For a long time, African films in French were mainly available on pay-TV channels such as Canal+ and Startimes.
The development of YouTube channels dedicated to Nigerian and African films has shifted the battle: African fiction is no longer watched in the family living room, but is now also consumed on smartphones, via streaming, free of charge.
Nollywood plays a central role in this shift. The abundance of Nigerian productions, the speed of filming, and the ability to tell romantic stories that are close to everyday African life provide ideal material for YouTube channels that publish several full-length films per week, or even per day.Some of these films last between three and four hours and generate four to eight million views on their own.
Thus, on YouTube, an informal "bouquet" of French-language channels has emerged, each with its own editorial promise, totaling millions of subscribers and hundreds of millions of views.
Among the "historic" ones launched in the mid-2010s, we can mention:
LA AFRICAINE TV (1.39 million subscribers, 198 million views), another pioneer,
broadens its scope to include Ivorian and Cameroonian films in French, while retaining the same DNA of romantic melodrama and family conflicts, allowing it to speak directly to audiences in French-speaking Africa.
FILMS NOLLYWOOD5ETOILES, which has 1.26 million subscribers and a total of 120 million views, and IMAGE AFRICAINE (1.2 million subscribers- 126 million views), which present themselves as privileged windows onto "the best Nollywood films dubbed into French" or "the richness of Nigerian cinema in French," with a catalog dominated by romances, stories of broken couples, and highly emotional family dramas.
CINE AFRICAIN TV (821,000 subscribers, 76.3 million views) offers the latest and greatest Nigerian films in French.
HD NOLLYWOOD TV (750,000 subscribers, 55.7 million views), which offers exclusive Nollywood films translated into French.
But the undisputed leader is AFOREVO (3.2 million subscribers, 364 million views), which presents itself as a brand specializing in Nollywood films dubbed or translated into French, with a very clear editorial focus on love and family stories.
In addition, in recent years, new YouTube channels specializing in the distribution of Nigerian films have emerged:
Launched in 2020, LIZZY GOLD (888,000 subscribers, 132.8 million views), centered on this popular actress, capitalizes on the Nollywood star system to build loyalty among its community with a series of romantic melodramas.
MEILLEUR DE FRENCH TV, launched in August 2023, has a total of 215,000 subscribers and 30.6 million views. The channel has positioned itself as a showcase for recent Nollywood films in French, led by director and producer ChinneyLove Eze, who claims exclusive rights to the works broadcast on the channel.
NOLLYWOOD NON STOP (287,000 subscribers, 39 million views), launched in 2023, offers a selection of the best Nollywood films fully dubbed into French.
FRENCH STUDIO TV, launched in June 2025, has 321,000 subscribers and 40.7 million views.
Although these channels compete head-to-head, they share the same narrative grammar: that of Nollywood romance.
The most popular plots are based on simple but effective structures: impossible love between social classes, tyrannical stepmothers, young men or women returning from abroad, family secrets, romantic betrayal, and ultimate redemption.
The titles themselves set the tone, with phrases such as "This film will make you cry," "Don't trust anyone," "He came to work as a servant, but his life changed," and "He returned from abroad to marry his…"
The dominant format is not a 26- or 52-minute episode, but rather a "full-length French film" lasting between 1.5 and 3 hours or even longer, often divided into parts to increase viewing time and multiply entry points into the algorithm. For viewers, however, the result resembles the experience of watching a telenovela: very long narrative arcs, recurring characters, and the possibility of switching from one story to another within the same galaxy of Nollywood actors.
These YouTube channels target a broad French-speaking audience: French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, French-speaking North Africa, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and the diaspora, where smartphones have become the primary screen for watching series and movies.
In this context, we are witnessing the rise of an ecosystem where Nollywood and African fiction play out their own stories in the language of the French-speaking audience.
For traditional audiovisual groups, it is both a direct competitor for screen time and viewers' attention, and a source of supply that has proven its effectiveness.