Gérard Depardieu Movies
Despite his unorthodox visage, Gérard Depardieu has made a profound mark on the acting world, earning a recognition as one of Europe's most accomplished performers and appealing leading men. Perhaps a contributor to his consistently intense performances, Depardieu's childhood was one of extreme poverty. At twelve years old, he dropped out of school and hitchhiked across Europe on an informal tour funded primarily by the profits of stolen cars and assorted black-market products. Depardieu would likely have continued in his juvenile delinquency were it not for a friend who was attending drama school in Paris. Intrigued, Depardieu enrolled at the Theatre National Populaire, where he studied his trade alongside future co-stars Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou. In 1965, the young actor made his debut in a French short film by the name of Le Beatnik et le Minet, and began making regular appearances on French television shows.By the mid-'70s, Depardieu had co-starred in 11 French films, though he wouldn't enjoy widespread success until his role of a nihilistic but lovable petty criminal in director Bertrand Blier's Going Places (1974). Not long afterward, Depardieu could be found holding his own against acclaimed French actress Isabelle Adjani in Barocco and portraying a passionate Communist organizer in 1900 (both 1976). In 1978, Depardieu re-teamed with Blier for the Oscar-winning Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, and he went on to win France's prestigious César award for his performance as a resistance fighter in The Last Metro (1980). After his portrayal of a 16th century peasant in The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), Depardieu played the title role in Danton, and he stepped behind the camera as co-director for 1984's Le Tartuffe.
The 1990s were equally successful for Depardieu, particularly in the case of director Jean-Paul Rappeneau's 1990 version of Cyrano de Bergerac, for which Depardieu earned an Oscar nomination. He made his foray into American film in 1990's Green Card opposite Andie MacDowell . Though the bulk of his success still stemmed from French films (All the Mornings of the World [1991], Germinal [1993], A Pure Formality [1994], and Colonel Chabert [1994], to name a few) Depardieu nonetheless achieved moderate recognition in the American film market. Despite the failures of Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and Steve Miner's English remake of My Father the Hero, Depardieu was praised for his performances in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996), Nick Cassavetes' She's So Lovely (1997), and Randall Wallace's The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), with Gabriel Byrne, John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Over the following years, Depardieu maintained his prowess in film. In addition to critically acclaimed performances in The Closet (2001), CQ (2001), City of Ghosts (2002), and Nathalie... (2003), Depardieu began work with internationally recognized French director Alain Chabat for RRRrrr! in 2004. Additional appearances throughout 2005 and 2006 included the title role in Boudu (2005), Alain in Quand j'étais chanteur (2006), and Chef Didier in Last Holiday. Depardieu made his directorial debut with 2000's The Bridge.
Depardieu has become somewhat notorious for his stormy offscreen life. He made a concerted effort to cut back on his alcohol consumption following a heart attack and an emergency quintuple bypass operation, in 2000. In 2003, he officially cut off contact with his son, Guillaume Depardieu when the young man threatened him with a gun and received a suspended prison sentence. On another note, the elder Depardieu was involved in both a plane collision and two motorcycle accidents as well (in 1998 and 2003), and officials attributed at least one of the incidents to abnormally high alcohol levels in the actor's bloodstream. In 2005, Depardieu allegedly scandalized European viewers when he crassly (and drunkenly) insulted a fellow guest on a French talk show for comments that the woman made about the cookbook he had authored.
The aforementioned cookbook was no one-hit wonder for Depardieu. A highly-regarded gourmand and gifted enologist, he opened the Parisian restaurant La Fontaine Gaillon, on the second arrondissement, along with Buffet froid co-star Carole Bouquet in fall 2003. In October 2005, Depardieu publicly announced his intention to retire from screen acting, following his starring role in Michou d'Auber (2007). ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- 1984
In this clichéd, uneven, confusing melodrama about love and politics by Philippe Labro, Sacha (Nathalie Baye) is a divorced woman from the Left Bank of the Seine, out of a job because she refused to bestow sexual favors in the line of duty, and Paul (Gérard Depardieu) is a lawyer from the Right Bank whom she first rejects and then accepts when she sees his noble behavior on television. Paul has become well-established because of some shady moral compromises but suddenly finds his backbone when he turns against the crooked tycoon he had represented (Bernard Fresson) and does so on public television. Paul has given up everything for his love of Sacha, and now she is in danger from the vengeful tycoon -- not to mention Paul's irate wife. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Nathalie Baye, (more)
- 1984
- NR
This strange crime-cum-romance story starts out with the ordinary work-a-day life of Mangin, an apparently straight-and-narrow cop (Gerard Depardieu), and then segues into a love story after he meets Noria, a beautiful Arab woman (Sophie Marceau) who has just been arrested during a drug raid. Mangin grills her, but his buddy, a lawyer of dubious ethics named Lambert (Richard Anconina), gets the woman released. Enamored almost from the beginning, Mangin begins to pursue Noria and soon finds himself faced with making the ethical decision to arrest her -- or not. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau, (more)
- 1984
Gérard Depardieu's version of Tartuffe brings no innovative cinematic flair to the story of an outrageous and daring imposter who passes himself off as a haughty, pious priest (Tartuffe, also played by Depardieu), in order to gain access to the fortune and properties - and daughter - of the gullible merchant Orgon (François Périer). Molière's play was equally daring for its time, and was actually banned for five years until he adjusted the ending to give Tartuffe his come-uppance, and placate the French clergy in the process. Depardieu should have taken the lead of Molière, when he took the lead of this film, and displayed more creative bravado at the helm. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- François Perier, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
When her teen-aged son (Stephane Bierry) runs away and the police are noncommittal, a woman (Anne Duperey) convinces two old flames -- a crusading journalist (Gerard Depardieu) and a hypochondriac (Pierre Richard) -- that each is the father of her son in order to spur someone into action. Both eventually decide to search for the boy, meet up, and tell each other their stories without realizing they are looking for the same kid. This French comedy was remade in the U.S. as Fathers' Day in 1997. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Richard, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1983
Filmmaker Jean-Jacques Beineix followed up the surprise international success of his first feature, Diva, with this stylish but downbeat drama. Gerard (Gerard Depardieu) is a dock worker who becomes an emotional wreck following the rape and suicide of his sister. As his relationships with his girlfriend Bella (Victoria Abril), his drunken brother, and his depressive father begin to decay, Gerard becomes obsessed with finding the man who attacked his sister and spends most of his nights lurking about the scene of the crime. In time, Gerard makes the acquaintance of Loretta (Nastassja Kinski), who cruises by the waterfront every evening in a red sports car. Desperate to pull himself out of his emotional doldrums, Gerard becomes involved with Loretta. Bella, however, is not at all happy about this, and she convinces a pair of strong-arm men to teach him a lesson. Gerard must now decide if he wants to be with Loretta or Bella, just as he's discovered evidence that may reveal who raped his sister. La Lune Dans Le Caniveau received uneven reviews on its initial release and won a French Cesar Award for its production design. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Nastassja Kinski, (more)
- 1983
In this documentary on the filming of director Andrzej Wajda's movie Danton, Polish director Tomasz Pobog-Malinowski went to France and documented the filming of the confrontation between Robespierre and Danton in the French National Assembly and the guillotine scenes (both men were guillotined a few months apart, in 1794). In focus is how director Wajda intensely involves himself in all details of the action: cameras, actors, and technical support, yet he never loses respect for anyone. On a more subtle level, a Polish actor plays the violent Robespierre who promoted the infamous "Reign of Terror" when thousands were guillotined, and a Frenchman plays the moderate Danton, who wished to curb the bloodletting. Other subtle parallels are drawn between the French Revolution of the 1790s and the Polish upheavals led by Solidarity in the early 1980s. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andrzej Wajda, Igor Luther, (more)
- 1982
The Return of Martin Guerre is set in France during the Hundred Years' War. Imagining herself a widow, Nathalie Baye is astonished when her husband Gerard Depardieu returns after nine years. He looks like her husband and sounds like her husband, and certainly has a working knowledge of the couple's prior relationship. Still, neither Baye nor her neighbors can shake the notion that Depardieu is an imposter--especially since he's a much nicer and more responsible person than the man who marched off to war so long ago. Matters come to a head when the local magistrate sentences Depardieu to hang for his own murder. Return of Martin Guerre was the principal source for an American film, Sommersby (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, (more)
In 1982, legendary Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda fled his homeland and relocated in France to direct this powerful story about the ethical boundaries of power and leadership, which had many parallels to Poland's volatile political situation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Danton (Gérard Depardieu) and Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak) were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies. Wajda remained in France until 1989, when the collapse of Communist rule made it possible for him to return to his homeland. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Wojciech Pszoniak, (more)
- 1982
The plot in this story weaves around like a New Year's reveler at four in the morning, heading first in one direction and then in another, with the intention of going home if things would just stop moving. Bernard (Gerard Depardieu) is a doctor whose Hippocratic oath was a hypocritic failure -- the not-so-good doctor kills his wife because she is having an affair, and he kills her lover too. Then he joins the French Foreign Legion. On his way to the former French colonies in Africa, the plane he is in crashes, and Rossi, a "friend" on the plane with some overweight in carry-on money, shoots Bernard and takes off, leaving him for dead. He is nursed back to life and health by friendly villagers and just his luck, he not only manages to make his fortune in Africa, he also nabs a French passport from a dying man who will clearly not need it anymore unless the Pearly Gates have a French guard. The doctor gets back to Paris and hunts down Rossi, who at this point does not much care what happens to him because he is a miserable cad, as opposed to the once happy cad who shot Bernard. The doctor kills Rossi, an act witnessed by Ali (Hakim Chanem) a precocious Arab teenager who sees this as his chance to blackmail the doctor into "taking care of" a rotten police inspector responsible for murdering the boy's older brother. Rossi was the cause of the dead brother's drug addiction. However, the boy's sister Zita (Souad Amidou) works as a hooker-waitress at a restaurant that serves women on the side, and she and the doctor fall in love. As might be expected, the restaurant is owned by the nefarious police inspector and it does not take long before the once-cooperative Ali turns against Bernard and writes a letter to the inspector, spilling the beans, as many and varied as these are by now. Finally, Bernard is surrounded by the police but love has changed him, and he refuses to fight. As he heads off to prison, the plot has another twist or two as it lurches toward the final credits. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Roger Planchon, (more)
One the best, most serious detectives in France (Gérard Depardieu) is teamed up with a luckless stumble-bum (Pierre Richard) and sent off to Central America to search for the klutzy daughter of a powerful magnate in this fast-paced and funny French farce. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Richard, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1981
- R
François Truffaut's The Woman Next Door continues his fascination with obsessive love. It was also his first collaboration with Fanny Ardant, who would become his favored leading lady for the last phase of his career and offscreen love for the last years of his life. Bernard Coudray (Gerard Deparidieu) is a happily married man living in the village of Grenoble; his life is knocked askew when Philippe and Mathilde Bauchard move in next door, and Mathilde (Ardant) proves to be Bernard's long-ago lover. Truffaut and his screenwriters deftly allow the couple to slide into an affair, slowly revealing that their previous relationship ended without a firm resolution. Mathilde, married more recently than Bernard, to a devoted man some years older than her, senses the futility of revisiting the past, but her attempts to break off the relationship inflame Bernard. When Bernard begins to regret his own reckless behavior, Mathilde's understandable confusion leads to a nervous breakdown. Poorly received by critics who had written off Truffaut as irrelevant, The Woman Next Door is very much the work of the man who made Jules and Jim, Mississippi Mermaid, and Two English Girls. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant, (more)
- 1981
This French production concerns a gangster (Yves Montand) who retires to the countryside after living a full life of traditional crime. After settling into his new residence with his wife (Catherine Deneuve), his home is invaded by an unruly punk (Gerard Depardieu) who has some new-fangled ideas about the way crime should work. The film appears in French with English subtitles. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1980
- PG
Alain Resnais' Mon Oncle D'Amerique is presented in the form of a "case history," replete with a pedantic narrator, played by real-life behavioral scientist Henri Laborit. Gerald Depardieu plays a plant manager whose behavior is inspired by the films of "macho" French film star Jean Gabin. Nicole Garcia portrays an actress who has patterned her conduct after stage and film luminary Jean Marais. And Roger-Pierre is a TV executive whose main influence in life is lovely cinema actress Danielle Darrieux. Though it may sound like a Woody Allen comedy, Mon Oncle D'Amerique eschews satire for the most part, treating both its subject matter and its subjects with intense seriousness. The film scored a hit with moviegoers and critics alike, and was honored with six French Cesar Awards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia, (more)
- 1980
Claude Berri abandons his usual straightforward brand of filmmaking for the French I Love All of You. Catherine Deneuve plays a 35-year-old career woman who doesn't think she has time for a lasting relationship. Thus, her love life has been, and probably always will be, a series of trysts and one-night stands. The Alain Resnais-like continuity hopscotches between past, present and future as Deneuve ruminates on her empty emotional life. Originally titled Je Vous Aime, the film is also known as I Love You All (which sounds like something Scarlett O'Hara might say). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Louis Trintignant, (more)
The Last Metro is set virtually in its entirety in a crumbling French theatre. During the Nazi occupation, Jewish director Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent) hides in the basement of the theatre, while his wife Marion (Catherine Deneuve) stars in its latest production. Marion is enamored of leading man Bernard Granger (Gerard Depardieu), and he with her, but they resist temptation out of respect to her husband. When she is given a choice between loyalty to her husband and to her countrymen, her dilemma offers two logical solutions--both of which are acted out on stage during the play. This Pirandellian ending aside, The Last Metro is one of the few films to accurately capture the feeling of what it was like to live in Paris under the thumb of the Nazis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1980
In one of Coluche's earlier films, the late French comedian stars in this standard comedy by Claude Zidi as the inept police inspector, Michel Clement. The senior Clement was a spectacular policeman, and Michel finds it particularly difficult to try and walk in his father's footsteps without tripping. At the moment he is after Roger Morzini (Gerard Depardieu), a dangerous gangster who eventually kidnaps Marie-Anne Prossant (Dominique Lavanant). She is a journalist traveling with Michel as he tries to track down Morzini. Her objective was to get an interview with the gangster, and now she has more than she bargained for. Meanwhile, Michel tries to get his act together and rescue her. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Coluche, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
Maurice Pialat's character study eschews traditional plot development in its examination of the power of sex and passion to overturn class restrictions and social conventions. Isabelle Huppert is Nelly, a middle-class Parisian housewife, married to possessive husband Andre (Guy Marchand). When she meets street thug Loulou (Gerard Depardieu), her middle-class respectability is thrown out the window and she leaves Andre for Loulou. Loulou, who has no job and resorts to robbery to survive, is more than willing to live off Nelly's money. But Andre won't give her up and, in the mind-set of a middle-class bourgeois, tries to convince her to return. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1979
- R
Buffet Froid is an absurd black comedy that cunningly reverses the conventions of the crime thriller to comment on the alienating and dehumanizing effects of contemporary urban life. It starts with Alphonse Tram (Gérard Depardieu) discovering that his casual subway acquaintance (Michel Serrault) is lying down with Alphonse's penknife sticking out of his belly. When he tries to report the crime to his neighbor, a police inspector (Bernard Blier), the latter refuses to listen, saying that he is not at work now. Later, Alphonse's wife is killed, and her hapless murderer (Jean Carmet) almost immediately confesses to Alphonse, but neither the husband nor the police inspector seem to be shocked. The three embark on a series of adventures and bizarre encounters in modern Paris. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, (more)
- 1979
A large international cast takes part in this comedy in which the stories of numerous individuals whose cars are stalled in a massive Roman traffic jam are told. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Orazio Orlando, (more)
- 1978
In this story, the ambitions of the get-rich-quick crowd come crashing down around their ears as they hitch a ride on a speculation bubble involving sugar-commodities pricing. Raoul (Gerard Depardieu) is a hot-shot commodities broker who sweet-talks Adrien (Jean Carmet), a quiet and unassuming man, into taking his wife's inheritance and using it to speculate on the recent rise in sugar prices. Raoul is able to pry more money away from Adrien when he shows him how much his first, more conservative speculations have made. Commodities speculators know that when the market is going their way, their earnings multiply many-fold. However, in the heat of the moment, they sometimes forget that when prices go the wrong way, their losses can also multiply. In this story, the con-man is taken in by his own con, for Raoul has also entered the sugar market, using every bit of money he can scrape together. When the market turns around, they both land in the soup together. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Jean Carmet, (more)
- 1978
- R
The lightly mocking title Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Préparez Vos Mouchoirs) sets the tone for this Bertrand Blier-directed amalgam of the sentimental and sardonic. Gérard Depardieu plays an at-wit's-end husband, Raoul, who'll go to any lengths to sexually satisfy his wife, Solange (Carole Laure). Raoul decides that the best thing to cure Solange's boredom would be if she took a lover; thus, he chooses Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere) for the "job." But Stéphane isn't any more successful in arousing Solange than her husband had been. Eventually, it is a 13-year-old boy who quenches Solange's erotic yearnings. Get Out Your Handkerchiefs won a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar as well as a French César award for Best Score (by Georges Delerue). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
Lafayette (Gerard Depardieu), a young-ish misfit Frenchman and Nocello (Marcello Mastroianni), an older misfit Italian, live in a run-down section of New York City and are friends. Lafayette works for Flaxman (James Coco), an excitable antiquarian who owns and runs something called the "Roman Museum," by means of which he upholds the standards of a former age. Lafayette also works for a women's lib group, which one day decides to "rape" him to see how the shoe fits on the other foot. Rather than being much bothered, Lafayette starts a liaison with the woman who actually had sex with him. In this rambling tale, these men are shown to have great difficulty enduring intense emotions, and the situations that arise force them to confront this difficulty repeatedly. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
- 1978
In a sterile housing development, newly arrived Dr. Ferret (Victor Lanoux) becomes aware that nearly everyone in his community has purchased attack dogs from Morel (Gerard Depardieu), to protect themselves from what they perceive to be a disastrous crime wave. The presence of these growling menaces becomes increasingly nightmarish to the sensitive doctor. When the dogs are implicated in a number of attacks on minority citizens and the poor, a riot breaks out which truly threatens the lives of those involved. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Victor Lanoux, Nicole Calfan, (more)
- 1977
French filmmaker Claude Miller's This Sweet Sickness is based on a suspense novel by Patricia Highsmith, of Strangers on a Train fame. In the original, the murder-protagonist was a psychotic, pure and simple (if such words are appropriate here!) In Miller's version, the "hero," David, is a pathetic creature, motivated by humiliation and sexual inadequacy; thus the emphasis is not on his heinous crimes but on his warped personality. The director's noirish decision to stage much of the action in the dark, or the rain, or both, is a function of David's deep depression. As in his other films, Miller uses water as an omen of evil; you've seldom seen a more foreboding swimming pool than the one in This Sweet Sickness. The film was originally released as Dites-lui que je l'aime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Christian Clavier, (more)
