Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo was a French actor. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward. His best known credits include Breathless (1960), That Man from Rio (1964), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Borsalino (1970), and The Professional (1981). He was most notable for portraying police officers in action thriller films and became known for his unwillingness to appear in English-language films despite being heavily courted by Hollywood. An undisputed box-office champion like Louis de Funès and Alain Delon of the same period, Belmondo attracted nearly 160 million spectators in his 50-year career. Between 1969 and 1982 he played four times in the most popular films of the year in France: The Brain (1969), Fear Over the City (1975), Animal (1977), Ace of Aces (1982), being surpassed on this point only by Louis de Funès. The popularity of Jean-Paul Belmondo as actor is mainly due to the characters he interpreted in his movies, loving to highlight the virile man, fighter, but also brave and heroic, which appealed to a wide audience in France and also abroad.
Marlène Jobert is a French actress and author.
Pierrot le Fou is a 1965 French New Wave romantic crime drama road film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. The film is based on the 1962 novel Obsession by Lionel White. It was Godard's tenth feature film, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin. The plot follows Ferdinand, an unhappily married man, as he escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by OAS hitmen from Algeria.
Jacques Deray was a French film director and screenwriter. Deray is prominently known for directing many crime and thriller films.
Bruno Jean Marie Cremer was a Belgian born French actor best known for portraying Jules Maigret on French television, from 1991 to 2005.
Le Magnifique is a French/Italian international co-production released in 1973, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jacqueline Bisset and Vittorio Caprioli that was directed by Philippe de Broca. Le Magnifique is a slapstick spoof of B-series espionage films and novels and the men who write them.
Henri Verneuil was a French-Armenian playwright and filmmaker, who made a successful career in France. He was nominated for Oscar and Palme d'Or awards, and won Locarno International Film Festival, Edgar Allan Poe Awards, French Legion of Honor, Golden Globe Award, French National Academy of Cinema and Honorary Cesar awards.
Un flic is a 1972 crime thriller film, the last directed by Jean-Pierre Melville before his death the following year. It stars Alain Delon, Richard Crenna and Catherine Deneuve. Delon had previously portrayed criminals in Melville's Le Samouraï (1967) and Le Cercle Rouge (1970), but in Un flic, his role is reversed, and he plays the title character.
Pierre Granier-Deferre was a French film director and screenwriter
José Giovanni was the pseudonym of Joseph Damiani, a French writer and film-maker of Corsican origin who became a naturalized Swiss citizen in 1986.
Borsalino is a 1970 French gangster film directed by Jacques Deray and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon and Catherine Rouvel. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2009, Empire named it No. 19 in a poll of "The 20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've Never Seen… Probably". A sequel, Borsalino & Co., was released in 1974 with Alain Delon in the leading role. The film is based on real-life gangsters Paul Carbone and François Spirito, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during the occupation of France in World War II.
Hold-Up is a Franco-Canadian crime comedy from 1985, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and directed by Alexandre Arcady. The screenplay by Arcady, Daniel Saint-Hamont and Francis Veber is based on the novel Quick Change by Jay Cronley. The novel was filmed again, as Quick Change (1990), with Bill Murray starring and co-directing.
L'Animal is a 1977 French action comedy film directed by Claude Zidi and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Raquel Welch. It was distributed in the United States by Analysis Film Releasing Corp under the title Stuntwoman.
A Man and His Dog is a 2008 French film directed by French director Francis Huster, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, based on the 1952 film Umberto D. directed by Vittorio De Sica, and written by Cesare Zavattini.
The Loner is a 1987 French crime film directed and co-written by Jacques Deray, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Malo, Michel Beaune and Pierre Vernier. It was the last in a series of commercial action films made by Belmondo, which started with 1975's The Night Caller and made him a powerhouse at the continental European box office.
Le Marginal is a 1983 French crime film directed by Jacques Deray and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. The music for the film was composed by Ennio Morricone.
Fear Over the City is a 1975 French crime film directed by Henri Verneuil and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. It was the first time Belmondo played a police officer.
A Monkey in Winter is a 1962 French comedy-drama film directed by Henri Verneuil. It is based on the novel A Monkey in Winter by Antoine Blondin. Set in a Normandy seaside town, it recounts the meeting and parting of two men at odds with life, one an old hotel keeper who dreams of dashing deeds in pre-war China and the other a young advertising executive who imagines he is an incarnation of Hispanic masculinity.
Le Corps de mon ennemi is a 1976 French crime film directed by Henri Verneuil.
If I Were a Spy is a 1967 French thriller film directed by Bertrand Blier, starring Bernard Blier and Bruno Cremer. It tells the story of a medical doctor who gets into trouble when one of his patients turns out to be hunted by the mafia. Filming took place from 15 November to 18 December 1966. The film was released in France in August 1967.
