The César Award for Best Actress is one of the César Awards, presented annually by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma to recognize the outstanding performance in a leading role of an actress who has worked within the French film industry during the year preceding the ceremony. Nominees and winner are selected via a run-off voting by all the members of the Académie.
Hou Hsiao-hsien is a retired Mainland Chinese-born Taiwanese film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a leading figure in world cinema and in Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement. He won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1989 for his film A City of Sadness (1989), and the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 for The Assassin (2015). Other highly regarded works of his include The Puppetmaster (1993) and Flowers of Shanghai (1998).
Marianne Raigipcien Jean-Baptiste is an English actress. She is known for her role in the 1996 film Secrets & Lies, for which she received acclaim and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award in the same category. Baptiste is also known for her role as Vivian Johnson on the television series Without a Trace from 2002 to 2009, and has since starred in television shows such as Blindspot (2015–2016) and Homecoming (2018).
Agnès Jaoui is a French actress, screenwriter, film director and singer.
Tahar Rahim is a French-Algerian actor. His breakthrough performance was in the 2009 French film A Prophet, for which he won the César Award for Best Actor and Most Promising Actor. He then starred as FBI agent Ali Soufan in the miniseries The Looming Tower and Judas in the film Mary Magdalene.
Lights Out is a French thriller film directed by Fabrice Gobert and starring Jules Pelissier, Ana Girardot, Arthur Mazet, Laurent Delbecque, Serge Riaboukine and Laurent Capelluto.
Declaration of War is a 2011 French film directed by Valérie Donzelli, and written by and starring Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm; it is based on actual events in their lives together, when they were a young couple caring for their dangerously ill son. It was released on the 31 August 2011 and received very positive reviews; Allociné, a review aggregation website gave it an average of 4.3 stars out of five. Le Monde gave it a full five stars, saying "Against cancer, an undoubtable force of happiness". The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.
Ana Girardot is a French actress and director. She is known for Escobar: Paradise Lost (2014); her role of Lucy in the television series Les Revenants ; and Someone, Somewhere (2019).
Not My Type is a 2014 French-Belgian romance film directed by Lucas Belvaux and starring Émilie Dequenne and Loïc Corbery. It was based on the 2011 novel Pas son genre by Philippe Vilain. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.
Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart is a 2014 French thriller film written and directed by Cédric Anger. It was adapted from the novel Un assassin au-dessus de tout soupçon by Yvan Stefanovitch. Set in 1970s Oise, France, it is based on the story of Alain Lamare, a gendarme who was later revealed to be a murderer.
La Crème de la crème is a 2014 French comedy-drama film directed by Kim Chapiron. The film received three nominations at the 20th Lumières Awards, where Thomas Blumenthal and Jean-Baptiste Lafarge were nominated for Most Promising Actor and Alice Isaaz for Most Promising Actress.
Bastien Bouillon is a French actor. He has appeared in more than 30 film and television productions since 2009. He is the son of the stage director Gilles Bouillon. In 2023, he received the César Award for Most Promising Actor.
18 Years Old and Rising is a 2011 French comedy film directed by Frédéric Louf.
Parisienne is a 2015 French drama film written and directed by Danielle Arbid. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.
Someone, Somewhere is a 2019 French comedy film directed by Cédric Klapisch, starring François Civil and Ana Girardot. The film premiered at the 2019 Festival du film francophone d'Angoulême (FFA).
Jumbo is a 2020 drama film written and directed by Zoé Wittock in her feature directorial debut. An international co-production of France, Belgium and Luxembourg, the film stars Noémie Merlant, Emmanuelle Bercot, Bastien Bouillon and Sam Louwyck.
Bye Bye Morons is a 2020 French comedy drama film written and directed by Albert Dupontel. The film stars Virginie Efira, Albert Dupontel and Nicolas Marié.
The Night of the 12th is a 2022 mystery thriller film directed by Dominik Moll, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Gilles Marchand, based on the 2020 non-fiction book 18.3 – Une année à la PJ by Pauline Guéna. It stars Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Anouk Grinberg, Théo Cholbi, Johann Dionnet, Thibault Evrard, Julien Frison, Paul Jeanson, Mouna Soualem and Pauline Serieys.
