filmvsfilmeTell them apart

Quick tell: film is a noun, filme is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“film” is a noun and “filme” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#366
“film” frequency rank
#14,040
“filme” frequency rank
14406
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature film filme
Definition Pellicule de gélatine de type photographique sur laquelle on enregistre une suite d’images à l’aide d’un appareil photo. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de filmer.

Same sound, different letters: film vs filme

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. film runs 4 letters (CVCC) against filme's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
film
5 ch
filme

Ear matches; page differs - film and filme

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: film and filme carry the same recorded pronunciation, \film\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “film” sits inside “filme”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14406, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

film is recorded at frequency rank #366, classified as anoun, pronounced \film\. filme is at rank #14,040, tagged as averb, pronounced \film\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 14406, this pair ranks #396,826 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of film vs filme

Shared letters: film. Private to "film": -. Private to "filme": e.

"film" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "filme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • filmffilm · fillm · filmm · fiml · flim · iflm
  • filmeffilme · filem · fillme · filmme · fimle · flime · iflme

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "film" and "filme" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "film" is a noun and "filme" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "film" or "filme" show up more?
"film" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #366 in our French list, against #14,040 for "filme". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "film" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "filme" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #396,826 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "film" and "filme" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filez vs filme". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #396,826 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list