If papers analyzing the meaning of the concept of quality in common public policies are frequent, academic papers regarding quality and approaches to its assessment in film policies are atypical and relatively recent (Levaratto 2000; Ginsburgh 2003; Blomkamp 2011). Europe has a long tradition of state support for the film industry but with national and cultural differences regarding what kind of movies could benefit from the selective aid schemes. Although practices vary between countries (i/e The National Lottery financing cinema subsidies in UK Vs tax on admissions allocating advances on receipts in France), the European film-making model privileges generally creativity over commercial success (Herold 2010) and puts the bulk of state efforts on production rather than on distribution or film exhibition. This ‘authorship business model’ (Liz 2012) aiming to promote creativity and national identify (Jäckel 2007) is based on a consensus about the question of the feature quality recognized to be supported by state selective subsidies (Gimello-Mesplomb 2012). This consensus is shared both by experts and film policy-makers (Blomkamp 2015). Experts Committees are the places where movies quality evaluation criteria are (re-)built and discussed (Begin and al. 2000). It is a fact Film policies are usually presented as fixed systems and are often studied synchronically. But a diachronically approach in a Foucault’s perspective investigating the origins and the transformation of the concept of Quality in Film Policy allows to appreciate and characterize these cultural differences in the national traditions of state support for the arts. Moreover, Film historiography generally considers film policies majors steps (creation of funds, censorship affairs…) as simple consequences of major improvements of the film art worldwide or, sometimes, as positive assets helping it (i/e the connection between the creation of the French selective aid scheme in 1959 and the emergence of New wave French cinema) (Gimello-Mesplomb 2006). So, this paper will compare two national cases (France and UK) with the aim to enlighten how quality has been for years the main argument to justify existence and efficiently of selective aid scheme in the both countries. We also explore the meaning of this term in some historical key-contexts of film and television industry.