
Directing
Costa-Gavras
Born 1933-02-12 · Loutra-Iraias, Greece
Konstantinos "Kostas" Gavras (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος "Κώστας" Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933), known professionally as Costa-Gavras, is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for political films, such as the political thriller Z (1969), which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Missing (1982), for which he won the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most of his films have been made in French, but six have been in English, including Hanna K.. Description above from the Wikipedia article Costa-Gavras, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
6.2Two bumbling government employees think they are U.S. spies, only to discover that they are actually decoys for nuclear war.
Spies Like Us
1985
6.218 years after his last film, (The Troubles We've Seen), Marcel Ophuls emerges from retirement as one of our last masters, the most corrosive, the funniest as well. And the most forceful. The director of The Sorrow and the Pity shares with us stories of his exceptionally rich life in this light-hearted yet bitter escapade though the century and the movies. Son of the great Max Ophuls, he is generous in his admiration. We also meet Jeanne Moreau, Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Lubitsch, Otto Preminger, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and of course François Truffaut. There are no great filmmakers without a memory, so here is the memory shop of Marcel Ophuls.
Ain't Misbehavin
2013
6.1Two 19th-century opportunists become serial killers so that they can maintain their profitable business supplying cadavers to an anatomist.
Burke & Hare
2010
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Resistencia Cultural
2021
4.8An incredibly dull-witted family unknowingly stumble upon an illegal weapons deal while on the trail of their "stolen" garbage.
The Stupids
1996
6.7Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.
Madame Rosa
1977
6.5The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
2014
7.9Seventy critics and filmmakers discuss cinema around the conflict between the artist and the observer, the creator and the critic. Between 1998 and 2007, Kléber Mendonça Filho recorded testimonies about this relationship in Brazil, the United States and Europe, based on his experience as a critic.
Critic
2008
NRNo synopsis available yet.
La scripte
2026
2.0We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.
Morceaux de Cannes
2021
7.7An account of the extraordinary life of film pioneer Georges Méliès (1861-1938) and the amazing story of the copy in color of his masterpiece A Trip to the Moon (1902), unexpectedly found in Spain and restored thanks to the heroic efforts of a group of true cinema lovers.
The Extraordinary Voyage
2011
No synopsis available yet.
Le Raconteur
2016
NRTen years after the first documentary, the legend of the Palme d’Or… continues. Some new laureates of the Cannes trophy relive, for us, the very special moments surrounding the awarding of the Palme d’Or.
The Legend of the Palme d’Or Continues
2025
6.5No synopsis available yet.
Looking for Athènes
2013
7.2In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
2009
7.0No synopsis available yet.
Carolco, un rêve hollywoodien
2026
6.4Using the words and ideas of great filmmakers, from archival interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Bresson to new interviews with Mike Leigh, David Lynch, and Jonas Mekas, Oscar-winning filmmaker Chuck Workman shows what these filmmakers and others do that can't be expressed in words - but only in cinema.
What Is Cinema?
2013
5.0Thirteen filmmakers share personal reflections on Henri Langlois—the visionary founder of the Cinémathèque Française—recounting his influence on their lives, his role in preserving film history, and his enduring impact on world cinema.
Henri Langlois vu par...
2014
5.0No synopsis available yet.
Exception culturelle, la bataille qui a sauvé le cinéma français
2026
7.8Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the digital age, audiovisual heritage seems to be a sure and obvious fact. However, much of cinema and our filmed history has been lost forever. Archivists, technicians and filmmakers from different parts of the world explain what audiovisual preservation is and why it is necessary. The documentary is a tribute to all these professionals and their important work.
Film: The Living Record of Our Memory
2022
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Martin Scorsese Par Martin Scorsese
2015
7.0Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer, and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d'Or–winning Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.
The Legend of the Ugly King
2017
4.0The incredible adventure of what was supposed to be a three-month inventory project turned into a vast undertaking lasting more than fourteen years, an extraordinary reconstruction and restoration with unexpected twists and turns of one of the masterpieces of world cinema: Napoleon as seen by Abel Gance (1927).
La Saga du Napoléon d'Abel Gance
2025
NRA document of Perestroika, to be viewed as (nearly) unedited rushes of a voyage to Moscow, preserved by compatriot Costa-Gavras. Says Émilie Cauquy of the French Cinémathèque, "Astonishing unpublished travel diary, shot by Chris Marker in analog video on the occasion of a screening of L'Aveu in Moscow in 1990 [...] Armed with his camcorder, Marker films and records the comments, takes on the role of contemporary capital according to this unique ethnographic method that he has perfected".
Rush - Voyage à Moscou
1990
Behind the camera
7.2Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.
Missing
1982
7.2Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.
Missing
1982
6.2A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.
Mad City
1997
7.0Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is appalled to discover that a poison gas he helped discover is being used to kill Jews. Driven by his conscience to alert the rest of the world, Gerstein teams up with a young Jesuit priest, Riccardo Fontana, but their protestations fall on deaf ears in the Vatican.
Amen.
2002
7.0Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is appalled to discover that a poison gas he helped discover is being used to kill Jews. Driven by his conscience to alert the rest of the world, Gerstein teams up with a young Jesuit priest, Riccardo Fontana, but their protestations fall on deaf ears in the Vatican.
Amen.
2002
6.340 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.
Lumière & Company
1995
7.8A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth, but a tenacious magistrate is determined not to let them get away with it.
Z
1969
7.8A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth, but a tenacious magistrate is determined not to let them get away with it.
Z
1969
7.4In 1950s communist Czechoslovakia, a government minister, a war veteran long a loyal party man, leads a relatively comfortable life with his wife. However, he soon finds himself under surveillance, then under arrest. Unclear what his offense is, agents for the totalitarian regime interrogate and torture him, aiming to use their unending power to gain a false confession for these supposed crimes against the state.
The Confession
1970
6.9Bruno loved his job as a middle manager at a paper company, but optimistically views being laid off as an opportunity. After two years of searching for a comparable position, optimism turns to desperation. His wife works two jobs, and their marriage slowly deteriorates as their hold on the middle class slips away. Bruno concocts a grimly audacious plan to identify and kill his fellow job applicants so that he is the only qualified person left.
The Ax
2005
6.9Bruno loved his job as a middle manager at a paper company, but optimistically views being laid off as an opportunity. After two years of searching for a comparable position, optimism turns to desperation. His wife works two jobs, and their marriage slowly deteriorates as their hold on the middle class slips away. Bruno concocts a grimly audacious plan to identify and kill his fellow job applicants so that he is the only qualified person left.
The Ax
2005
7.1A lawyer defends her father accused of war crimes, but there is more to the case than she suspects.
Music Box
1989
6.1An FBI agent posing as a combine driver becomes romantically involved with a Midwest farmer who lives a double life as a white supremacist.
Betrayed
1988
6.5A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.
Adults in the Room
2019
6.5A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.
Adults in the Room
2019
7.2Assigned to South America, US official Philip Michael Santore is employed by a counterinsurgency agency. His position makes him a target for a local band of guerrillas, and, before long, Santore is kidnapped. As a prisoner, he undergoes interrogation, shedding light on the violent situation in the country. Once the insurgents are done with their questioning, they must decide whether Santore lives or dies.
State of Siege
1972
5.8Having both suffered extreme losses, two disparate souls try to form a relationship for consolation rather than romance.
Womanlight
1979
5.8Having both suffered extreme losses, two disparate souls try to form a relationship for consolation rather than romance.
Womanlight
1979
6.2The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.
Capital
2012
6.2The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.
Capital
2012
4.9A recently released safecracker returns to stealing in order to support his family. After several successful thefts, he decides to induct his teenage son into the 'family business'.
Family Business
1986
4.9A recently released safecracker returns to stealing in order to support his family. After several successful thefts, he decides to induct his teenage son into the 'family business'.
Family Business
1986
5.9In a kind of philosophical dialogue, Doctor Augustin Masset and renowned writer Fabrice Toussaint discuss life and death… A whirlwind of encounters in which the doctor is the guide and the writer, his passenger, led to confront his own fears and anxieties.
Before What Comes After
2025
5.9In a kind of philosophical dialogue, Doctor Augustin Masset and renowned writer Fabrice Toussaint discuss life and death… A whirlwind of encounters in which the doctor is the guide and the writer, his passenger, led to confront his own fears and anxieties.
Before What Comes After
2025