
Acting
Jacques Villeret
Born 1951-02-06 · Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France
Jacques Villeret (6 February 1951 – 28 January 2005) was a French actor, best known internationally for his role as François Pignon in the comedy Le Dîner de Cons. During his career, he earned many awards including the prestigious medal and title of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. Villeret was born Jacky Boufroura in Loches, Indre-et-Loire, France, to an Algerian father and a French mother. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSAD) in the same class as Louis Seigner, the grandfather of Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathilde Seigner. While he was most famous for his role as François Pignon in Le Dîner de Cons; both on the stage and in the film, his other celebrated roles included the extra terrestrial in La soupe aux choux, the autistic Mo in L'été en pente douce, and marshal Ludwig von Apfelstrudel in Papy fait de la résistance. At the time of making the film Un aller simple directed by Laurent Heynemann – a film about integration and racism and the clash of generations – he said that watching the young actors in the film, Barbara Schulz and Lorant Deutsch, reminded him of the insouciance he had had as a young man with his friends at the Conservatoire. When his career was at its height, with the success of Le Dîner de Cons, everything collapsed in a tragedy mirroring the plot of the film. Villeret separated from his wife and suffered an enormous financial downfall due to tax issues, plunging him into depression. Villeret turned to alcohol for comfort, and became an alcoholic. He isolated himself and hid away for long periods. He later said: Alcohol is a friend, but a friend who means you harm. Villeret's love of his profession helped to bring his career back from the brink. In an interview in 2001 he spoke of his admiration for performers like Johnny Hallyday and Jacques Brel for their level of commitment, and quoted the author Louis-Ferdinand Céline: When I write, I put my balls on the table. In 1979 Villeret married Irina Tarassov, an actress and writer. They separated in 1998. Tassarov wrote about their life together in her book Un jour, tout ira bien. (One day, everything will go well). In 2002 Villeret met Seny, a Senegalese-French widow descended through her grandfather, Mor Diarra N'Dao, from a long line of Sérès nobles of the ancient Kingdom of Saloum, and they fell instantly and deeply in love. They were partners for three years, and she was about to move to Paris to be with him when he died in Évreux in January 2005 of a liver haemorrhage. Seny wrote a memoir of their life together, Jacques Villeret, mon bébé blanc, which was published in Paris by Le Cherche Midi in 2005. Source: Article "Jacques Villeret" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Acting credits
6.5Antoine a Union representative works in a financially troubled factory. He's not the sharpest tool in the box but he has a big heart and when he and his wife win the jackpot of the national lottery. Antoine will invest his gain to try and safe the factory.
Golden Boy
1996
7.8For Pierre Brochant and his friends, Wednesday is “Idiots' Day”. The idea is simple: each person has to bring along an idiot. The one who brings the most spectacular idiot wins the prize. Tonight, Brochant is ecstatic. He has found a gem. The ultimate idiot, “A world champion idiot!”. What Brochant doesn’t know is that Pignon is a real jinx, a past master in the art of bringing on catastrophes...
The Dinner Game
1998
7.0Georges Lajoie is a Parisian café owner. As every summer, Georges, his wife Ginette and grown-up son Léon go on holiday to Loulou's campsite, where they meet up with the Schumacher family (whose father is a bailiff) and the Colin family (who sells bras in the markets). This year, their peace is slightly disturbed by the proximity of a construction site where foreign workers are employed. Xenophobic comments are made. One evening at the ball, a fight breaks out between Lajoie, Albert Schumacher and two algerian immigrant workers...
The Common Man
1975
6.1Dressed as a clown, the clever rascal Grimm holds up the most secure bank of Montreal and takes 30 hostages. While confusing and ridiculing the police with his strange behavior, he calmly manages to rid the bank of a fortune. But then an unsatisfied companion arouses trouble...
Hold-up
1985
6.0A woman involved with a terrorist group becomes dangerously close to the police officer guarding the bank they plan to rob.
First Name: Carmen
1983
6.9Danton and Robespierre were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies.
Danton
1983
6.9It is 1943 in Paris. Like so many others, the Bourbelle family's home has been taken over by the Germans and they now live in their cellar. Little do they know that the son, Guy-Hubert Bourdelle, is far from being the cowardly hairdresser he pretends. He is in truth the Germans’ most feared opponent: le super-résistant!
Gramps Is in the Resistance
1983
5.8A self-conscious and self-referential adventure into the (pretend) lives of legendary actors in Paris.
Actors
2000
6.4Two buddy farmers are visited by aliens who like their domestic cabbage soup.
The Cabbage Soup
1981
4.5In this conventional, broadly comic farce of greed and royal matrimony, nearly bankrupt businessman Victor Harris is marrying Maria-Helena, a princess who comes with a dowry that is made up of one half of her island kingdom. Her father, the cowardly King Arnold III is counting on the money this marriage will bring him. The country is now almost bankrupt because of the king's gambling debts. As Harris and the king look forward to their illusory profits from the royal merger, other characters add some liveliness to the otherwise predictable story.
La Galette du roi
1986
5.6After a tumultuous life, a middle-aged headwaiter in a Parisian restaurant dreams of opening a seaside amusement park. When an old flame reappears, he reignites his feelings, but she is involved with another man.
Waiter!
1983
6.9The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.
Bolero
1981
4.2In 1956, with the independence of Morocco, the Fedala conference in Tangier is set in a city of turmoil.
Last Summer in Tangiers
1987
6.5After the French defeat of 1870, Julia took three years to love Alexander, with whom she married for her fortune. Alas, when Julia wants to declare his love to her husband, the latter confesses to him that his passion is extinguished.
Three Years
1990
6.3A man leaves his 8-year old son with his father-in-law who lives near the glacier where the boy's mother died.
Malabar Princess
2004
5.7Serge (Stevenin) is a dweller in the French provinces who happens upon Georges (Jacques Villeret), a Parisian motorist in distress. Serge arranges for the car to be taken to a nearby garage. Georges' friends, who were with him in the car, have continued their journeys. Because of that, Serge takes Georges under his wings while he waits for his car to be repaired, and they tour the countryside and party with the local revelers. Nothing much is said between them, but it is clear that they have become friends
Mountain Pass
1978
6.555 years ago, on October 1 1968, the first brand advertising spot appeared on the French television screen. Over the next three decades, thousands of creative little films would seduce and build our collective memory. Kitschy or cult spots, humor, slogans, music, stars, gimmicks, grand spectacle or sex appeal: during its golden age, how did advertising convince? Thierry Ardisson has brought together almost 400 advertising clips to relive the era of the conquest of minds and wallets.
L'Âge d'or de la pub
2023
6.0Probably no one in the public listening to the orchestra's rendition of Ravel's Bolero notices him but the drummer is a regular hero. For, although his mind is assailed by loads of unsettling thoughts and worries, he tries to keep the rhythm at any cost. He knows all too well that he falls out of time only once all the magic of the piece will vanish.
The Drummer of Ravel's Boléro
1992
5.7Adapation of the fanciful comic novel by Albert Cohen.
Nailcruncher
1988
7.1The film is set in Marais, a quiet region along the banks of Loire river in 1918. Riton is afflicted with a bad-tempered wife and three unruly children. Garris lives alone with his recollections of World War I trenches. Their daily life consists of seasonal work and visits from their two pals: Tane, the local train conductor and Amédée, a dreamer and voracious reader of classics.
The Children of the Marshland
1999
4.4From his locksmith's shop, a simple guy dreams of becoming a crime boss, at the wheel of his Cadillac surrounded by blonde bimbos. He starts small, assassinating petty criminals. Gaining renown in the newspapers as "Le Furet" (The Ferret), he soon sets his sights higher. The police and organized crime both take up the chase.
Le Furet
2003
5.1Three former bank robbers are meeting after 25 years...
The Do-Gooders
2005
6.5When he inherits the family house and property after his mother's death, aspiring novelist Fane returns home with his bimbo girlfriend Lilas. He must care for his idiot brother Mo and contend with a greedy garage owner who covets Fane's property to expand his business. When efforts to buy the property are fruitless, the mechanic incites the townsfolk against the strange trio.
L'été en pente douce
1987
8.2Charismatic and resourceful, seducer and daredevil, Jean-Paul Belmondo has always played his roles as he lived, at a thousand miles an hour. He had only one passion: to entertain the public with his smile, his naturalness, his energy, his stunts. But contrary to appearances, his destiny was full of pitfalls. This film lifts the veil on a founding childhood that allowed him to overcome many obstacles throughout his life thanks to the tutelary figures of his father and mother. Told from the inside with the help of his autobiography, interviews and unpublished archives, this epic story traces the career of this turbulent young actor who launched the New Wave in Breathless before becoming the popular Bebel, an indestructible and provocative vigilante. From film to film, this documentary paints an intimate portrait of a man who built himself up to reach the top: his triumphs but also his trials, his doubts, his secrets, his angers, his clowning, his disappointments or his personal dramas.
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
2022