Which tickets do I need to buy in advance
Where in France are you going?
Which cities? Which sites? If you go to the official website of the site in question, it will specify if an advance ticket is required.
catelwoman,
Welcome to the forum. We need more information to answer your question. Some sights need advanced reservation, others don't. There are many, many hundreds. You can go-to the website for a sight to get that information. And where in France are you going to?
Some places need to be reserved far in advance so as not to miss out. But pretty much every place should be reserved on line to avoid lines. I recently visited the Jeu de Paume and when i left the line was about 65 people -- if you had tickets on your phone, you would have walked right past.
It would be easier to answer which places do not need advance reservations.