Plot
François (Auteuil) is a middle-aged, Parisian art dealer who thinks he has everything. After telling a story at dinner about a funeral he attended where only a handful of people turned up, his colleagues suggest that no-one would go to his funeral. He may be materially rich, but he has no friends. Everyone at the dinner table starts to antagonise him about having no friends but François says that he does have friends (in reality, he only has clients). His business partner Catherine (Gayet) challenges him to a bet: François must introduce his best friend within ten days, or lose a valuable object, his antique Greek vase (worth €200,000).
The challenge is accepted. François has ten days to find a friend. As François travels through Paris in a taxi, revisiting old acquaintances who all reject him, he meets a trivia-loving taxi driver, Bruno (Boon). As the two spend an increasing amount of time together, they gradually start to form a friendship. François meets Bruno's parents and buys a worthless table from them for 10,000 euros to be a better friend. However, François's desire to win the bet threatens to destroy the best friendship he has ever had. He tricks Bruno into attempting to steal his vase so François can get his insurance money, but it was all a plot to show how much of a friend Bruno was. Bruno becomes furious and smashes the vase, ending his friendship. To make it up, François gets Bruno on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire by giving away his vase. This is a success, and brings the two together, as friends.
Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier, known as Juliette, was a French socialite whose salon drew people from the leading literary and political circles of early 19th-century Paris. An icon of neoclassicism, Récamier cultivated a public persona as a great beauty, and her fame quickly spread across Europe. She befriended many intellectuals, sat for the finest artists of the age, and spurned an offer of marriage from Prince Augustus of Prussia.
Josiane Balasko is a French actress, writer, and director. She has been nominated seven times for César Awards, and won twice.
Francis Paul Veber is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, and playwright. He has written and directed both French and American films. Nine French-language films with which he has been involved, as either writer or director or both, have been remade as English-language Hollywood films: Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire, L'emmerdeur, La Cage aux Folles, Le Jouet, Les Compères, La chèvre, Les Fugitifs, Le dîner de cons and La Doublure. He also wrote the screenplay for My Father the Hero, the 1994 American remake of the French-language film Mon père, ce héros.
The Fire Within is a 1963 drama film written and directed by Louis Malle. It is based on the 1931 novel Will O' the Wisp by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, which was inspired by the life of poet Jacques Rigaut. The film stars Maurice Ronet and features Léna Skerla, Jean-Paul Moulinot, Bernard Tiphaine, Bernard Noël, Jeanne Moreau, Jacques Sereys, and Alexandra Stewart in supporting roles. The score consists of music composed by Erik Satie and performed by pianist Claude Helffer.
The Valet is a 2006 French-language comedy film written and directed by Francis Veber and starring Gad Elmaleh, Alice Taglioni, Daniel Auteuil and Kristin Scott Thomas. The film is about a parking valet who is enlisted to pretend to be the lover of a famous fashion model in order to deflect attention from her relationship with a married businessman. The film enjoyed box office success in France and the United States.
My Favorite Season is a 1993 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, co-written by Téchiné and Pascal Bonitzer, and starring Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, and Marthe Villalonga. The story concerns a middle-aged brother and sister who resume their fragile relationship when they are forced to care for their ailing mother. It won Best Foreign Language Film at the 1996 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards.
Jean-Pierre Foucault is a French television and radio host. He was born in Marseille, his mother was Jewish. He was the host of Qui Veut Gagner des Millions ?, the French version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and the host of Zone Rouge, the French version of The Chair. He has been hosting the Miss France pageant since 1996 and hosted the Miss Europe in 2003, 2005 & 2006 pageant.
Dany Boon is a French actor, film director, screenwriter and producer.
Welcome to the Sticks is a 2008 French comedy film directed and co-written by Dany Boon and starring Kad Merad and Boon himself. The film was the highest-grossing French film of all time at the box office in France until it was surpassed by The Intouchables (2011).
Pierre-François Martin-Laval is a French actor, film director, screenwriter and theatre director. PEF is well known in France for his acting performances in musical comedy but also in serious plays. He studied at the famous French school of acting Cours Florent. During his drama studies he met the friends with whom he formed the comedy team 'Les Robins des Bois' in 1996. Initially called The Royal Imperial Green Rabbit Company, they renamed themselves after their first significant success, a play entitled Robins des bois.
Micmacs is a 2009 French comedy film by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Its original French title is MicMacs à tire-larigot. The film is billed as a "satire on the world arms trade". It premiered on 15 September 2009 at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival as a gala screening at Roy Thomson Hall.
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.
Jacques Spiesser is a French actor.
My Best Friend's Girl is a 1983 French comedy film directed by Bertrand Blier that stars Isabelle Huppert, Thierry Lhermitte, and Coluche.
Nothing to Declare is a 2010 Franco-Belgian comedy film, written and directed by Dany Boon.
My Worst Nightmare is a 2011 French-Belgian comedy-drama film written and directed by Anne Fontaine, starring Isabelle Huppert, Benoît Poelvoorde and André Dussollier.
C4 was a French Electronic Euro Disco boyband consisting of four members Arnaud, Christophe, Pierre and Gaël. The band was originally formed in 1998 as a tribute to popular French singer Claude François (Cloclo). The band C4 released their album En Plein Coeur in 1998 being Euro dance versions of renowned Cloclo songs including his French version of "Donna Donna". François co-written the French lyrics to the song and had a number 1 hit with it in December 1964. C4's new dance version charted yet again in France appearing in the official French Singles Chart for 12 weeks and peaking at number 25. The follow-up C4 single was yet another François song "J'attendrai", a French version of "Reach Out I'll Be There".
Alison Wheeler is a French comedian and actress.
The Crime Is Mine is a 2023 French crime comedy film directed by François Ozon starring Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon, and André Dussollier. Set in the 1930s, the film follows an actress who gains notoriety after getting acquitted of murder for self-defense. It is a loose adaptation of the 1934 play Mon crime by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, which has been adapted into two American films, True Confession (1937) and Cross My Heart (1946).
