French directors and actors
by danpal-86286 | created - 27 Nov 2022 | updated - 3 weeks ago | Public1. Michel Serrault
Actor | La Cage aux folles
As accomplished and versatile the well-loved French actor Michel Serrault proved to be over the course of five decades, American audiences still remember this actor for one role only - that of the neurotic, outrageously flamboyant drag performer Albin (aka Zaza) in the side-splitting French gay ...
2. Sandrine Bonnaire
Actress | La cérémonie
Sandrine Bonnaire was born on May 31, 1967 in Gannat, Allier, France. She is an actress and director, known for La Cérémonie (1995), To Our Loves (1983) and Vagabond (1985). She was previously married to Guillaume Laurant.
3. Benoît Magimel
Actor | La pianiste
Son of a nurse and a bank employee, Benoît Magimel was born in Paris and grew up there. At age 12, he played Momo in Life Is a Long Quiet River (1988) by Étienne Chatiliez. He stopped his studies at age 16 to become an actor.
But he had a dual personality: on one hand the man of low budget films ...
4. Isabelle Huppert
Actress | Elle
Isabelle Huppert was born March 16, 1953, in Paris, France, but spent her childhood in Ville d'Avray. Encouraged by her mother Annick Huppert (who was a teacher of English), she followed the Conservatory of Versailles and won an acting prize for her work in Alfred de Musset's "Un caprice". She then...
5. Michel Bouquet
Actor | Renoir
Michel Bouquet was born in the 14th arrondissement of Paris on the 6 November 1925. His father, Georges Bouquet, was a World War One veteran and a wine-maker. His mother Marie was a milliner. He had three older brothers: Georges, Bernard and Serge. Michel's father was always a shadowy figure in his...
6. Stéphane Audran
Actress | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
Stéphane Audran was born on November 8, 1932 in Versailles, Seine-et-Oise [now Yvelines], France as Colette Suzanne Jeannine Dacheville. She was an actress, known for Der diskrete Charme der Bourgeoisie (1972), Babettes Fest (1987) and Der Schlachter (1970). She was married to Claude Chabrol and ...
7. Fano Messan
Fano Messan (1902-1998) was an artist devoted to sculpture who is famously remembered as the hermaphrodite in Un Chien Andalou (1929) the first film of Luis Buñuel. Because her participation in this movie and by her habit of wearing men's clothes, she's often mistaken as a man. She was photographed...
8. Carole Bouquet
Actress | For Your Eyes Only
Carole Bouquet is a French actress and fashion model. She is best known for played Bond girl Melina Havelock in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only (1981).
She also starred in That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), Nemo (1984), The Bridge (1999) and Do Not Disturb (2014).
In 2017 she starred in the...
9. Jacqueline Bisset
Actress | Bullitt
Jacqueline Bisset has been an international film star since the late '60s. She received her first roles mainly because of her stunning beauty, but over time she has become a fine actress respected by fans and critics alike. Bisset has worked with directors John Huston, François Truffaut, George ...
10. Emmanuelle Riva
Actress | Hiroshima mon amour
An only child, Emmanuelle was born Paulette Germaine Riva in Cheniménil, but eventually grew up in Remiremont. Her mother, Jeanne Fernande Nourdin, was a seamstress. Her father, René Alfred "Alfredo" Riva, was a sign writer. Her paternal grandfather was Italian. She dreamed of becoming an actress ...
11. André Bazin
Actor | La sonate à Kreutzer
André Bazin was born on April 8, 1918 in Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France. He was an actor and writer, known for The Kreutzer Sonata (1956), Portrait d'Henri Goetz (1947) and Le film de Bazin (2017). He was married to Janine Bazin. He died on November 11, 1958 in Nogent-sur-Marne, Seine [now ...
12. Ludivine Sagnier
Actress | Lupin
The French actress Ludivine Sagnier was born on July 3, 1979 in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, in France's Yvelines department. Ludivine studied acting as a young girl and had made her movie debut at the age 10 in Les maris, les femmes, les amants (1989). She has established her reputation as one of the ...
13. Ernst Umhauer
Actor | Dans la maison
Ernst Umhauer was born on December 2, 1989 in Cherbourg-Octeville, Manche, France. He is an actor, known for In the House (2012), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2014) and The Monk (2011).
14. Fabrice Luchini
Actor | Dans la maison
Fabrice Luchini was born on November 1, 1951 in Paris, France. He is an actor and writer, known for In the House (2012), Molière (2007) and Beaumarchais the Scoundrel (1996).
15. Catherine Deneuve
Actress | 8 femmes
Catherine Fabienne Deneuve was born October 22, 1943 in Paris, France, to actor parents Renée Simonot and Maurice Dorléac. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was barely a teenager and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier role in Vice and Virtue (...
16. Jacques Gamblin
Actor | Les enfants du marais
Jacques Gamblin was born on November 16, 1957 in Granville, Manche, France. He is an actor and writer, known for The Children of the Marshland (1999), Safe Conduct (2002) and The Names of Love (2010).
17. François Cluzet
Actor | Intouchables
François Cluzet was born on September 21, 1955 in Paris, France. He is an actor, known for The Intouchables (2011), Tell No One (2006) and French Kiss (1995). He has been married to Narjiss Slaoui-Falcoz since 2011. He was previously married to Chantal Perrin.
18. Emmanuelle Béart
Actress | 8 femmes
Emmanuelle Béart was born August 14, 1963, in Gassin, France. She lived with her mother, brothers, and sister on a farm not far from Saint-Tropez in Provence (southern France), because her father, singer and poet Guy Béart, did not want his children to be affected by the glamour world of Paris. ...
19. Fanny Ardant
Actress | 8 femmes
Fanny Ardant was the youngest of five children born to a cavalry officer and his wife. She was raised in Monte Carlo where she was educated at a convent school. A voracious reader, she discovered Proust when she was 15, and felt as though his writings were for her.
When she was 17 her father died, ...
20. Gérard Depardieu
Actor | Cyrano de Bergerac
Gérard Depardieu was born in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to Anne Jeanne Josèphe (Marillier) and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu, who was a metal worker and fireman. Young delinquent and wanderer in the past, Depardieu started his acting career at the small traveling theatre "Café de la Gare", along ...
21. Jean-Pierre Léaud
Actor | Les quatre cents coups
Jean-Pierre Léaud is not everybody's cup of tea for sure, but will remain an important name in film history. As an actor he can be adored or hated for exactly the same reasons: he is one of those rare players that directors let improvise his dialogue, which gets on certain viewers' nerves while it ...
22. Michel Subor
Actor | Le petit soldat
Michel Subor was born Mischa Subotzki in Paris, France in 1935, to anti-Bolshevik parents from the Soviet Union who had immigrated a few years earlier. His father was an engineer in Moscow, and his mother was born in Azerbaijan. Michel's sister moved to the United States as an adult. His career ...
23. Irène Jacob
Actress | La double vie de Véronique
This beautiful, dark-haired French actress made a hit with a supporting role in her first film, as the piano teacher in Louis Malle's "Au revoir, les enfants" (1987). Educated in London and Geneva, and a Paris resident since the age of 18, Jacob became a promising starlet with her Malle success and...
24. Alain Resnais
Director | Hiroshima mon amour
Alain Resnais was born on June 3, 1922 in Vannes, Morbihan, France. He was a director and editor, known for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Same Old Song (1997) and My American Uncle (1980). He was married to Sabine Azéma and Florence Malraux. He died on March 1, 2014 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, ...
25. Benoît Jacquot
Director | Les adieux à la reine
Benoît Jacquot was born on February 5, 1947 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for Farewell, My Queen (2012), The School of Flesh (1998) and À Tout de Suite (2004).
26. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Writer | Un bruit qui rend fou
Born in Brest, France, in 1922, Alain Robbe-Grillet initially studied mathematics and biology. He graduated from the Paris-based Institut National Agronomique (National Institute of Agronomy) in 1945 and embarked on a career of scientific research in the tropics and in France. Then at age 30 he ...
27. Jean-Louis Trintignant
Actor | Amour
Born 1930 in Piolenc in south France as son of a wealthy industrialist. Studied law in Aix-en-Provence. Started theatrical acting in 1950, but was regarded untalented at first, until Roger Vadim discovered him for the movies. When the press stalked him 1956 because of rumors of an affair with ...
28. Dominique Sanda
Actress | Il conformista
Dominique Sanda was born in 1951, in Paris, France. When she was 16, she left her upper-class family and married, but divorced two years later. She found a temporary job as a Vogue model, when Robert Bresson gave her the starring part in his absorbing drama A Gentle Woman (1969); she was quite ...
29. Claude Sautet
Writer | Un coeur en hiver
Claude Sautet was born on February 23, 1924 in Montrouge, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France. He was a writer and director, known for A Heart in Winter (1992), Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (1995) and The Things of Life (1970). He was married to Graziella Sautet. He died on July 22, 2000 in Paris, ...
30. Robert Bresson
Writer | Au hasard Balthazar
Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The ...
31. Éric Rohmer
Director | Ma nuit chez Maud
Admirers have always had difficulty explaining Éric Rohmer's "Je ne sais quoi." Part of the challenge stems from the fact that, despite his place in French Nouvelle Vague (i.e., New Wave), his work is unlike that of his colleagues. While this may be due to the auteur's unwillingness to conform, ...
32. Jacques Rivette
Director | La Belle Noiseuse
Although François Truffaut has written that the New Wave began "thanks to Rivette," the films of this masterful French director are not well known. Rivette, like his "Cahiers du Cinéma" colleagues Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer, did graduate to filmmaking but, like Rohmer...
33. Claude Chabrol
Director | Le beau Serge
Claude Chabrol was born on June 24, 1930 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le Beau Serge (1958), La Cérémonie (1995) and Story of Women (1988). He was married to Aurore Chabrol, Stéphane Audran and Agnès Goute. He died on September 12, 2010 in Paris, France.
34. Georges Méliès
Director | À la conquête du pôle
Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, ...
35. François Truffaut
Writer | La nuit américaine
French director François Truffaut began to assiduously go to the movies at age seven. He was also a great reader but not a good pupil. He left school at 14 and started working. In 1947, aged 15, he founded a film club and met André Bazin, a French critic, who became his protector. Bazin helped the ...
36. Guy Gilles
Director | Absences répétées
Guy Gilles was born on August 25, 1938 in Algiers, Alger, France [now Algeria]. He was a director and writer, known for Absences répétées (1972), Le clair de terre (1970) and Au pan coupé (1967). He died on February 3, 1996 in Paris, France.
37. Jean-Luc Godard
Director | Bande à part
Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II Godard became a naturalized citizen of ...
38. Anton Corbijn
Director | Control
Anton Corbijn was born on May 20, 1955 in Strijen, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. He is a director and actor, known for Control (2007), A Most Wanted Man (2014) and The American (2010).
39. Annie Girardot
Actress | La pianiste
Over the course of a five-decade career, she starred in nearly 150 films. She is a three-time César Award winner (1977, 1996, 2002), a two-time Molière Award winner, a BAFTA nominee, and a recipient of several international prizes including the Volpi Cup (Best actress) at the 1965 Venice Film ...
40. Clara Ponsot
Actress | Cosimo e Nicole
Clara Ponsot is known for Cosimo and Nicole (2012), Polar Park (2023) and La possibilité d'une île (2008).
41. Emmanuelle Seigner
Actress | Bitter Moon
Emmanuelle Seigner is the daughter of a well known photographer and her mother is a journalist. She was born in Paris, France on June 22, 1966. Her grandfather was Louis Seigner, chairman of the Comédie Française and who also appeared in several movies. Emmanuelle was raised at a convent school . ...
42. Eva Green
Actress | Casino Royale
French actress and model Eva Gaëlle Green was born on July 6, 1980, in Paris, France. Her father, Walter Green, is a dentist who appeared in the 1966 film Au hasard Balthazar (1966). Her mother, Marlène Jobert, is an actress turned children's book writer. Eva's mother was born in Algeria, of French...
43. Nathalie Baye
Actress | Catch Me If You Can
Nathalie Baye was born on July 6, 1948 in Mainneville, Eure, France. She is an actress and writer, known for Catch Me If You Can (2002), Laurence Anyways (2012) and Venus Beauty Institute (1999).
44. Suzanne Flon
Actress | Moulin Rouge
Opulent French actress Suzanne Flon, who came from humble beginnings, evolved into a luminous stage and film star whose career lasted five decades. She was born near Paris, the daughter of a railway worker and a seamstress and at school developed an interest in writing poetry. Following high school...
45. Mélanie Doutey
Actress | Post partum
Mélanie Doutey was born on November 22, 1978 in Paris, France. She is an actress and director, known for Post partum (2013), Il ne faut jurer... de rien! (2005) and Le frère du guerrier (2002).
46. Thomas Chabrol
Actor | La fleur du mal
Thomas Chabrol was born on April 24, 1963 in Paris, France. He is an actor and director, known for The Flower of Evil (2003), Hell (1994) and Grégoire Moulin contre l'humanité (2001).
47. Cédric Jimenez
Director | La French
Cédric Jimenez (born 26 June 1976) is a French film producer, film director and screenwriter. He is married to the screenwriter and journalist Audrey Diwan, with whom he has two children.
The film career of Cédric Jimenez starts through documentary means. In 2003, back in France after a long stay in...
48. Jean Renoir
Writer | La règle du jeu
Son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste, he had a happy childhood. Pierre Renoir was his brother, and Claude Renoir was his nephew. After the end of World War I, where he won the Croix de Guerre, he moved from scriptwriting to filmmaking. He married Catherine Hessling, for whom he ...
49. Jacques Tati
Writer | Playtime
The comic genius Jacques Tati was born Taticheff, descended from a noble Russian family. His grandfather, Count Dimitri, had been a general in the Imperial Army and had served as military attaché to the Russian Embassy in Paris. His father, Emmanuel Taticheff, was a well-to-do picture framer who ...
50. François Ozon
Director | Dans la maison
François Ozon was born on November 15, 1967 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for In the House (2012), 8 Women (2002) and Swimming Pool (2003).
51. Michel Piccoli
Actor | Le mépris
This suave, elegant character star was a ubiquitous presence in French cinema for nearly seven decades. His distinguished career extended to both stage and screen and his versatility was such that he could take on just about any persona (in his own words: "I do not put on an act... I slip away ...
52. Marion Cotillard
Actress | La Môme
Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard was born on September 30, 1975 in Paris. Cotillard is the daughter of Jean-Claude Cotillard, an actor, playwright and director, and Niseema Theillaud, an actress and drama teacher. Her father's family is from Brittany.
Raised in Orléans, France, she ...
53. Juliette Binoche
Actress | The English Patient
Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, France, to Monique Yvette Stalens, a director, teacher, and actress, and Jean-Marie Binoche, a sculptor, director, and actor. Her mother was born in Czestochowa, Poland, of French, Walloon Belgian, and Polish descent, while her father is French. Juliette was only...
54. Léa Seydoux
Actress | La vie d'Adèle
French actress Léa Seydoux was born in 1985 in Paris, France, to Valérie Schlumberger, a philanthropist, and Henri Seydoux, a businessman. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is chairman of Pathé, and her father is a great-grandson of businessman and inventor Marcel Schlumberger (her mother also ...
55. Louis Garrel
Actor | The Dreamers
Louis Garrel was born on June 14, 1983 in Paris, France. He is an actor and director, known for The Dreamers (2003), Little Women (2019) and The Innocent (2022). He has been married to Laetitia Casta since June 10, 2017. They have one child. He was previously married to Golshifteh Farahani.
56. Vincent Cassel
Actor | Black Swan
Blue-eyed Vincent Cassel was born in Paris to a leading actor father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a journalist mother, Sabine Litique. Often labeled as a tough guy because of his roles, eclectic choices and talent have made of him a star of European cinema. First in La haine (1995), the young actor, ...
57. Marina Vlady
Actress | Una storia moderna - L'ape regina
This provocative sex kitten had the obvious makings of a superstar blonde bombshell and could have ended up in film history annals as merely a second-rate Brigitte Bardot, but Marina Vlady rose above her sex symbol status and proved she was capable of so much more. In her prime she was nominated ...
58. Sophie Marceau
Actress | La boum
Sophie Marceau was born Sophie Danièle Sylvie Maupu in Paris, France, to Simone (Morisset), a shop assistant, and Benoît Maupu, a truck driver. She grew up far from the studio spotlights. When she was 14 she was living in the Paris suburb of Gentilly with her father. She learned from friends that ...
59. Mona Achache
Director | Le Hérisson
Mona Achache was born on March 18, 1981. She is a director and writer, known for The Hedgehog (2009), Suzanne (2005) and Defendant (2015).
60. Robin Renucci
Actor | The Dreamers
Robin Renucci was born on July 11, 1956 in Le Creusot, Saône-et-Loire, France. He is an actor and director, known for The Dreamers (2003), Masks (1987) and Un village français (2009).
61. Anne Brochet
Actress | Cyrano de Bergerac
Anne Brochet was born on November 22, 1966 in Amiens, Somme, France. She is an actress and director, known for Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Masks (1987) and Du fond du coeur (1994).
62. Louis Malle
Director | Au revoir les enfants
Louis Malle, the descendant of a French nobleman who made a fortune in beet sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, created films that explored life and its meaning. Malle's family discouraged his early interest in film but, in 1950, allowed him to enter the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies ...
63. Josiane Balasko
Actress | Gazon maudit
Josiane Balasko was born on April 15, 1950 in Paris, France. She is an actress and writer, known for French Twist (1995), The Tenant (1976) and The Hedgehog (2009). She has been married to George Aguilar since June 12, 2003. She was previously married to Philippe Berry.
64. Philippe Noiret
Actor | Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Philippe Noiret was one of French cinema's most familiar faces who appeared in more than 140 films in a career that spanned more than half a century.
He was born on October 1, 1930, in Lille, Nord, France, into a middle class family of shopkeepers. His father was fond of literature. Young Noiret ...
65. Daniel Auteuil
Actor | Caché
Daniel Auteuil was born on January 24, 1950 in Algiers, Alger, France [now Algeria]. He is an actor and director, known for Caché (2005), Jean de Florette (1986) and The Well-Digger's Daughter (2011). He has been married to Aude Ambroggi since July 22, 2006. They have one child. He was ...
66. Jean-Hugues Anglade
Actor | 37°2 le matin
Sensual, ambiguous, ultra sensitive French performer Jean-Hugues Anglade always had a reputation of intense and passionate actor. Any role, any language, Anglade seems to be able to do anything. From appearing integrally naked alongside Beatrice Dalle in "37.2 degrees in the morning", to playing an...
67. Luc Besson
Writer | Le Cinquième Élément
Luc Besson spent the first years of his life following his parents, scuba diving instructors, around the world. His early life was entirely aquatic. He already showed amazing creativity as a youth, writing early drafts of The Big Blue (1988) and The Fifth Element (1997), as an adolescent bored in ...
68. Marie Trintignant
Actress | Colette, une femme libre
Marie Trintignant died tragically on the 1st of August, 2003 from a cerebral edema in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris, France, following a violent fight with her boyfriend, Bertrand Cantat, lead singer in the French rock band, Noir Désir. She was just finishing filming a TV movie about Colette, ...
69. Mathieu Amalric
Actor | Le scaphandre et le papillon
Mathieu Amalric was born on October 25, 1965 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He is an actor and director, known for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and Munich (2005).
70. Yves Montand
Actor | Jean de Florette
Yves Montand was born on October 13, 1921 in Monsummano Terme, Tuscany, Italy. He was an actor, known for Jean de Florette (1986), Z (1969) and The Wages of Fear (1953). He was married to Simone Signoret. He died on November 9, 1991 in Senlis, Oise, France.
71. Marie Dubois
Actress | Jules et Jim
Marie Dubois was born on January 12, 1937 in Paris, France. She was an actress, known for Jules and Jim (1962), La Menace (1977) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). She was married to Serge Rousseau. She died on October 15, 2014 in Lescar, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France.
72. Jean Gabin
Actor | La grande illusion
Jean-Alexis Moncorgé started his career with 15 years at the theatre and debuted at the "Moulin Rouge" in Paris in 1929. Despite of his rude aspect he knew to be the gentleman of the French cinema in the time between the two World Wars. One of his most popular personalities was inspector Maigret. ...
73. Marcel Carné
Director | Le quai des brumes
Marcel Carné, the son of a cabinet maker, entered the movies as the assistant of Jacques Feyder. At the age of 25 he directed his first movie Jenny (1936). Colaborating with the writer Jacques Prévert, the decorator Alexandre Trauner, the musician and composer Maurice Jaubert and the actor Jean ...
74. Abel Gance
Writer | La roue
Born an illegitimate son of a wealthy physician, Abel Flamant, and a working class mother, Francoise Perethon. He was raised by his mother and her boyfriend, who later became her husband, Adolphe Gance. Pressured by his parents, he began his working career as a lawyer's clerk in hopes of achieving ...
75. Alain Delon
Actor | Le samouraï
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon was born in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France, to Édith (Arnold) and Fabien Delon. His father was of French and Corsican Italian descent, and his mother was of French and German ancestry. His parents divorced early on, and Delon had a stormy childhood, being ...
76. Jacques Demy
Soundtrack | Les parapluies de Cherbourg
Jacques Demy was born on June 5, 1931 in Pontchâteau, Loire-Atlantique, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and A Room in Town (1982). He was married to Agnès Varda. He died on October 27, 1990 in Paris, France.
77. Anaïs Demoustier
Actress | L'enfance du mal
Anaïs Demoustier was born on September 29, 1987 in Lille, Nord, France. She is an actress, known for Sweet Evil (2010), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (2011) and Alice and the Mayor (2019).
78. Philippe Garrel
Writer | Les amants réguliers
Philippe Garrel was born on April 6, 1948 in Paris, France. He is a writer and director, known for Regular Lovers (2005), I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (1991) and Liberté, la nuit (1984).
79. Éric Caravaca
Writer | Carré 35
Éric Caravaca was born on November 21, 1966 in Rennes, Ille-et-Vilaine, France. He is an actor and writer, known for Plot 35 (2017), C'est quoi la vie? (1999) and Sans plomb (2000).
80. Jean Dujardin
Actor | The Artist
In 1995 he began his first one man show, the same year he met Bruno Salomone, Eric Collado, Emmanuel Joucla and Eric Massot with whom he created the "Nous Ç Nous". In 1999, he became "Loulou" in Un gars, une fille (1999). This part permitted him to show his talent to a larger public. Since the end ...
81. Olivier Assayas
Writer | Personal Shopper
Olivier Assayas is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is best know for his films Demonlover (2002), Something in the Air (2012), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and Personal Shopper (2016).
Assayas is the son of French director/screenwriter Raymond Assayas, alias Jacques Rémy.
His ...
82. Martin LaSalle
Actor | Pickpocket
Martín Luis Lasalle Supervielle better know as Martín LaSalle is a French born Mexican actor. Martín was born in France, when he was a kid, he and his family emigrated to Uruguay escaping of the start of The Second World War. The family came back to France at the end of the war, Martín began his ...
83. Jean Cocteau
Writer | La Belle et la Bête
Jean Cocteau was one of the most multi-talented artists of the 20th century. In addition to being a director, he was a poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, and actor. He began writing at 10 and was a published poet by age 16. He collaborated with the "Russian Ballet" company of Sergei...
84. Gérard Oury
Writer | Le corniaud
Gérard Oury was born on April 29, 1919 in Paris, France. He was an actor and writer, known for The Sucker (1965), The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973) and Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966). He was married to Jacqueline Roman. He died on July 19, 2006 in Saint-Tropez, Var, France.
85. Chris Marker
Writer | 12 Monkeys
Chris Marker was born on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on July 29, 2012 in Paris, France.
86. Gérard Philipe
Actor | Fanfan la tulipe
In 1940 Gerard left school and his parents wanted him be a lawyer. But soon his mother noticed that he was only interested in acting, although his father was against the idea. After timely intervention from Marc Allégret, who decided he showed some promise, Gerard's debut was in Claude Dauphin's ...
87. Claude Autant-Lara
Director | Le diable au corps
Claude Autant-Lara was born on August 5, 1901 in Luzarches, Val-d'Oise, France. He was a director and writer, known for Devil in the Flesh (1947), The Crossing of Paris (1956) and The Red and the Black (1954). He was married to Ghislaine Autant-Lara. He died on February 5, 2000 in Antibes, ...
88. Macha Méril
Actress | Profondo rosso
Macha Méril was born on September 3, 1940 in Rabat, French Protectorate in Morocco [now Morocco]. She is an actress and producer, known for Deep Red (1975), Belle de Jour (1967) and Vagabond (1985). She was previously married to Michel Legrand and Gian Vittorio Baldi.
89. Pierre Clémenti
Actor | Belle de jour
Pierre Clémenti was born on September 28, 1942 in Paris, France. He was an actor and director, known for Belle de Jour (1967), The Leopard (1963) and À l'ombre de la canaille bleue (1986). He was married to Margareth Clémenti. He died on December 27, 1999 in Paris, France.
90. Roger Vadim
Writer | Barbarella
Roger Vadim was born on January 26, 1928 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for Barbarella (1968), The Game Is Over (1966) and No Sun in Venice (1957). He was married to Marie-Christine Barrault, Catherine Schneider, Jane Fonda, Annette Stroyberg and Brigitte Bardot. He died on ...
91. Édouard Molinaro
Writer | The Birdcage
Édouard Molinaro was born on May 13, 1928 in Bordeaux, Gironde, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Birdcage (1996), La Cage aux Folles (1978) and A Mistress for the Summer (1960). He was married to Catherine Molinaro, Marie-Hélène Breillat and Pierrette Carvallo. He died on ...
92. Jean-Pierre Cassel
Actor | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
He made his movie debut at the invitation of Gene Kelly, who cast Cassel in the 1956 Paris-filmed seriocomedy The Happy Road (1957). At least, that's what the press releases claimed; actually, the tall, elastic-faced Cassel had been plugging away in films on a minor basis since 1950. Shortly after, ...
93. Maurice Ronet
Actor | Ascenseur pour l'échafaud
Maurice Ronet was born on April 13, 1927 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. He was an actor and writer, known for Elevator to the Gallows (1958), The Fire Within (1963) and Purple Noon (1960). He was married to Maria Pacôme. He died on March 14, 1983 in Paris, France.
94. Serge Gainsbourg
Composer | Équateur
Serge Gainsbourg was born on April 2, 1928 in Paris, France. He was a composer and actor, known for Equator (1983), Je t'aime moi non plus (1976) and Death Proof (2007). He was married to Françoise Pancrazzi and Lise Levitzky. He died on March 2, 1991 in Paris, France.
95. Jacques Deray
Director | On ne meurt que deux fois
Jacques Deray was born on February 19, 1929 in Lyon, Rhône, France. He was a director and writer, known for He Died with His Eyes Open (1985), A Bigger Splash (2015) and Borsalino (1970). He was married to Agnès Vincent-Deray and Nicole Jones. He died on August 9, 2003 in Boulogne-Billancourt, ...
96. René Clément
Director | Jeux interdits
René Clément was one of the leading French directors of the post-World War II era. He directed what are regarded as some of the greatest films of the time, such as The Battle of the Rails (1946), Forbidden Games (1952) and The Day and the Hour (1963). He was later almost forgotten as a director. He...
97. Julie Delpy
Actress | Trois couleurs: Blanc
Julie Delpy was born in Paris, France, in 1969 to Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet, both actors.
She was first featured in Jean-Luc Godard's Detective (1985) at the age of fourteen. She has starred in many American and European productions since then, including Disney's The Three Musketeers (1993), ...
98. Arielle Dombasle
Actress | X Femmes
Arielle Laure Maxime Sonnery, later known as Arielle Dombasle, was born to French parents in Hartford, Connecticut. After their mother's death in 1964, Dombasle and her brother were raised in Mexico by their maternal grandparents; she attended Lycée Franco-Mexicain, a private school. She decided to...
99. Pascal Greggory
Actor | La Môme
Pascal Greggory was born on September 8, 1954 in Paris, France. He is an actor and writer, known for La Vie En Rose (2007), Pauline at the Beach (1983) and Par le sang (2018).
100. Guillaume Canet
Actor | Jeux d'enfants
Son of horse breeders, the young man spent his childhood in the countryside near Paris. In his youth, Guillaume wanted to be a horse-rider, and briefly followed a professional career in the sport. A bad fall broke his dreams, but is at the origin of his acting career, and success. After briefly ...
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