Marie-Christine Barrault

Acting

Marie-Christine Barrault

Born 1944-03-21 · Paris, France

Marie-Christine Barrault (born 21 March 1944) is a French actress. She is best known for her performance in Cousin Cousine (1975) for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2010, she released her autobiography, titled This Long Way To Get To You. Marie-Christine Barrault was born in Paris, France, the daughter of Martha (née Valmier) and Max-Henri Barrault. Her parents later divorced. Barrault's father, who worked in the theatre, died while she was a teenager. With no support, her mother was unable to care for her and her brother, Alain. Barrault was raised by her grandmother, Felicite. She was mentored in acting by her aunt and uncle, French performers Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud. They initially did not support her dreams of becoming an actress. She performed in plays in secondary school and then enrolled in an acting conservatory. Barrault got her start on television in L'oeuvre (1967). She made her feature film debut in Éric Rohmer's My Night at Maud's (1969). In 1970 Barrault was featured along with Pierre Richard in the comedy film Le Distrait. In 1975 Barrault starred in Cousin Cousine, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She worked with Rohmer once again in 1978, in the role of Guinevere in Perceval le Gallois and she also has a cameo in his Chloe in the Afternoon. Barrault is not fluent in English and therefore has generally turned down offers to appear in English-language films. However, in 1980 she accepted an offer from Woody Allen to appear in his film Stardust Memories. In 1988 she was nominated for a Genie Award for her performance in No Blame. In 1991 she portrayed Marie Curie in a television mini-series. In her later career, she has preferred acting on the stage in France. In 2015, she came to Los Angeles on tour to perform in the play Les Yeux Ouverts, in which she portrays French author Marguerite Yourcenar. Barrault's first husband was producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, whom she married in 1965. With him, she had two children, David and Ariane. Barrault was married to director Roger Vadim from 1990 until his death from cancer in 2000. She herself is a breast cancer survivor. Source: Article "Marie-Christine Barrault" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Acting credits

No artwork available
10.0

The engagement of a young couple is spoiled by the antics of their relatives.

Tendre piège

1996

My Dearest poster
4.8

Jeanne has been divorced for seven years now and her life is centered around Sarah, her fifteen year-old daughter. They appear to have a perfectly harmonious life together, a relationship based on deep mutual understanding and trust. So when Sarah needs a contraceptive, it's her mother who goes alone to the drugstore with her. However, under this idyllic surface there are tensions at work. Jeanne's on and off affair with Pierre does not save her from feeling lonely, and Sarah is bored by school. Both of them dream of an independent life, though neither will admit it.

My Dearest

1980

The Ties That Bind Us poster
7.2

A young single father trying to find the strength to love. A feminist librarian, single by conviction, who’s decided that she won’t be a mother. A six-year-old child trying to find a place in a new family structure. By revealing their aspirations, their fears, their choices, Carine Tardieu depicts different ways in which humans create families.

The Ties That Bind Us

2025

Histoire vraie poster
10.0

A servant girl, given in marriage when she turns out to be pregnant, can't bring herself to live away from her master.

Histoire vraie

1978

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman poster
6.7

A lost cat, a giant talkative frog and a tsunami help a bank employee without ambition, his frustrated wife and a schizophrenic accountant to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find a meaning to their lives.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

2023

The Medusa Touch poster
6.8

A French detective in London reconstructs the life of a man lying in hospital with severe injuries with the help of journals and a psychiatrist. He realises that the man had powerful telekinetic abilities.

The Medusa Touch

1978

Trivial poster
4.2

An inspector who just suffered a family tragedy is looking for a missing older man. Man's family is of no help, or are they hiding something? He is helped by a ghost of an actress who died 30 years ago, or is he slowly going insane?

Trivial

2007

No artwork available
1.0

A former police officer, Marc Lorca, sees his wife die from a terrible car accident, which occurred while he was driving. Previously alcoholic, Lorca seems to collapse under the weight of guilt. But a former colleague, Marianne Duriez, recently become a police captain, shows him that the accident is not accounted by any negligence on his part. The survey of experts has indeed revealed that the steering axis of the vehicle was sabotaged. Gradually, the suspect list is expanding. Lorca realizes he knows nothing of the past of his deceased wife, who was obviously part of a small extreme left group.

Passés troubles

2006

My Night at Maud's poster
7.6

The Catholic Jean-Louis runs into an old friend, the Marxist Vidal, in Clermont-Ferrand around Christmas. Vidal introduces Jean-Louis to the modestly libertine, recently divorced Maud and the three engage in conversation on religion, atheism, love, morality and Blaise Pascal's life and writings on philosophy, faith and mathematics. Jean-Louis ends up spending a night at Maud's. Jean-Louis' Catholic views on marriage, fidelity and obligation make his situation a dilemma, as he has already, at the very beginning of the film, proclaimed his love for a young woman whom, however, he has never yet spoken to.

My Night at Maud's

1969

Stardust Memories poster
6.9

While attending a retrospect of his work, a filmmaker recalls his life and his loves: the inspirations for his films.

Stardust Memories

1980

The Student poster
5.8

An ambitious teaching student's finals studies are interrupted by a passionate affair with a jazz musician.

The Student

1988

Oldies But Goodies poster
5.3

As the Lino Vartan shelter, which takes orphans and seniors in, has to shut down for health issues, Milann has no choice but to accept the invitation of a retirement home in the south of France.

Oldies But Goodies

2024

Saint-Germain ou La négociation poster
7.0

This is the TV adaptation of a novel by Francis Walder. The scene happens in 1570, during the religions wars between catholics and protestants in France. Both sides are decided for a truth, to enable peaceful negociations of a settlement, which will become the peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the same year. The negociation, lead by Henri de Malassise (Jean Rochefort), and the Earl of Biron for the Catholic side, and Mr. d'Ublé and M. de Mélynes for the protestants side.

Saint-Germain ou La négociation

2003

Love in the Afternoon poster
7.3

Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.

Love in the Afternoon

1972

Menace poster
5.0

An esteemed surgeon, Charles Bernard, and his family are victims of a violent home invasion. When his young child is held for ransom, Charles must decide whether to comply or fight back.

Menace

1972

Swann in Love poster
5.6

In Belle Époque Paris, a 19th-century Parisian aristocrat falls in love with a lower-class prostitute who seduces him but never loves him.

Swann in Love

1984

Figaro-ci, Figaro-là poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Figaro-ci, Figaro-là

1972

An Ideal Husband poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

An Ideal Husband

1972

The Abyss poster
5.4

The Inquisition is in full swing in 16th century Flanders. Wanted for his dissident writings, the alchemist doctor Zeno has been wandering Europe under an assumed name for twenty years. But he remains a non-conformist. He returns to his native Bruges, where he thinks he has been forgotten. In this silent labyrinth where the faces of the past resurface, he rediscovers his identity and thus signs his death warrant.

The Abyss

1988

A Woman's Life poster
NR

Gabrielle, a dedicated surgeon and head of a hospital department, is stretched thin by the weight of responsibility. There is little time left for her private life: a loving husband and a mother who depends on her care. Yet this is the life she wanted, the life she chose. When a novelist comes to observe her at work for a book, her balance begins to shift.

A Woman's Life

2026

My Name Is Hmmm... poster
5.5

Céline, 11, meets Peter, 40. Together they go on a "luminous journey" in his beautiful red truck. She, escaping her desperate and incestuous father; he, far from his native Scotland and the sad memory of his lost wife and daughter. In the course of a few days, a few words, Céline experiences her first true moments of childhood and lightness, exhilaration and trust. Peter goes towards the last days of a life that he offers, like a sublime and aging angel, to this wounded child.

My Name Is Hmmm...

2013

Women in Prison poster
4.2

Nicole (Agnes Soral) is sent up the river for infanticide in this routine woman-in-prison feature. There she meets Marthe (Annie Girardot), a fellow murderess who receives special treatment from the warden Dessombes (Marie-Christine Barrault). The warden frames Nelly (Bernadette Lafont) for drug possession and has her thrown into solitary confinement. Sabien (Corinne Touzet) is a newcomer convicted of armed robbery who latches on to the lesbian Lucie (Milva), a longtime prisoner slated for release.

Women in Prison

1988

Manuela's Loves poster
3.3

The survivor of a concentration camp finds out that her lover, a lesbian, is having an affair with a protegee.

Manuela's Loves

1987

Perceval poster
7.1

The film chronicles Perceval's knighthood, maturation and eventual peerage amongst the Knights of the Round Table, and also contains brief episodes from the story of Gawain and the crucifixion of Christ.

Perceval

1978