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The French sentence "Arrête ton cinéma" explained

Get ready to find out everything you want to know about the basic French idiom “Arrête ton cinéma”.

More precisely, this includes a complete definition of what it is and how to use it in a casual conversation with an audio example. But wait, we also added super useful stuff like synonyms, dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio and more!

If you want, on this page you will find our others idioms guides and the directory of all our French words tutorials on this page. Have fun!

French to English

Pronunciation

Slow pronunciation

Normal pronunciation

What does arrête ton cinéma mean?

Definition

Arrête → Stop
Ton → Your
Cinéma → Cinema

It’s a common way to say to someone that he/she is being a drama queen. Because just like cinema actors, the person is playing a role and is faking it.

How to use

If someone around you is being a drama queen, you can say “Arrête ton cinéma“.

This is familiar and, depending on the situation, it might get perceived as “kidding” but also criticism.

If you say it to tease a close friend about something, he/she will probably laugh about it. But if you say it to someone you barely know and with an aggressive tone, people won’t react the same way, so be careful when you use this one.

Example: A football player is crying in pain after an opponent slightly touched him. You can say “Arrête ton cinéma !“.

Synonyms

Arrête ton char. (“Stop your chariot“)
Arrête ton charre. (“Stop kidding“)
Arrête ton baratin. (“Stop your jibber jabber“)
Arrête tes conneries. (“Stop your bullshit“)(Vulgar)
Arrête ton cirque. (“Stop your circus“)

Example in a story with English translation

Now, let’s see a complete example of this expression in a story with slow French audio and the English translation below.

Un caprice d'enfant

A childish whim

___

Philippe aimait passer du temps avec sa petite soeur Zoé.

Philippe enjoyed spending time with his little sister Zoé.

Il venait de temps en temps pour voir ses parents et sa sœur dans leur maison en banlieue.

He was coming from time to time to see his parents and his sister in their house in the suburbs.

Zoé était la plus jeune de la famille, elle avait cinq ans.

Zoé was the youngest of the family, she was five years old.

Comme elle était la seule enfant de la maison, elle était traitée comme une princesse…

And because she was the only child of the house, she was treated like a princess…

Ce qui menait parfois à des situations compliquées…

Which sometimes led to complicated situations…