Alain Cuny

Acting

Alain Cuny

Born — Died

1908-07-12 — 1994-05-16

Place of birth

Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, France

Known for

Acting

Credits

72 titles

Alain Cuny (12 July 1908 – 16 May 1994) was a French actor. He was born René Xavier Marie in Saint-Malo, Brittany, and studied medicine for a while before entering the film industry as a costume and set designer. Cuny started acting in the 1930s. Among his most notable films are Les Visiteurs du soir (1942), by Marcel Carné; Les Amants (The Lovers 1958); La dolce vita (1960) and Satyricon (1969), the later two directed by Federico Fellini. During his life, he befriended women such as Hafida Elalama, and many other models and actresses Later in his career he had a role in the softcore porn film Emmanuelle (1974). Also in 1974 he played Sitting Bull in the absurdist western Don't Touch the W…

Known for

Film credits

2000s · 2 titles

1990s · 6 titles

The Return of Casanova poster
6.0

After many years of rambling across Europe the aging Giacomo Casanova is impoverished. He wants to return to the Republic of Venice but he doesn't dare going there directly because he was a fugitive when he left. While he tries to find a way to get a pardon he meets a young lady named Marcelina. The more he shows his affection, the more ostentatiously she rejects him. Even so he doesn't give up on her because her lover Lorenzo has grave gaming debts. In return for the required money Lorenzo tells Casanova about a looming secret rendezvous with Marcelina. Moreover he lets Casanova take his place. Undercover of the night Casanova finally seduces her. Lorenzo later feels his honor was besmirched and demands satisfaction. Casanova kills him in a duel and then goes home to Venice.

The Return of Casanova

1992

Film sur Georges Perec poster
7.0

A two-part documentary made for French TV about Georges Perec, directed by his former partner Catherine Binet. It features a mixture of archival footage, scenes from Perec’s films and to-camera readings of excerpts from his work by various actors and friends of the author (Michael Lonsdale, Marina Vlady, Alain Cuny, Sami Frey, Edith Scob, Harry Mathews and others).

Film sur Georges Perec

1990

Dear Antonioni poster
NR

A documentary portrait of Michangelo Antonioni based on Roland Barthes' essay.

Dear Antonioni

1995

The Annunciation of Marie poster
6.1

During the Crusades, Vercors betroths his beautiful daughter Violaine to Jacques. She cannot marry Jacques because she has contracted leprosy, so Jacques marries her younger sister Mara. Jacques and Mara's first child dies soon after its birth, and Mara begs Violaine to return from seclusion to restore the child to life.

The Annunciation of Marie

1991

Sweet War, Farewell poster
7.2

A man walks with his child on the grass of a hill. He reaches an old country house, where years before he had spent his childhood during World War II. The deserted and desolate rooms make him travel back in memory to the time when the war was ending. Episodes of family life pass before his eyes: father, mother, grandmother and six children, of which he, Silvano, the youngest, was made mute by the shock of a bomb exploding...

Sweet War, Farewell

1991

Les chevaliers de la table ronde poster
9.0

The Quest of the Grail from the birth of Merlin, to the foundation of the Round Table, the coronation of Arthur, the love affairs of Lancelot and Guinevere, the Bridge of the Sword, the revenge of Morgana until the return of Gilead to the castle of the Fisher King.

Les chevaliers de la table ronde

1990

1980s · 12 titles

Detective poster
5.2

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.

Detective

1985

Chronicle of a Death Foretold poster
7.3

This suspenseful Italian crime drama is set in a Colombian river town and chronicles the series of events that led up to murder. Based on a novel by distinguished author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the tale begins in the present as a middle-aged doctor returns to the village after a twenty-year absence to investigate the murder that occurred just before he left.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

1987

Time Masters poster
7.3

On planet Perdide, an attack of giant hornets leaves young Piel alone in a wrecked car with his dying father. A mayday message reaches their friend Jaffar, an adventurer travelling through space. Onboard Jaffar’s shuttle are the renegade Prince Matton, his fiancée, and Silbad, who knows Perdide well. Thus begins an incredible race across space to save Piel.

Time Masters

1982

Camille Claudel poster
6.8

The life of Camille Claudel, a French sculptor who becomes the apprentice of Auguste Rodin and later his lover. Her passion for her art and Rodin drive her further away from reason and rationality.

Camille Claudel

1988

The Games of Countess Dolingen poster
3.3

This complex and puzzling French drama walks the fine wavering line between the fictional and the very real as it tells the tale of a strangely erotic event in the life of a little girl and the musings of a schizophrenic woman. Also involved is an enigmatic spouse who prepares a surprise for a burglar.

The Games of Countess Dolingen

1981

Umi e, See You poster
10.0

Team DANKAI are set to compete in the Paris-Dakar Rally, an off-road endurance race spanning thousands of miles and multiple continents. Prior to the event, DANKAI leader Mizuki is ordered by their sponsor to add popular celebrity Ryuichi Yoshii to the roster for publicity. This exacerbates DANKAI's resentments and baggage. Needing a steady hand to mediate dispute and navigate their support vehicle, Mizuki recruits legendary retired mechanic/driver Eiji Honma to the team. Soon Honma discovers his ex-wife Kei is also participating in the rally, alongside her current husband, the bullfighter Antonio Vázquez. Honma's truck also comes to include stowaway passenger Yuko Takei, Yoshii's pop star girlfriend who is trying to salvage their relationship.

Umi e, See You

1988

No artwork available
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Lucky Ravi

1987

No artwork available
7.5

No synopsis available yet.

Fellini nel cestino

1983

The Distant Land poster
7.0

Vienna at the turn of the century: The industrialist Friedrich Hofreiter is a vain, self-important man who is used to taking what he wants and who enjoys exercising power. His tender wife Genia increasingly recognizes his deceitfulness. The Russian pianist Alexei Korsakov, a subtle artist, commits suicide because of her. Hofreiter, on the other hand, travels to the Dolomites with his friend and family doctor Dr. Mauer, who is in love with the young Erna. Hofreiter makes her his lover in front of Mauer's eyes. In turn, he provokes Genia's lover into a duel and shoots him. In the end, there is only emptiness. Faithful adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's stage play.

The Distant Land

1987

The Basileus Quartet poster
4.0

The lives of the surviving members of the Basileus Quartet, a chamber group that has been playing successfully around the world for more than 30 years, are turned upside down after the death of the leader, Oscar Guarneri. The three aging musicians decide to split up to pursue those pleasures they've denied themselves too long.

The Basileus Quartet

1983

No artwork available
NR

"What is a location search ? Maybe that's it : hanging in a pub... let their thoughts flow freely." (André S. Labarthe) The camera reinvests the places that Van Gogh covered in Montmartre, but also among other things the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. In this place which "looks like an airport" Labarthe imagine an incredible meeting between Vincent Van Gogh and Antonin Artaud. The Artaud's texts are read by Alain Cuny

Van Gogh à Paris, repérages

1988

Buio nella Valle poster
9.0

The two-episode television drama tells the story of a family willing to do anything to maintain possession of their assets, even two brutal murders that will have to wait more than ten years to reach a solution.

Buio nella Valle

1984

1970s · 18 titles

Emmanuelle poster
6.0

An employee at the French Embassy in Bangkok invites his wife to join him – and enjoy the benefits of their open marriage.

Emmanuelle

1974

Don't Touch the White Woman! poster
5.5

A highly stylized surreal farce about the events leading up to Custer's Last Stand anachronistically reenacted in an urban renewal area in modern Paris.

Don't Touch the White Woman!

1974

Illustrious Corpses poster
6.8

A detective is assigned to investigate the mysterious murders of some Supreme Court judges.

Illustrious Corpses

1976

Many Wars Ago poster
7.3

Time after time, soldiers of the Italian Army are forced to leave their mountain trenches in attempts to storm an enemy fortress, always with the same disastrous results. As casualties mount, indignation spreads among the rank and file. Disturbed by his superiors' decisions, Lieutenant Sassu is led to question the purpose of war and reconsider where his real duties lie.

Many Wars Ago

1970

Christ Stopped at Eboli poster
7.2

In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.

Christ Stopped at Eboli

1979

The Song of Roland poster
5.5

Roland des Roncesvalles is a legendary knight from the age of chivalry in France. In the 11th-century epic La Chanson de Roland, he is depicted as a key figure in halting the advance of the Arabs into France. In this story, the 10th-century legend is staged by a group of 12th-century pilgrims using the 11th-century poem. Their acting is interrupted by a violent peasant uprising, which kills many of the pilgrims. However, one of the survivors, is converted to the peasant cause and later speaks out in favor of more just treatment for the downtrodden.

The Song of Roland

1978

The Master and Margarita poster
5.4

Maestro Nikolai Masoudov, a talented writer, and his assistant Margaret, are working on a biblical story of Pontius Pilate. The Satan — Woland, and his lieutenants, are harassing Master by surveillance, by killing his friend, and sending another friend to Gulag prison in Siberia. Victimized by their harassment, Master becomes paranoid, and is locked up in a mental institution. Margaret is trying to save him regardless of the danger.

The Master and Margarita

1972

The Audience poster
6.5

Caustic satire on bureaucracy of the Vatican authority and a simple Italian who wants to achieve the audience with the Pope.

The Audience

1972

I prosseneti poster
4.0

David and his wife Gilda transform their beautiful villa in a brothel, which are home to several characters. Odile, the daughter of a woman tortured by mercenaries, meets in the villa one of the torturers and want to relive over his own body the suffering endured by the mother. An ambassador who was abandoned by his companion, imposes its new partner to take his place. An eighteen year old, very open-minded, staged an orgy.

I prosseneti

1976

Antigone poster
9.0

With fierce originality, this powerful adaptation of the Sophocles tragedy presents a world of honor, treachery and fateful consequences. Acclaimed actress Genevieve Bujold skillfully combines elements of zealotry and idealism in her affecting portrait of Antigone. Jean Anouilh's retelling of "Antigone" stages the inescapably wrenching central confrontation between Antigone and Creon by presenting Bujold and Fritz Weaver seated at a long, executive-suite table--a hallmark of Anouilh's play.

Antigone

1974

Two in the Amsterdam Rain poster
8.0

Sakuda is a Japanese expat working in Amsterdam. When his company gets exposed for exporting fire arms to Italy that are later repurposed for war in Africa, he finds himself involved in a major complot alongside Ryo, a woman from his native village whom he falls in love with.

Two in the Amsterdam Rain

1975

E il Casanova di Fellini? poster
10.0

During his preparation for his film on Casanova Fellini asks a number of renowned actors to give him their view on the character of Casanova.

E il Casanova di Fellini?

1975

The Big Black Sow poster
7.0

Enrico struggles with his dysfunctional family and cheating wife, and eventually makes plans to kill them all.

The Big Black Sow

1971

La rosa rossa poster
7.5

A former General comes back to Trieste to live with his cousins.

La rosa rossa

1973

Valparaiso, Valparaiso poster
4.6

Alain Cluny is Balthazar, a bumbling middle-aged intellectual who spouts off from time to time about leftist causes, usually to his current girlfriend. Then Edwarda (Bernadette Lafont), who is active in the political underground, comes into his life. From that point on, he begins to act on his beliefs. Edwarda's underground political action group stages a little drama to test Balthazar's commitment and reliability, putting him through an interrogation by what appear to him to be French secret police. Having passed this test, he is given a real assignment. This film is a comedy with elements of satire, and it explores the humor to be found in left-wing pretentiousness of all kinds. - Rovi

Valparaiso, Valparaiso

1973

La Légende du siècle poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

La Légende du siècle

1972

Roberte poster
4.3

Roberte, 40, resistant during the war, Calvinist and anticlerical, is deputy to the chamber and inspector of Censorship. She married Octave, an old Catholic aesthete, professor of canon law, whom she saves from impeachment for collaboration during the war. He submits his wife to a perverse custom: the laws of hospitality or prostitution of the wife by the husband.

Roberte

1979

Ciao, Federico! poster
7.2

A behind-the-scenes documentary about the filming of the Federico Fellini film, "Satyricon."

Ciao, Federico!

1970

1960s · 10 titles

La Dolce Vita poster
8.0

Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

La Dolce Vita

1960

Satyricon poster
6.7

After his young lover, Gitone, leaves him for another man, Encolpio decides to kill himself, but a sudden earthquake destroys his home before he has a chance to do so. Now wandering around Rome in the time of Nero, Encolpio encounters one bizarre and surreal scene after another.

Satyricon

1969

The Milky Way poster
7.1

Two men, part tramp, part pilgrim, are on their way from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. On their way, they meet a vast assortment of characters—some truculent, some violent, and some bizarre; they experience many adventures—some mysterious, some erotic, some even supernatural.

The Milky Way

1969

Scano Boa poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Scano Boa

1961

Corruption poster
7.5

Stefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...

Corruption

1963

Banana Peel poster
5.9

Two scoundrels cheat a millionaire out of a huge bankroll on the French Riviera.

Banana Peel

1963

Safari 5000 poster
7.2

A Japanese racing driver for Nissan named Godai (Yujiro Ishihara) have a rivalry with a French driver named Pierre (Jean-Claude Drouot). Godai is enlisted to race in an annual endurance race, The East African Safari Rally. Peripheral to this is the story concerning Godai's former lover Yuko (Ruriko Asaoka), a fashion designer, and her friend Anna (Emmanuel Riva), who happens to be Pierre's wife.

Safari 5000

1969

Mission of Fear poster
6.5

A young Jesuit missionary reflects on his life and his faith while awaiting his execution at the hands of the Native Americans he came to convert. Winner of the 1966 Canadian Film Awards best feature film award.

Mission of Fear

1965

Cross of the Living poster
6.0

Yan, who has just been acquitted of a crime he has not committed, returns to his Flemish village, where he meets hostility, particularly from Franz, the garage owner. Fortunately, Gus, his childhood friend refuses to follow the pack and talks his mother, the richest person in the area, into getting him a job. But Yan is soon drawn to Maria, the sultry girl Gus lives with.

Cross of the Living

1962

La forêt noire poster
10.0

Inspired by the life of 19th century composer Robert Schumann, this fiction tells the decline of Hans Richter, a great German musician. Then dying, he feels his reason leaving him, while his wife gets closer to his disciple, Friedrich Turner, who has endless admiration for him. After his death, Turner helped make him a legend.

La forêt noire

1968

1950s · 6 titles

The Hunchback of Notre Dame poster
6.7

In 1482 Paris, Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, becomes infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protégé and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he's involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the Devil's work.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

1956

The Lovers poster
6.6

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.

The Lovers

1958

The Lady Without Camelias poster
6.5

A Milanese shop assistant becomes an overnight film sensation when fate lands her the leading role in a prominent producer's romantic drama.

The Lady Without Camelias

1953

The Forbidden Christ poster
6.6

Freshly released from a Russian POW camp, Italian soldier Bruno Baldi tries to discover who betrayed his brother to the Nazis.

The Forbidden Christ

1951

Red Shirts - Anita Garibaldi poster
7.5

The story of Giuseppe Garibaldi's 1849 campaign to free Italy from Austrian domination.

Red Shirts - Anita Garibaldi

1952

Les Crimes de l'amour poster
6.5

Two adaptations. First, "Le Rideau cramoisi" by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly is about a young second lieutenant of hussars, garrisoned in the provinces, who evokes a strange adventure. Staying with an old couple, he acts as acquaintance with Albertine, the daughter of his hosts, fell in love with her and, after paying her assiduous courtship, made her his mistress. But one night, she died in his arms. He tried in vain to get rid of the corpse and ended up run away. Second, "Mina de Vanghel" by Stendhal is about Mina, a young German, who came to settle in France with her mother in 1820. Her father, a deceased Prussian general, left her a immense fortune. Courted, she falls in love with Monsieur de Ruppert, a ruined man whose castle her mother bought. But Mina does not take long to unmask the dowry hunter.

Les Crimes de l'amour

1953

1940s · 5 titles

Series credits

Behind the camera