Hundreds of feature films once owned by Credit Lyonnais, the troubled French banking group, including blockbusters such as The Graduate, Platoon and When Harry Met Sally, have been put up for sale. Credit Lyonnais collected a library of about 1,000 films during its ill-fated foray into Hollywood and the move comes at a time when the value of such assets is rising rapidly.

Consortium de Realisation (CDR), the entity set up two years ago by the French government to sell some of the state-controlled bank's assets, has appointed Furman Selz, a US investment bank, to organise the sale.

The deal will include 39 movies that have won 79 Oscar nominations between them, as well as box office hits such as City Slickers and Honeymoon in Vegas. The market for film rights has expanded during the 1990s following the launch of scores of cable, satellite and terrestrial television stations. Demand seems set to continue growing over the next few years when hundreds of digital TV channels go on air - heightening the competition for movie rights.

Film libraries that have recently come on to the market have attracted interest from a range of bidders.

Prospective purchasers include Hollywood movie studios and the growing number of European companies that are investing in the film business, notably PolyGram, the Dutch entertainment group.

For a company that already owns an archive of films, the chance of adding further pictures represents an opportunity to increase profitability, as it will be able to sell more products from the same infrastructure.

The former Credit Lyonnais film library was assembled during the 1980s, when the French bank bought film rights on a piecemeal basis from various producers.

CDR said yesterday it expected at least 20 companies to be interested in the archive.