Daniel Auteuil Movies
One of France's most respected actors, Daniel Auteuil has established himself as a performer at ease in any number of genres, ranging from period dramas to romantic comedies to crime thrillers. The son of opera singers, he was born in Algeria on January 24, 1950. He started his career in musical comedy and made his film debut in 1972. After starring in a number of forgettable comedies, Auteuil had his breakthrough playing the scheming farmer Ugolin in Jean de Florette (1986). He won a Best Actor César and a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA for his portrayal, and that same year he earned further acclaim for his work in the film's equally popular sequel, Manon des Sources. Auteuil's involvement in Manon had the added benefit of introducing him to costar Emmanuelle Béart, with whom he would have a ten-year relationship that produced a daughter, born in 1992.The awards he earned for his portrayal of Ugolin established him as one of his country's most promising actors, and Auteuil subsequently became known for his work as one of the screen's most accomplished purveyors of emotional turmoil. His searching, conflicted portrayals found particularly effective expression in such films as Un Coeur en Hiver (1992), for which he won the European Film Academy's Best Actor award; Ma Saison Préférée (1993), in which he and Catherine Deneuve starred as siblings with an unnatural bond; La Séparation (1994), for which earned a César nomination for his portrayal of a husband undergoing a nervous breakdown; La Reine Margot (1994), in which he played the cuckolded Henri of Navarre; Le Huitième Jour, in which he played an emotionally stunted workaholic; and Les Voleurs (1996), a crime drama in which he and Deneuve were again cast as a brother and sister. In 1999, Auteuil made one of his few English language outings in Chris Menges' Lost Son, playing a detective living in self-exile in London who gets caught up in a pedophilia ring. That same year, he collaborated with celebrated director Patrice Leconte on La fille sur le pont, playing a knife-thrower who embarks on a journey across Europe with a suicidal young woman (Vanessa Paradis). ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- 1982
Andre Joeuf (Jean Poiret) is the coldly calculating president of an insurance company who, when faced with the imperative of firing some of his highly paid executives, invites them all over to his country estate for a weekend to indulge in a few games of musical chairs. Anyone left standing after each round will be out his job. The mix of people at the estate and their relationships to each other and their boss, as well as the character of the boss himself, are enough to make most business majors switch to art history. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Poiret, Daniel Auteuil, (more)
- 1982
Having just seen a successful robbery, a man (Daniel Auteuil) and his roommate (Gerard Jugnot) are inspired to rob a bank themselves for some ready cash. When they burst in on the bank with their toy machine guns, most of the tellers and staff are frightened and wary, but in one case, a member of the bank staff has to show the robbers how to carry out their plan because they really do not know what they are doing. After getting to know the robbers better, the bank staff are struck by a serious conflict of interest -- should they remain loyal to the bank or not? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Anémone, (more)
- 1981
This comedy features large French woman, Balasko, who, when dumped by her fiance, moves in with a silly model. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Josiane Balasko, Ariane Larteguy, (more)
- 1980
The thin plot that ties the story of Clara (Isabelle Adjani) and Bertrand (Thierry Lhermitte), the man pursuing her, to a newly-formed rock band is fleshed out by the young actors, several of them cafe-theater players making a transition to the "big screen." The actors play six young "twenty-somethings" in Grenoble who decide to make a go of otherwise routine lives by forming a rock band called the "Why Notes." The story opens with their trip to Paris for the weekend and closes with their coming home. In between, Bertrand is after Clara who has just abandoned her husband of a few hours. In the end, what happens "in between" may not be as relevant as the way in which the characters live, speak, and act. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Josiane Balasko, (more)
- 1980
A few bumps in modern education provide an underlying, tongue-in-cheek theme for this enjoyable comedy by Claude Zidi. The story centers around a graduating class of "less-gifted" students in a private Versailles high school. Only a miracle has brought the students this far along, and after a practical joke misfires and the whole school is dynamited, the students are in deep trouble. They have to present themselves in court for their punishment and it could not be worse. They either have to go to prison, or manage to pass their high-school graduation exams. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Pacome, Hubert Deschamps, (more)
- 1979
Two frowsty middle-aged men, cousins, live and work together. In this ironic satire/drama, they are cowardly, tricky and mean-spirited, but at least they have each other. When they take to testing the alarm system of the bank that they work in after what is for them a particularly scary moment, their boss sends them away on a holiday. They manage to pick up and seduce a pretty hitchhiker before discovering that she is a runaway minor with a reward pending for her return. They bring her back to her family, collect the reward, and get told off by the girl before returning to their homes. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Jugnot, (more)
- 1977
Nicole is a nurse, with a boyfriend in the military, who lives at home with her mother. One night, while returning home on her motorcycle, she is forced off the road by four men driving a delivery van, and she is raped. Afterward, she is secretly sent by her family to a hospital to recover. However, she is determined to discover the meaning of this awful event and presses charges against the men, who prove to be very ordinary, and not the monsters she had imagined them to be. This proves to be a sobering, even chilling realization. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nathalie Nell, Alain Foures, (more)
- 1977
In this family comedy, Papa (Claude Brasseur) has no end of trouble getting his young son to accept his new girlfriend. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Brasseur, Nathalie Baye, (more)
- 1977
This French psychological detective drama owes much of its tone to Existentialism, even though that philosophy had its heyday at least a decade earlier. In the story, set in the 1950s, Nestor (Michel Galabru) is a small-time private detective who is doing a small-time job, searching for some missing jewels. When the activities of a serial murderer cross his path and interrupt his search, he turns his efforts to tracking him down. The killer is the son of a local policeman and feels that he is somehow above the ordinary concerns of mere mortals: his murders are his way of proving this. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Galabru, Mort Shuman, (more)
- 1972
French director Claude Berri wrote, directed, and stars in this comedy as Claude, a bookstore owner whose personal life, like his struggling business, is failing. Claude is trapped in a loveless marriage to Isabelle (Juliet Berto), who does not seem to possess any sexual attraction to her husband or affection for her children. The only activity Isabelle does seem to relish is shopping, which means spending Claude's hard-earned income. Then salvation arrives in the form of a business brainstorm. Claude transforms the bookstore into a sex shop, selling everything from leather bondage paraphernalia to pornography; soon business takes off. The proprietorship of the sex shop and his friendship with a sexually uninhibited customer, Jacqueline (Nathalie Delon), open up new possibilities for Claude, and he realizes that he's been repressed. Although he encourages Isabelle to join him in his new erotic adventures, she is at first reluctant to embrace the swinging lifestyle; the couple's attempts at a ménage à trois are disastrous. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Pierre Marielle, Claude Piéplu, (more)
