Claude Brasseur Movies

Spino (Claude Brasseur) is in his late middle age, working as a mere attendant at the morgue. One day the corpse of a murdered man comes in which shocks him into a frenzy of activity: it looks exactly the way he looked as a young man, right down to the clothing. He enlists the help of his unusually patient girlfriend and her brother, who is a police inspector, to find out the origins of this disturbing corpse. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The difficulty experienced by a softcore porn film producer, who must somehow transform an academically praised novel into an erotic thrill-fest, is the subject of this comedy. In the film, Claude Brasseur is Manuel, who confronts vain but..incapable..male stars, an inane and silly script, sexually obsessed cameramen and more. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A fresh-faced orphan from the provinces labors away at the last old-fashioned café on Avenue Montaigne as the Paris theater elite prepare for the biggest night of the year in Jet Lag director Danièle Thompson's whirlwind comedy of intersecting lives. Jessica (Cécile De France) may have been orphaned at the tender age of four, but her doting grandmother (Suzanne Flon) did her best to bring the motherless girl up right. A one-time ladies' room attendant at The Ritz, Jessica's grandmother was a woman well known for her extraordinary taste. Upon arriving in Paris to work as a waitress at a modest café nestled between a renowned concert hall, a venerable theater, and a high-profile auction house, Jessica soon finds herself interacting with a curious cross section of the thriving entertainment industry. As rehearsals for the upcoming shows get under way and Jessica is assigned the task of delivering food to the hardworking actors and low-earning stagehands, she soon discovers that even the most famous of people are often forced to make difficult decisions in life.

Jean-François Lefort (Albert Dupontel) is a classical pianist whose devoted wife has him booked at venues across Europe for the next six years. As the free-spirited musician struggles to eschew the formality of his upcoming concert appearance, self-made businessman Jacques Grumberg (Claude Brasseur) takes time out from his May-December romance and his stressful medical treatment in order to auction off a collection that he has been building his entire life and reach out to his estranged intellectual son, Frédéric (Christopher Thompson). Meanwhile, back on the theater front, popular television actress Catherine Versen (Valérie Lemercier) prepares to star in a farcical play, a famous American film director (Sydney Pollack) begins auditioning actors for an upcoming film about Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and a cheerful concierge on the verge of retirement (Dani) enjoys her final stint rubbing elbows with the biggest and brightest stars in Paris. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Former film critic André Téchiné directed and co-wrote this offbeat crime drama. Samson (Gérard Depardieu) is a down-on-his-luck boxer who manages to win a fortune thanks to a fixed fight. However, while Samson and his girlfriend Laure (Isabelle Adjani) are trying to get away with the money, he is killed by a gunman who looks just like Samson (and is also played by Depardieu). Laure is crushed, but in time she finds herself attracted to Samson's murderous double; he is also drawn to her, and they eventually become lovers. The supporting cast includes Marie-France Pisier and Jean-Claude Brialy. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Catherine (Olga-George Picot) uses her feminine wiles to survive when enemy hordes attack Paris and kill her lover. The new chief desires her for his own, but she spurns his advances long enough to consort with rebels to plan her escape. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In the Dancing Machine, Alain Delon is Alan Wolf, a former great name in the world of dance, who has been forced by injuries to retire and become an instructor. He trains talented young people who hope for a career as dancers. In particular, despite an incredibly harsh and demanding demeanor, he wins the fanatical adoration of his female students. Indeed, so ardent is their worship of him that when they are dismissed from his studio for artistic shortcomings, many of them become suicidally despondent. One of them actually dances herself to death outside the window to his home. As deaths among his students begin to accumulate, Inspector Eparvier (Claude Brasseur) begins an investigation. Is Wolf simply a cold-blooded and apparently misogynistic manipulator, or is he deliberately bringing about these deaths? ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Adultery and the possibility of patricide provide the motives behind this French drama, set in a Parisian suburb. Claire is in her earlier forties and is married to Claude, an alcoholic whom she once passionately loved. Together they have a young daughter and 15-year old Guillaume. Claire is having an affair with 24-year old Laurent whom she sees several times per week. Laurent's mother is Madeleine. She and Claire were once rivals for the formerly dashing Claude. Guillaume is an aficionado of detective novels and has a real affinity for detective work. He is well aware of his mother's shenanigans. Claude hasn't a clue. Then a local police inspector tells Claude the truth about his wife. Soon after, Claude is discovered dead. Apparently the cop had his own reasons for giving Claude the fatal news. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Director Jacques Baratier's Sweet and Sour is an independently produced project with a surprising amount of European movie-industry input. Guy Bedos, a Brando wannabe, plays one of several young French cineastes who take to the streets to make improvisational movies. The "cinema verite" quality of the film is somewhat undercut by the presence of major stars: Anna Karina, Simone Signoret, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Monica Vitti, Claude Brasseur, and many others. After several "spontaneous" vignettes -- a street tennis game, a striptease lesson, a West Side Story style gang rumble -- Guy Bedos announces he will go to Hollywood to film the life of Voltaire. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After several years of making films to please only himself, French director Jean-Luc Godard once more invites the audience to the party with The Detective. Not that there's anything so blase as a linear plot or appealing characters, but at least some of Godard's isolated vignettes are accessible this time around. Set in the Hotel Concorde at St. Lazare, the film is set in motion when miserably married Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur attempt to collect a debt from mob-plagued boxing manager Johnny Hallyday. Meanwhile, hotel detective Jean-Pierre Leaud tries to solve an old murder case. These two gossamer plot strands are used to tie together Godard's scattershot views on modern life, with emphasis on the voyeuristic potential of the recent video-camera boom. The director dashed off The Detective to raise money for a film he truly cared about, the controversial Hail Mary. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This is a psychological drama about Louis Riquier (Charles Berling), a veteran of the Algerian war and a divorced father whose wife (Beatrice Palme) has custody of their children and who barricades himself with the kids in his country house. The police and the press surround the house, but he does not want to surrender. Instead, he gets more and more violent. Manipulated by their father, the kids go along with the scenario, taking it as a game. The film has as background the turbulence of 1968, with all its left-wing political implications. As in the director's previous film (Vieux fusil (The Old Gun), the gun also has multiple purposes here. Literally speaking, it is the instrument of crime; metaphorically, it is the force that would liberate the poor victim from his tragic fate. But the hero is just too violent and emotionally disturbed to evoke one's pity. The film is heavy with many denunciations, trying to evoke the atmosphere of the early 1970's, but it loses its impact when it abandons character development in favor of political jargon and becomes only an imperfect copy of an important period in French history. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

Etienne (Jean Sorel) is a young man who seeks work in the coal mines of South France. After experiencing the harsh working conditions, he becomes a labor activist and tries to organize a strike to improve wages and conditions. He is tormented by the mine owner, whose promiscuous wife steps out on him at will. Etienne falls in love with the daughter of a fellow miner, but her loyalty to her father and fear for the loss of his job makes her initially unresponsive to his romantic leanings. The film version of the novel by Emile Zola loses much of the poignant political commentary of the original text. Although the strike is not entirely successful, it paves the way for new considerations of worker's rights. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This fictionalized biography of Guy de Maupassant uses his dying days, suffering under the last ravages of syphilis, to anchor a series of flashbacks that bring his life into view -- though much of that view is tempered by the famed author's passion for sexual encounters. The rest of the vignettes on his life highlight important literary figures, his mother, his lesbian friend Gisele d'Estoc, and various other players. All seem to swirl together as the writer's mind is lost to madness and approaching death. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi