Niels Arestrup

Acting

Niels Arestrup

Born 1949-02-08 · Montreuil, Seine [now Seine-Saint-Denis], France

Niels Arestrup was a French actor, film director and screenwriter. His father was Danish and his mother was French. He has won two César Awards for Best Supporting Actor for De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté and Un prophète, both films where he was directed by Jacques Audiard.

Acting credits

War Horse poster
7.3

On the brink of the First World War, Albert's beloved horse Joey is sold to the Cavalry by his father. Against the backdrop of the Great War, Joey begins an odyssey full of danger, joy, and sorrow, and he transforms everyone he meets along the way. Meanwhile, Albert, unable to forget his equine friend, searches the battlefields of France to find Joey and bring him home.

War Horse

2011

A Prophet poster
7.6

Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.

A Prophet

2009

By the Sea poster
5.5

Set in France during the mid-1970s, Vanessa, a former dancer, and her husband Roland, an American writer, travel the country together. They seem to be growing apart, but when they linger in one quiet, seaside town they begin to draw close to some of its more vibrant inhabitants, such as a local bar/café-keeper and a hotel owner.

By the Sea

2015

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly poster
7.6

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2007

At Eternity's Gate poster
7.0

Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.

At Eternity's Gate

2018

See You Up There poster
7.8

In November 1918, a few days before the Armistice, when Lieutenant Pradelle orders a senseless attack, he causes a useless disaster; but his outrageous act also binds the lives of two soldiers who have nothing more in common than the battlefield: Édouard saves Albert, although at a high cost. They become companions in misfortune who will attempt to survive in a changing world. Pradelle, in his own way, does the same.

See You Up There

2017

Farewell poster
6.5

An intricate thriller about an ordinary man thrust into the biggest theft of Soviet information of the Cold War. Right after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A French businessman based in Moscow, Pierre Froment, makes an unlikely connection with Grigoriev, a senior KGB officer disenchanted with what the Communist ideal has become under Brezhnev. Grigoriev begins passing Froment highly sensitive information about the Soviet spy network in the US.

Farewell

2009

So Long Africa poster
5.5

Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, April 2011. Jacques and Safi arrive from Abidjan, from where they've been repatriated in an emergency. He's as tough as nails, after too much time in the African sun and enjoying an expatriate lifestyle while running a hotel. Safi, his fourteen-year-old daughter, is used to living with her mother and doesn't know what to think about her loud-mouthed and useless father who has suddenly taken her away with him. Moved to a hostel in Nice, they learn to get to know each other, to be able to look each in the eye, perhaps to love each other. But there's also Gloria, Safi's mother, left behind in the upheaval of Abidjan, and impossible to contact...

So Long Africa

2015

Sarah's Key poster
7.3

On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being sent to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closet just before the police entered their apartment. Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.

Sarah's Key

2010

Diplomacy poster
7.0

On the night of August 24, 1944, the fate of Paris rests with General von Choltitz, who plans to destroy the city on Hitler's orders. As the general prepares to detonate explosives throughout the capital, Swedish consul Raoul Nordling uses diplomacy in a desperate bid to convince him to defy the orders and save Paris.

Diplomacy

2014

Le soir où j'ai reçu le César 2024 poster
NR

Receiving a César is a defining moment in an actress’s or actor’s career. Eleven actresses and actors take part in a mirror exercise and, years later, revisit the footage of the ceremony where they were honored. They rediscover the emotion, the laughter, and sometimes the regrets of that unforgettable moment.

Le soir où j'ai reçu le César 2024

2024

The Beat That My Heart Skipped poster
6.9

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

2005

Stavisky... poster
5.9

Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent assist small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French politics. But when his great scam involving millions is exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.

Stavisky...

1974

Je Tu Il Elle poster
6.6

A woman suffers a subdued psychological breakdown in the wake of a devastating breakup.

Je Tu Il Elle

1974

96 heures poster
5.4

Carré is the boss of the BRB (Brigade for the Repression of Banditry). 3 years earlier, he arrested a big mobster, Kancel. Today, thanks to an extraction, Kancel kidnaps the cop. He has 96 hours to elicit a single information: know who gave him.

96 heures

2014

The French Minister poster
6.0

Alexandre Taillard de Vorms is a force to be reckoned with. With his silver mane and tanned, athletic body, he stalks the world stage as Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, waging his own war backed up by the holy trinity of diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity, and efficacy. Enter Arthur Vlaminck. Hired to write the minister's speeches, Arthur must contend with the sensibilities of his boss and the dirty dealings within the Quai d'Orsay, the ministry's home.

The French Minister

2013

Brook by Brook poster
8.0

An intimate portrait of director Peter Brook by his son, Simon Brook.

Brook by Brook

2002

The Big Picture poster
6.3

Paul Exben is a success story – partner in one of Paris's most exclusive law firms, big salary, big house, glamorous wife and two sons straight out of a Gap catalog. But when he finds out that Sarah, his wife, is cheating on him with Greg Kremer, a local photographer, a rush of blood provokes Paul into a fatal error.

The Big Picture

2010

Return to Montauk poster
5.6

Author Max Zorn, now in his early 60s, is on a promotional book tour in New York when he encounters the woman he could never forget. They spend a weekend together, seventeen years have passed. Can there be a future for their past?

Return to Montauk

2017

Sincerely Charlotte poster
3.8

In a most unusual, near menage a trois, Charlotte is a terrified young singer who is forced to hide out at the home of her ex-boyfriend -- her current male companion has been murdered in his apartment, and she fears the worst. The trouble is that Mathieu, her ex, is happily living with his new love Christine.

Sincerely Charlotte

1985

Memoirs of a French Whore poster
6.1

Marie is nineteen and bored in her little suburban life with no future. In a café, she meets the charismatic and beautiful Gerard. Blinded by adoration, Mary decides to leave her parents and her clerk job to live with the man she considers as the love of her life. But Gerard is a pimp, who soon forces her into prostitution. From within homes to out on the streets, the young woman gradually discovers a world of decay and violence.

Memoirs of a French Whore

1979

Villa Caprice poster
5.4

Famous lawyer, Luc Germon adds Gilles Fontaine, one of the most powerful bosses in France, to his clients. He is suspected of having acquired a magnificent property, Villa Caprice, under questionable conditions.

Villa Caprice

2021

Divertimento poster
7.0

Zahia Ziouani, 17, dreams of becoming a conductor, while her twin sister Fettouma hopes to be a professional cellist. They want to make classical music accessible to everyone and create their own orchestra.

Divertimento

2023

Small World poster
6.3

Conrad Lang, a handyman in a rich family - he has been raised like a brother with Thomas, who has the same age -, accidentally puts fire to the big holiday house he keeps. He returns to the town he grew up in, to the family home, where Philippe, Thomas's son, and Simone are getting married. Conrad's frequent memory loss and behavioural problems rapidly reveal a neurological disease (Alzheimer's is suggested by doctor Cohen when he examens Elvira) which leads Elvira, Thomas's stepmother, to install Conrad in a guesthouse on the property, with the help of a nurse. When Conrad looses more and more his landmarks in present and past, memories of his youth come back to surface. They intrigue Simone, since these memories do not entirely fit together with the official family history...

Small World

2010

Behind the camera