fact: The French voice actors of Buster and Babs Bunny are also the voices of Ranma male and female.
• The French dub of Popples. The title characters sound almost like little kids!
• The French dub of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has improved drastically in season 2. The Gallic references in the original are handled skillfully and not clumsily — when Apple Bloom starts speaking French in "The Cutie Pox," instead she starts speaking an antiquated dialect of French (more associated with the fleur-de-lys cutie mark) and Applejack says, "My sister's speaking weirdly!", while in "MMMystery on the Friendship Express" Gustave LeGrand becomes an Italian, Gustavo Il Grande. The voice work, which had always been a strong suit of the dub, continues its consistent quality, with Mélanie Dermont (Rainbow Dash) and Élisabeth Guinand (Fluttershy) equaling if not surpassing Ashleigh Ball and Andrea Libman. Perhaps the pinnacle of the French dubbing of Season 2 is "A Friend in Deed" (although it is given the Spoiler Title of "Pinkie Pie's New Friend"), which has a perfectly crotchety voice for Cranky (here called Grincheux L'Âne Têtu, or Grouchy the Stubborn Donkey), translates the puns well ("four evers = forever" is translated as "sept jamais = c'est jamais!", meaning "seven nevers — it's never!") and best of all, the French version of the Smile Song, "Te voir sourire", is fantastic.
• The French dub of Samurai Pizza Cats have an effective voice acting, the adaptation is also pretty good and uses sometimes local references.
• Wayne's World, the adaptation was made by Alain Chabat and Dominique Farrugia from the comedy group Les Nuls. The voice acting is also great, especially the smooth performance of Emmanuel Curtil (who is the usual French voice of Mike Myers and Jim Carrey).
• The Broken Sword series; the French version was made by professional voice actors, of course. The most memorable performance is Emmanuel Curtil as George Stobbart; he did a great job with the american accent of the character, without being too caricatural.
• The French dub of Scrubs is really good, even the voice of Alexis Tomassian fits more for John Michael "J.D." Dorian; his nasal, piercing and half-witted voice really fits for a loser like him.
• Higurashi: When They Cry - just listen to the French version of Satoko's death scene.
• The French version of The Persuaders! and The Dukes of Hazzard, they both improved the script by adding some extra dialogues (sometimes in improvisation), the most obvious case is an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard which was fully rewrited into an episode about rillettes.
• The French version of The Smurfs (1981) is really fantastic, using impressive vocal work and memorable alternative theme songs. The only exception is that for some strange reason, Sassette (a female character) is voiced by a man.
• Almost any cartoon in which Roger Carel has got a part. What's really impressive is how he can take numerous (and always funny) voices. His very different portrayals of Sir Hiss from Robin Hood and Kaa in The Jungle Book, for instance, considerably diminished the feeling that Sir Hiss was a rip-off of Kaa (while in the original, it's very clear as both have the same voice). Carel is also known for having dubbed: Basil of Baker Street (from The Great Mouse Detective), Bernard (from The Rescuers), numerous side characters in The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, Mickey Mouse and Goofy in some dubs of the Classic Disney Shorts, Kermit the Frog from The Muppet Show (a role in which he was constantly adding jokes improvised during the dubbing sessions), the list goes on. A last one deserves expanding: he did THREE characters in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, namely Pooh himself, Rabbit, and Piglet. The most amazing part is that he dubbed the three characters in a row in scenes where they are interacting. Even after he retired, Carel was still successfully able to do this trick, as seen in this video which is an extract from some interview.
• The French Dub of Timothy Goes to School. While the original English version of the show is fun and relaxing to lesson to. The French voices for some of the characters like Timothy and Lilly are very cute. Special mention goes to Yoko who sounds downright adorable when ever she speaks in the French version and her French actor also does the voice of Lindsay in Total Drama.
• The French dub for the first two Tenchu games is great, though Rikimaru's voice actor from the first game really takes the cake with his deep, noble voice that fits the character to a T. It also helps that, in comparison, the English dub of the first game is poor to almost comedic levels.
• Winx Club, the French dub. I've seen both English versions, and the French version pwns them both. All the French voices are the ones I consider to be the characters' true voices. It probably helps that French and Italian are very similar languages.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. While the original Japanese version was notable for having very mediocre voice acting which was off-sync from the animation, the French dub managed to correct these flaws, something rarely heard in French dubs of Japanese anime. The French voice actors of pretty much every character deliver outstanding and powerful performances, particularily Yoko and Kamina. Adeline Chetail's performance as Nia is also a notable improvement over Yukari Fukui's acting.
  • It is worth noting that the French dub's voice director, Thomas Guitard, is a longtime fan of anime.
  • The French dub of Promare managed to get Kamina's French voice, Cédric Dumond, for Galo Thymos, Ryoko's voice actress, Geneviève Doang, for Aina Ardebit and the famous voice actor Donald Reignoux (Shinji in Neon Genesis Evangelion) for Lio Fiota.
• Heavenly Sword King Bohan, and the dubbing in general, is even funnier in French
• The French dubs of numerous Noddy shows. While the original English version for Toyland Adventures, Noddy in Toyland, and Toyland Detective have their own unique charm. The French dubs is notably more energy and expressive alongside better performances with the characters. Helps that Noddy's French voice actress (Brigitte Lecordier) was able to reprise her role as the titular character in every incarnation since Toyland Adventures. The French dub is so impressive that France was able to get two exclusive Noddy shows ("Oui-Oui et le cadeau surprise" in 2009, and "Oui-Oui et le grand carnaval" in 2012/2013) complete with its own albums.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Upon the release of international trailers, the European French dub received immediate praise for having a similarly menacing Bowser to Jack Black provided by Christophe Lemoine (Jérémie Covillault played the role in the final film, however) and an adorable voice for Toad by Emmanuel Garijo; but the highlight was, of course, Mario, whose French VA (Pierre Tessier) does a voice much closer to Charles Martinet's and whose performance was much more well received compared to the then-lukewarm reception to Chris Pratt's, even if his voice warmed up to people over time. Coincidentally, Martinet happens to be of French descent.
• The French dub of Sonic X. Unlike the heavily-edited 4Kids Entertainment dub and other foreign dubs based on it, the French dub was adapted straight from the Japanese version, with no edits whatsoever. The voice cast was also excellent, if a bit limited. Special mention goes to Alexandre Gillet as Sonic, who manages to balance Sonic's fun, energetic side with his serious, determined side rather well. The voice cast of this dub would even go on to voice the characters in the games starting with Sonic Generations, as well as other animated series (namely Sonic Boom and Sonic Prime).

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