Denis Lavant

Acting

Denis Lavant

Born

1961-06-17 (65)

Place of birth

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Known for

Acting

Credits

67 titles

Denis Lavant (born June 17, 1961) is a French film actor known for his distinctive face and the physically demanding aspects of the roles he plays, which often involve slapstick, acrobatics or dance, as well as for his long-standing association with director Leos Carax. Lavant has played the lead role in all but one of Carax's films. Lavant is also known for his starring roles in Claire Denis' Beau Travail and Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely, which features Carax in a supporting role.

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 20 titles

The Stranger poster
6.8

Algiers, 1938. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother's funeral without shedding a tear. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague. He quickly slips back into his usual routine.

The Stranger

2025

Gagarine poster
6.6

Yuri, 16, has lived all his life in Gagarin Towers, a vast red-brick housing project on the outskirts of Paris. He dreams of becoming an astronaut. When plans to demolish Gagarin Towers leak out, Yuri joins the resistance. With his friends Diana and Houssam, he embarks on a mission to save their home, which has become his “starship.”

Gagarine

2020

Silver Skates poster
7.5

1899, the Christmas-time St.Petersburg. Ice-covered rivers and canals of the capital seethe with festive activities. On the eve of the new century those who should not be destined to meet, come together. They are people from different worlds: Matvey, the son of a lamplighter, whose only treasure is his silver-plated skates; Alice is the daughter of a high-ranking official dreaming of science. Each of them has his own difficult life-story, but having accidentally met they rush forward together in pursuit of their dreams.

Silver Skates

2020

It's Not Me poster
7.1

This free-form film is a self-portrait, which revisits more than 40 years of the author’s filmography and questions the major stations of his life, while capturing the political tremors of the time.

It's Not Me

2024

Night of the Kings poster
6.6

A young man is sent to "La Maca," a prison in the middle of the Ivorian forest ruled by its inmates. As tradition goes with the rising of the red moon, he is designated by the Boss to be the new "Roman" and must tell a story to the other prisoners. Learning what fate awaits him, he begins to narrate the mystical life of the legendary outlaw named "Zama King" and has no choice but to make his story last until dawn.

Night of the Kings

2021

In the Land of Arto poster
5.3

Céline arrives in Armenia for the first time to legalize the death of Arto, her husband. She discovers that he has lied to her, that he fought in the war, usurped his identity, and that his former friends consider him a deserter.

In the Land of Arto

2025

Sibyl poster
NR

The director delves into the fragments of his own memory, blending images, words, and silences in a film essay that explores identity, memory, and the impossibility of coherent self-narration. A broken self-portrait, reconstructed from the image.

Sibyl

2025

Inquisitions poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Inquisitions

2026

In the Name of Blood poster
5.9

In the working-class neighborhoods of Nice, a pillar of the local Georgian community is murdered. His son Tristan, who aspires to become an orthodox priest, finds himself finds himself alone with his grieving mother. Gabriel, his older brother with a troubled past, reappears from a long exile to make amends by redeeming his family honor.

In the Name of Blood

2025

Tralala poster
5.6

A 48-year-old homeless singer and composer receive a cryptic message that makes him believe he has been visited by the Virgin Mary.

Tralala

2021

Body of Crime poster
NR

Jean, a young videographer, turns to arms and revolts after the death of a friend during a police arrest. While imprisoned and awaiting trial, spirits visit him.

Body of Crime

2023

The End poster
8.0

A stop-motion doomsday comedy, in which airport-bound creatures wait out the impending apocalypse.

The End

2026

Two Night Owls in Paris poster
8.0

Near the oldest bridge in Paris, the Pont-Neuf, Camille, a second-hand bookseller, crosses paths with Paul, an Eiffel Tower trinket seller. Over the course of one night, these two young souls give in to the captivating rhythm of the City of Light.

Two Night Owls in Paris

2024

Erratics poster
NR

Freeing himself after spending a hundred years trapped in a glacier, the ghost of the filmmaker Lucien Castelnau wanders through a futuristic Patagonia, where technological progress clashes with forgotten stories. Unable to rest while his cinematic legacy remains unseen, he crosses a world that has deleted him from its memory, in search of a place in history and of spectators, who can finally bring his lost work back to life.

Erratics

2026

Hotel Fantasma poster
NR

The life of whimsical Amélie, a reserved chambermaid, is upended by the arrival of Madame Raoul, a mysterious guest with an air of playful intrigue.

Hotel Fantasma

2025

Hood Witch poster
6.0

A woman earns a living by smuggling exotic animals and illegal goods, developing a mobile app that links users with mystical marabout healers, but one of the user's consultations takes a tragic turn facing a violent backlash.

Hood Witch

2023

Tell Me Iggy poster
6.0

This new intimate documentary looks at the extraordinary journey of the 75-year-old American rocker, who has come back from everything, and especially from the worst, but with his capacity for wonder intact.

Tell Me Iggy

2022

In All My Journeys I Am Returning poster
NR

19th-century Colombia. Karl and Petronella, a young Swedish couple, sail in search of fortune. The river carries them through desolate lands ravaged by the independence war. Their adventure loses its course, slowly swallowed by a strange and distorted time in which nothing but the reflection of their nostalgia and the ghost of the alienating unknown remains.

In All My Journeys I Am Returning

2026

Le discours poster
NR

A man delivers a political speech. As he speaks, his true identity is revealed: a homeless man living in the Paris metro. Haunted by his past as a former leader of a once-promising party, his sphere of influence is now confined to the underground, where he scrapes together a few coins.

Le discours

2022

Human Flowers of Flesh poster
6.0

Ida lives on a sailing yacht with a crew of five men. While on shore leave in Marseilles, she becomes fascinated with the French Foreign Legion and decides to sail to Sidi Bel Abbès, the Legion's former headquarters in Algeria.

Human Flowers of Flesh

2023

2010s · 19 titles

Holy Motors poster
7.0

We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.

Holy Motors

2012

The Emperor of Paris poster
6.3

Paris, France, early 19th century. The legendary convict François Vidocq lives in disguise trying to escape from a tragic past that torments him. When, after an unfortunate event, he crosses paths with the police chief, he makes a bold decision that will turn the ruthless mastermind of the Parisian underworld against him.

The Emperor of Paris

2018

The Night Eats the World poster
6.0

After waking up to find himself all alone in an apartment where a massive party was being held the night before, Sam is immediately forced to face a terrifying reality: the living dead have invaded the streets of Paris.

The Night Eats the World

2018

The Bra poster
6.0

Train driver Nurlan’s heading to Baku for the last time before retirement, but on his fateful journey around the neighborhoods of the city his train snags a blue bra off a washing line. To escape from his lonely existence, Nurlan embarks on the most adventurous journey of his life: to find the owner of this perky piece of underwear. He rents a small room in Baku and begins his quest to find his “Cinderella”.

The Bra

2019

One Nation, One King poster
5.6

„Un peuple et son roi" crosses the destinies of the men and women of the population, and those of historical figures. Their meeting place is the newly founded National Assembly. At the heart of the story lie the fate of the king and the birth of the French Republic.

One Nation, One King

2018

Me and Kaminski poster
5.9

Young journalist Sebastian Zöllner is writing an article on artist Manuel Kaminski. Zöllner hopes that Kaminski dies soon, so that he can cash in on his article.

Me and Kaminski

2015

My Little Princess poster
6.5

Young Violetta and her mother Hannah are a peculiar couple. Ten-year-old Violetta lives a quiet life with her grandmother, while her mother Hannah is an unpredictable photographer who lives off of the generosity of others. When Hannah forces her daughter to pose as a model, Violetta finds her life with her loving grandmother turned upside down.The resulting pictures quickly become a sensation for the trendy 70's Paris art scene, and Violetta finds herself caught in between her new stature as an art muse and her dull childhood.

My Little Princess

2011

3 Days in Quiberon poster
6.3

1981, Quiberon, a small village on the coast of Brittany, France. Hilde Fritsch arrives to visit her old friend who has retreated to a spa hotel to escape the daily pressures of her life. Her friend is world-famous star Romy Schneider, but together, they appear like two regular women who are just happy to be reunited. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Hilde is supposed to offer the support the sensitive actress needs to be able to truly face her own demons.

3 Days in Quiberon

2018

Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas poster
5.9

In the 16th century in the Cévennes, a horse dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas leads a happy and prosperous family life. When a lord treats him unjustly, this pious, upstanding man raises an army and puts the country to fire and sword in order to have his rights restored.

Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas

2013

Mr. X poster
6.1

The image of a mysterious, solitary filmmaker - a cineaste maudit - who flees from both the media and the public, is unrelentingly bound to the figure of Leos Carax, in France. Elsewhere, the real focus is on his films and he is considered to be an icon of world cinema. Mr.X dives into the poetic and visionary world of an artist who was already a cult figure from his very first film. Punctuated by interviews and unseen footage, this documentary is most of all a fine-tuned exploration of the poetic and visionary world of Leos Carax, alias "Mr.X".

Mr. X

2014

Figurant poster
6.4

A man follows a group of workers coming for daywork in an industrial area. Soon, he’s stripped from his clothes and identity, dressed in a military uniform and armed. His determination not to fall behind the others is then tested by a series of unsettling events.

Figurant

2019

Hitler in Hollywood poster
6.2

A bio-doc about Micheline Presle changes into a thrilling investigation of the long hidden truth about European cinema. This mockumentary thriller uncovers Hollywood's unsuspected plot against the European motion picture industry. Numerous directors and stars appear in the film, making it a choice morsel for all film lovers.

Hitler in Hollywood

2011

DRIVE IN Holy Motors poster
6.0

A making-of documentary of Leos Carax's Holy Motors. Present during the shoot, Salomé catches exacting and inspiring moments of the production and adds interviews with its main participants (the actors Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, and Kylie Minogue, and the cinematographer, Caroline Champetier).

DRIVE IN Holy Motors

2013

Girls with Balls poster
4.2

All girls volley ball team The Falcons end up stranded in the middle of nowhere after their mini-van breaks down. Little do they know they landed in degenerate hunters' territory and the hunt is on. Thus begins a very long night where they must run for their lives and test their team spirit. But the girls are more resourceful than it appears. In the heart of the forest, the tables are about to turn between hunter and hunted...

Girls with Balls

2019

Boris Without Beatrice poster
6.5

Living somewhere in present-day Quebec, Boris Malinowski has achieved all his goals. A freethinker, open-minded and proud, he also displays a certain arrogance when it comes to his successes. For some time now, his wife Béatrice, a Canadian government minister, has been bedridden, suffering from a mysterious depression. To escape from his wife’s agony, Boris begins a relationship with a colleague, Helga, and gets close to Klara, a young woman who works as a maid in Boris’s home. The sudden appearance of a stranger in his life forces Boris to come face-to-face with the world, with everything he takes for granted, with all his certainties.

Boris Without Beatrice

2016

Je sens plus la vitesse poster
NR

In the drowsy air of a late-night bistro, a few lonely souls linger. A man reminisces about cars, speed, sensations from his past. But, he must leave. The bar is closing.

Je sens plus la vitesse

2013

Hop-o'-My-Thumb poster
5.5

Children encounter a kid-eating ogre.

Hop-o'-My-Thumb

2011

Austerlitz poster
NR

“You buy a book. You don’t really know why. It lies around, and then one day you open it, almost absentmindedly. And there you are, facing your own innermost secrets.” So begins Stan Neumann’s cinematic adaptation of W.G. Sebald’s award-winning novel, Austerlitz. The vaulted and majestic space of the railway station in Antwerp is where our journey really starts with actor Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) addressing the camera directly, and musing on the curious nature of railway stations. This bravura opening is startling, charming, and like the unnamed narrator of the book, you surrender to the proceedings and perambulate alongside Lavant, as he journeys through the great buildings of Europe, faded and shuttered hotels and grand colonnades with broken windows.

Austerlitz

2015

My Intelligent Comedy poster
6.8

Damien Nadeau-Daneau, a young filmaker, is unable to finish a movie he started with french actor Denis Lavant. Indebted, he’s working at a post-production company, far from his artistic ideals. On the eve of his 33rd birthday, he is self-centered, unsatisfied, and lost in his own life. With no drama of his own, he is confronted with that of others who he meets over the course of his life. He will discover that reality is way more interesting than fiction.

My Intelligent Comedy

2018

2000s · 10 titles

A Very Long Engagement poster
7.3

Young Frenchwoman Mathilde searches for the truth about her missing fiancé, lost during World War I, and learns many unexpected things along the way. The love of her life is gone. But she refuses to believe he's gone forever — and she needs to know for sure.

A Very Long Engagement

2004

Tokyo! poster
6.9

Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.

Tokyo!

2008

Beau Travail poster
7.1

Foreign Legion officer Galoup recalls his once glorious life, training troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented, until the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup's mind.

Beau Travail

2000

Mister Lonely poster
6.6

In Paris, a young American working as a Michael Jackson lookalike meets Marilyn Monroe, who invites him to her commune in Scotland, where she lives with Charlie Chaplin and her daughter, Shirley Temple.

Mister Lonely

2008

Deep in the Woods poster
4.0

A group of artists, composed of the young actors Wilfried and Matthieu and the actresses Sophie, Mathilde and the dumb Jeanne, is hired by a millionaire, Axel de Fersen, to present a performance of Little Red Riding Hood in his isolated castle to celebrate the birthday of his grandson. Meanwhile, the police advises that a serial killer is raping and killing young women in the woods around that area. During the night, the group feels trapped and threatened in the castle, guessing who is and where might be the killer.

Deep in the Woods

2000

No artwork available
NR

A documentary portrait of the filmmaker Harmony Korine during the production of his third feature film, Mister Lonely (2007). Shot on location in Scotland, Paris, and Panama, each chapter presents the production process and the causal, day-to-day absurdities of the actor/impersonators featured in Mister Lonely. Throughout the process, as Harmony reveals his thoughts on the film he also reveals a part of himself.

The Lonely

2009

Luminal poster
5.2

Demon and Davi are two eighteen-year-old prostitutes. Introduced to the sex trade by the cruel and cynical Ryu, they live mostly at night in a Paris dominated by perverse clients to please and by luminal, a synthetic drug that shapes their lives. When their friend is brutally murdered and they discover that Ryu is indirectly responsible for her death, the two girls decide to flee to London and try to change their lives before it's too late. Ryu, however, isn't willing to let them go so easily and sets out to avenge the shame she suffered.

Luminal

2004

Language Does Not Lie poster
7.3

Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), a professor of literature in Dresden, was Jewish; through the efforts of his wife, he survived the war. From 1933 when Hitler came to power to the war's end, he kept a journal paying attention to the Nazis' use of words. This film takes the end of 1945 as its vantage point, with a narrator looking back as if Klemperer reads from his journal. He examines the use of simple words like "folk," "eternal," and "to live." Interspersed are personal photographs, newsreel footage of Reich leaders and of life in Germany then, and a few other narrative devices. Although he's dispassionate, Klemperer's fear and dread resonate

Language Does Not Lie

2004

La Squale poster
6.1

Désirée, a black girl, is nicknamed "The Shark" by her friends. This nickname comes from her strong rebellion and her ability to win in the suburban city, dominated by the power of boys.

La Squale

2000

The Temptation of St. Tony poster
6.9

A mid-level manager who develops an aversion to being a good person questions his morality as he faces the challenges of middle age and loses control of his life.

The Temptation of St. Tony

2009

1980s · 7 titles

The Wounded Man poster
5.7

A fleeting encounter in a train station draws a withdrawn young man into a shadowy world of desire and danger. As obsession deepens, innocence destroyed, and an irreversible transformation begins.

The Wounded Man

1983

Les Misérables poster
7.0

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

Les Misérables

1982

Mauvais Sang poster
7.1

Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner's son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.

Mauvais Sang

1986

Going and Coming Back poster
6.5

Salomé Lerner just finished writing an autobiography. She goes to a TV show called "Apostrophes", hosted by French TV showman Bernard Pivot. Pivot then imagines a film that could be created from her gripping story. A film entirely made of music because after seeing the young pianist Erik Berchot, Salomé believes seeing her long lost brother, who was a musician as well. A brother she had lost along with her parents in 1943. However, the Lerners did in fact escape the gestapo and might have based themselves in Paris...

Going and Coming Back

1985

Long Live Life poster
6.0

The movie starts with an interview with director Claude Lelouch. He pleads viewers not to disclose the plot of the movie after leaving the projection room. Even the movie's trailer shows only a long sequence of faces gazing speechlessly in space. "Like all my movies, this one is about a man and a woman", says Lelouch in the interview.

Long Live Life

1984

Boy Meets Girl poster
6.7

In Paris at night, a young aspiring filmmaker grapples with heartbreak after his girlfriend leaves him for his best friend. After a failed attempt to confront his friend, he wanders the streets and encounters a girl who has just been abandoned. Their paths cross at a party, bringing together two tormented souls.

Boy Meets Girl

1984

Entre Nous poster
6.7

In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.

Entre Nous

1983

Series credits

The Little Murders of Agatha Christie poster
7.4

French adaptations of the stories by Agatha Christie.

The Little Murders of Agatha Christie

2009

Square poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Square

2012

The Traveller poster
7.0

Hunting down killers to help bereaved families get justice is more than just a job; it’s a duty for Thomas Bareski, a retired, hotshot police detective eager to reopen unsolved murder cases in a mission to find the culprits.

The Traveller

2019

Midnight Sun poster
7.1

Kahina Zadi, 32, a French police officer travels to Kiruna in Sweden to investigate the bestial murder of a French citizen. Together with Anders, a Swedish prosecutor of Sami origin, she begins an investigation. Soon new killings start to happen and the first victim turns out to be the tip of a very dark iceberg. The victims seemingly have nothing in common more than that they are all being killed in a well-planned and vicious manner. In their hunt for the truth, both Kahina and Anders are forced to deal with their own past that they have repressed. A personal journey through a painful past becomes the key to succeed in preventing the violent killings that affects the small mining community of Kiruna.

Midnight Sun

2016

The Inquisition poster
8.0

With six centuries of history behind it, the Inquisition stands out as the most formidable system of repression in European history. Documentary-maker Stan Neumann tells the story of the origins and evolution of this ‘police of souls’ – at once secret and spectacular – whose influence is still felt in today’s world.

The Inquisition

2026

The Countess of Monte Cristo poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

The Countess of Monte Cristo

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Behind the camera