France may be one of the few countries in the world where a significant fraction of native speakers prefer to see movies screened in their original language — with French subtitles.

We saw the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! tonight in an old-fashioned, one-screen cinema, and not only is the movie fairly current, it ran in what the French call “VO” (version originale) — the original English, in this case.

Sure, we could have downloaded the movie via Netflix, but once in a while you want to see a movie in a theater. And this was great fun. Both the movie and the experience, which was only a 25-minute drive away.

It was particularly French in several ways.

–The old-fashioned big-room cinema — even in a small town of about 7,000.

–The absolute, almost reverential silence in the audience of about 50 that could not abide a crackling wrapper coming off a snack brought from home.

–The French preference for seeing a film as it was released, or as the directeur intended, as opposed to a film with words from another language awkwardly jammed into an actor’s mouth. From what we could overhear, the majority of the patrons were native French-speakers.

–And, significantly, the 5.50 euro (about $6.10) cost of a ticket, which may just be what movies cost in the Languedoc, in the less-expensive south of France.

Unlike in Paris, we will not be able to see an English-language movie every night of the week, down here in the southhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/movies/hail-caesar-review-coen-brothers-george-clooney.html.

But if we pay attention, we will have occasional opportunities within a 30-minute drive (twice a week, in Clermont-L’Herault!) … and that is good to know.