
Writing
Pascal Bonitzer
Born
1946-02-01 (80)
Place of birth
Paris, France
Known for
Writing
Credits
76 titles
Pascal Bonitzer (born 1 February 1946) is a French screenwriter, film director, actor, and former film critic for Cahiers du cinéma. He has written for 48 films and has appeared in 30 films since 1967. He starred in Raúl Ruiz's 1978 film The Suspended Vocation. He has a daughter, actress Agathe Bonitzer, with filmmaker Sophie Fillières. Source: Article "Pascal Bonitzer" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known for
7.3The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.
La Belle Noiseuse
1991
6.2Martin, an ex-Parisian well-heeled hipster passionate about Gustave Flaubert who settled into a Norman village as a baker, sees an English couple moving into a small farm nearby. Not only are the names of the new arrivals Gemma and Charles Bovery, but their behavior also seems to be inspired by Flaubert's heroes.
Gemma Bovery
2014
6.0Commissioner Maigret rushes to the Quai d’Orsay with Lieutenant Janvier. There, they find Mademoiselle Larrieu in a state of shock. That very morning, she discovered the bullet-riddled body of Mr. Berthier-Lagès, a renowned former ambassador whom she had served as a housekeeper for 46 years. While searching the victim's apartment, Maigret and Janvier uncover hundreds of letters. The diplomat had maintained a fifty-year-long love correspondence with a certain Princess of Vuynes, whose husband - by a strange coincidence - had died just a few days earlier. As he confronts the various members of the two families and the suspicious silence of Mademoiselle Larrieu, Maigret finds himself faced with surprise after surprise, watching his certainties crumble - until the solution to the mystery finally hits him in the face at the very last moment...
Maigret and the Dead Lover
2026
6.5In a lively shopping center, proprietors and customers are bustling, including three women vying for a man's heart with song and dance.
Golden Eighties
1986
6.826 year-old Karl Marx embarks with his wife, Jenny, on the road to exile. In 1844 in Paris, he meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist’s son, who has been investigating the sordid birth of the British working class. Engels, the dandy, provides the last piece of the puzzle to the young Karl Marx’s new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and the police’s repression, riots and political upheavals, they will lead the labor movement during its development into a modern era.
The Young Karl Marx
2017
6.1André Masson, specialist in modern art, receives a letter according to which a painting by Egon Schiele had been discovered in Mulhouse. He finds that the work has been missing since 1939. This discovery puts his career in danger.
Auction
2024
Film credits
2020s · 4 titles
In a handful of deliberately and gently dark films, screenwriter and director Pascal Bonitzer has built a body of work that is both fierce and gentle. His characters practice ironic antipathy and take quiet steps to make themselves known, but they also display great and disarming frankness and a desire that is completely free of the need for others.
Conversation avec Pascal Bonitzer
2025
5.2Ana and Yves loved each other passionately, then parted ways. Years later, their daughter Cécile made a documentary about their meeting. They meet again. Still scarred by their past love, they set out to find a way back to each other.
La Fille d'un grand amour
2025
7.2Agathe embarks on a journey to uncover the life of her grandmother, Solange, an artist and writer whose story intertwines with history, memory, and loss. Joined by filmmaker Louise, an old friend, they navigate family films, letters, and the past to connect generations. Through Agathe’s search, the documentary reveals buried emotions and traces a legacy across time.
Agathe, Solange and Me
2024
NRNew interviews with star Jean-Pierre Kalfon; writer/director and Rivette collaborator Pascal Bonitzer; Rivette biographer Antoine de Baecque; critic/historian Sylvie Pierre; and archival footage of Jacques Rivette.
Cinema Redefined: Jacques Rivette's L'Amour Fou Revisited
2024
2010s · 4 titles
4.3A filmmaker finds creative freedom more elusive than he imagined in this ironic comedy-drama. Tired of the state-appointed producers and censorship in his homeland, Soviet Georgia, Niko decides to move to France, only to find that he has merely traded one type of interference for another.
Chantrapas
2011
6.6Great filmmakers claim the artistic influence of French director Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-1977), a master of suspense, with a unique vision of the world, who knew how to offer both great shows and subtle studies of characters. Beyond the myth of the tyrannical director, a contrasting portrait of a visionary, an agitator, an artist against the system.
The Clouzot Scandal
2017
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Marie-France Pisier, une femme sous influence
2014
Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, former editors at Cahiers du Cinema, interview their former colleagues and fellow travellers during the "Red Years" of the journal between 1968 and1973.
À voir absolument: 1963-1973 Dix années aux Cahiers du Cinéma
2011
2000s · 5 titles
7.0Documentary showing one day of work of over 90 actors and filmmakers from French cinema on the same day. On 27 March 2002, 27 teams filmed actors, directors, producers and technicians at work, from Hawaii to Paris and from New York to Lisbon.
A Day in the Life of French Cinema
2002
6.1When bestselling novelist Betty Fisher loses her young son in a tragic accident, her unstable mother resorts to unusual actions to alleviate Betty's grief, actions which set off a chain reaction among a promiscuous waitress and her criminal associates.
Betty Fisher and Other Stories
2001
5.4Depuis peu Eric Vincent, trentenaire sans histoire, a un fort sentiment de malaise. Est-ce la peur d'avoir un enfant ou celle de voir brutalement resurgir le fantôme d'un père qu'il n'a jamais connu ? Un matin, un inconnu l'appelle pour lui proposer de récupérer les cendres de son père. D'abord réticent, il finit par accepter et se retrouve plongé au coeur d'une machination infernale.
The Key
2007
No synopsis available yet.
Bâtons d'encens pour Mizoguchi
2004
4.2A film director, whose career is going downhill, reluctantly decides to adapt an inadaptable best selling novel. Will she succeed or will the book adapt her in the process?
Why (Not) Brazil?
2004
1990s · 10 titles
5.9The mid-life crisis of a middle-aged, depressive college professor/author provides the center of this French character study. Abel Vichac has really let himself go. Though a successful writer, and supposedly working on a book about 'regret,' he is barely functioning. He can't sleep at night. During the day he is easily distracted, irresponsible and moody. He also ignores his patient live-in lover Aliette who has stuck by him for 10 years. As he mopes through another day, he gets into several awkward occasions. One of his students, Florence tells him off in a café. A young woman, Catherine hears this and afterward introduces herself as a fan. Later he decides to find her address and visit her apartment. There Abel meets Catherine's roommate Aurore and the former's jealous boyfriend Bruno for a tense scene. He is returning home when Abel encounters his brother's former lover Olga and this creates more awkwardness.
Encore
1996
6.5Four intertwining stories of bizarre occurrences in Paris featuring a man who was stolen away by fairies, a professor who becomes a tramp, the lovers who inherit a chateau – and the last tale that connects all that has gone before.
Three Lives and Only One Death
1996
7.1The solitary and largely self-contained Augustin (Jean-Chretien Sibertin Blanc), on obscure young actor of bit-parts and advertisements, has but one ambition - to play the lead role in a Kung Fu epic. But hours of Kung Fu practice alone in his room are not enough. Augustin knows he must pack up and start a new life in China... or at least that part of China within bicycling distance: Chinatown in south-east Paris. There he meets Ling (Maggie Cheung), a young Chinese woman who practices ocupuncture, and little by little, Ling's needles awaken emotions in Augustin that his virginal body had never dreamed of. Where will this lead him? To Kung Fu stardom, maybe not, but to another destiny, a quirky but logical continuation of the same dream.
Augustin, King of Kung-Fu
1999
6.5An attorney defends a young man on trial for killing his aunt — a psychiatrist who took him in to study possible homicidal tendencies.
Genealogies of a Crime
1997
5.8Two old ladies live in a French chateau. When one of them dies, her sister, who lives in Moscow, inherits the property, which soon ends up in the hands of Japanese businessmen.
Chasing Butterflies
1992
3.8This romantic comedy from France explores the misadventures of several friends looking for love and trying to define beauty. Daphne is a lovely women who is nonetheless unsure about her looks, compounded by the fact that she's fallen in love with Vincent, who has a policy of only dating models. Daphne's best friend Celine comes up with an idea -- she'll get her pal Jacques to paint a nude portrait of Daphne. When Vincent sees the painting, he'll be more attracted to the woman who posed for it, leading him to her doorstep. But of course, it isn't quite that simple.
Les Infortunes de la beauté
1999
6.6Benoit has his life all planned out before him. Unfortunately, he had totally forgotten to include his military service. Inevitably called into duty, he tries everything he can to avoid it, eventually launching into a hedonistic lifestyle—out of control with drugs, alcohol, and nightclubs.
Don't Forget You're Going to Die
1996
5.8Marc is in love with Lucien, who's in love with Suzanne, who's in love with someone else.
The Sky Above Paris
1992
5.1You're a provincial kid in Paris and suddenly you're the center of attention: Movie stars, famous directors and sexy women are doting on you because they all think you're the son of their long-dead legendary friend. You never knew your dad, but the facts of this famous guy's life suggest that he might have fathered you. Your mom tells you nothing. All the fuss makes you uncomfortable at first but soon you find it's rather fun to be the son of the famous Gascogne. And in the midst of it all you fall in love. It is, after all, springtime in Paris.
Son of Gascogne
1995
6.0Didier never knew that a wrong film review of a film which he did not bother to watch would land him in numerous troubles.
Nothing About Robert
1999
1980s · 11 titles
5.2The time is the 1930s and two Soviet spies (both Frenchmen by nationality) have been helping Communist factions during the Civil War in Spain. It is the time of Stalin's iron rule in the USSR, and the two agents are suddenly called to Moscow by the KGB. Knowing that they are in trouble for no fault of their own, fear drives one of them to suicide while the other gets his lover and her child and begins a run for his life, knowing that the KGB will never let him go free.
The Red Shade
1981
9.0With his body now devoid of substance and able to fly, N. wanders looking for a way to return to life and reintegrate into the world.
The One-Eyed Man
1980
6.5Feckless aspiring architect Stéphane leaves his pregnant girlfriend for theater designer Sabine; Sabine in turn vainly attempts to overcome her violent obsession with an actor in her theater company. A game of emotional chutes and ladders ensues.
Winter's Child
1989
5.4Simone, a leather-clad porn theater worker, spends her shifts bantering with her coworker and observing eccentric customers in the cinema’s lobby. Tonight, she clocks out and heads off to meet her girlfriend, a waitress at a lesbian club. Later, she’ll encounter a lonely man on the prowl.
Simone Barbès or Virtue
1980
4.2The story of a group of students' involvement with a group who oppose the French-Algerian war.
Liberty Belle
1983
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Stray Bullets
1983
NRFrom the first meeting with the critic Louis Marcorelles to his last interview in Cahiers du cinéma, a portrait of Glauber Rocha, a leading figure of Cinema Novo, enriched with testimonies from his close friends such as Juliet Berto and Christiana Tullio Altan.
L'Homme aux cheveux bleus
1989
10.0The love uncertainties of a young homosexual in search of himself.
Daniel Asleep
1988
5.1After graduating from high school where she was a boarder, Reine Ducasse decides to settle down with her rich father Louis in his luxurious apartment. She has just begun her studies in history and has a good friend, Frédéric, a medical student who wouldn't mind being more than just that. Around her, strange fellows attract her attention. Who is Philippe, allegedly Louis's stockbroker? And what about Marguerite who presents herself as her father's former secretary? Even more puzzling is the video cassette she finds in her father's place, showing young motorbikers distributing bundles of banknotes. Some time later, Charles, one of the bikers appearing on the video, rings the doorbell: he is wounded.
Robin
1985
6.6A man awakens to find himself immersed in a real-life scenario of a board game with an ever expanding cartography.
Snakes and Ladders
1980
Reel 14 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series.
Cinématon XIV
1981
1960s · 1 titles
Behind the camera
7.3The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.
La Belle Noiseuse
1991
6.2Martin, an ex-Parisian well-heeled hipster passionate about Gustave Flaubert who settled into a Norman village as a baker, sees an English couple moving into a small farm nearby. Not only are the names of the new arrivals Gemma and Charles Bovery, but their behavior also seems to be inspired by Flaubert's heroes.
Gemma Bovery
2014
6.0Commissioner Maigret rushes to the Quai d’Orsay with Lieutenant Janvier. There, they find Mademoiselle Larrieu in a state of shock. That very morning, she discovered the bullet-riddled body of Mr. Berthier-Lagès, a renowned former ambassador whom she had served as a housekeeper for 46 years. While searching the victim's apartment, Maigret and Janvier uncover hundreds of letters. The diplomat had maintained a fifty-year-long love correspondence with a certain Princess of Vuynes, whose husband - by a strange coincidence - had died just a few days earlier. As he confronts the various members of the two families and the suspicious silence of Mademoiselle Larrieu, Maigret finds himself faced with surprise after surprise, watching his certainties crumble - until the solution to the mystery finally hits him in the face at the very last moment...
Maigret and the Dead Lover
2026
6.0Commissioner Maigret rushes to the Quai d’Orsay with Lieutenant Janvier. There, they find Mademoiselle Larrieu in a state of shock. That very morning, she discovered the bullet-riddled body of Mr. Berthier-Lagès, a renowned former ambassador whom she had served as a housekeeper for 46 years. While searching the victim's apartment, Maigret and Janvier uncover hundreds of letters. The diplomat had maintained a fifty-year-long love correspondence with a certain Princess of Vuynes, whose husband - by a strange coincidence - had died just a few days earlier. As he confronts the various members of the two families and the suspicious silence of Mademoiselle Larrieu, Maigret finds himself faced with surprise after surprise, watching his certainties crumble - until the solution to the mystery finally hits him in the face at the very last moment...
Maigret and the Dead Lover
2026
6.5In a lively shopping center, proprietors and customers are bustling, including three women vying for a man's heart with song and dance.
Golden Eighties
1986
6.826 year-old Karl Marx embarks with his wife, Jenny, on the road to exile. In 1844 in Paris, he meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist’s son, who has been investigating the sordid birth of the British working class. Engels, the dandy, provides the last piece of the puzzle to the young Karl Marx’s new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and the police’s repression, riots and political upheavals, they will lead the labor movement during its development into a modern era.
The Young Karl Marx
2017
6.1André Masson, specialist in modern art, receives a letter according to which a painting by Egon Schiele had been discovered in Mulhouse. He finds that the work has been missing since 1939. This discovery puts his career in danger.
Auction
2024
6.1André Masson, specialist in modern art, receives a letter according to which a painting by Egon Schiele had been discovered in Mulhouse. He finds that the work has been missing since 1939. This discovery puts his career in danger.
Auction
2024
6.5Imbued with Victor Hugo, the actor Robert Zucchini searches for his place between the stage and life. Every evening, he fills theaters by sharing his love of words. Until the day his daughter, whom he hasn’t seen grow up, reappears.
Hugo
2026
6.5Julien is a clockmaker with destructive impulses who decides to blackmail Madame X, a rich, attractive woman who traffics in stolen antiques. What he doesn’t know is that she has an even more dangerous secret that leads him to Marie, with whom he had fallen in love a year earlier.
The Story of Marie and Julien
2003
5.2At a Spanish cloister, a celebrated French general of the Napoleonic Wars recognizes the voice of one of the nuns and recalls how, five years ago, she was the Duchess of Langeais, and he her most persistent suitor.
The Duchess of Langeais
2007
5.6In Tangiers where he traveled for his work, a man finds the woman he loved, and attempts to revive their romance though it ended some 30 years earlier.
Changing Times
2004
5.7In the woods, a 13-year-old boy is grabbed by an escaped convict and told to bring money later that day. The boy does as he's told, only to be attacked by the convict's partner. A murder ensues, and through happenstance, the murderer and the boy's mother form an alliance. All this takes place in four days during which the boy has his first communion, his separated parents face each other amidst grandmother's hopes they'll reunite, the grandfather just wants to go fishing, the school's chaplain complains about the boy's behavior, and the convicts' shared girlfriend comes, gun in hand, to help them escape to Tangier. The mother's surprising decisions complete the story.
Scene of the Crime
1986
5.9The mid-life crisis of a middle-aged, depressive college professor/author provides the center of this French character study. Abel Vichac has really let himself go. Though a successful writer, and supposedly working on a book about 'regret,' he is barely functioning. He can't sleep at night. During the day he is easily distracted, irresponsible and moody. He also ignores his patient live-in lover Aliette who has stuck by him for 10 years. As he mopes through another day, he gets into several awkward occasions. One of his students, Florence tells him off in a café. A young woman, Catherine hears this and afterward introduces herself as a fan. Later he decides to find her address and visit her apartment. There Abel meets Catherine's roommate Aurore and the former's jealous boyfriend Bruno for a tense scene. He is returning home when Abel encounters his brother's former lover Olga and this creates more awkwardness.
Encore
1996
7.0Jeanne has succeeded in lifting the siege of Orléans and Charles has been crowned King of France. However, she is injured in an attempt to take Paris, weakening her position at court. Captured by the enemy and put on trial, she finds both her life and the sanctity of her body at stake.
Joan the Maid II: The Prisons
1994
5.6Damien, a Chinese civilization professor, lives with his wife, Iva, a stage director, and their son Noé. The couple's relationship has drifted into routine that has drained it of love. Damien finds himself trapped one day by Iva, who orders him to ask his father, a senior member of the French Council of State, for help in preventing Zorica, a woman Iva knows, from being deported. But Damien and his father don't get on and are barely ever in touch with each other. This dangerous mission throws Damien into a spiral that will turn his life upside down.
Looking for Hortense
2012
5.6Damien, a Chinese civilization professor, lives with his wife, Iva, a stage director, and their son Noé. The couple's relationship has drifted into routine that has drained it of love. Damien finds himself trapped one day by Iva, who orders him to ask his father, a senior member of the French Council of State, for help in preventing Zorica, a woman Iva knows, from being deported. But Damien and his father don't get on and are barely ever in touch with each other. This dangerous mission throws Damien into a spiral that will turn his life upside down.
Looking for Hortense
2012
7.0In 1930s south of France, young orphan Roch is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Lindon, a man of means who befits her stature. Roch vows to win her back.
Wuthering Heights
1985
6.3After biologist Sylvie discovers her brother Paul trying to steal a gun from her lab, he explains that he wishes to avenge the death of their father whom he suspects died at the hands of his business partner.
Secret Defense
1998
5.8In a small presbytery in Yorkshire, England, living under the watchful eyes of their aunt and father, a strict Anglican pastor, the Bronte sisters write their first works and quickly become literary sensations.
The Bronte Sisters
1979
6.5Four intertwining stories of bizarre occurrences in Paris featuring a man who was stolen away by fairies, a professor who becomes a tramp, the lovers who inherit a chateau – and the last tale that connects all that has gone before.
Three Lives and Only One Death
1996
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Va savoir+
2001
5.3Like every weekend senator Henri Pagès and his wife entertain guests at their beautiful mansion in a peaceful village near Paris. But this time around, things go awry: Pierre Collier, a psychoanalyst and consummate womanizer, is brutally murdered. Claire, his wife, dazed and confused by his corpse, with a smoking gun still in her hand, seems to be the ideal culprit...
The Great Alibi
2008
5.3Like every weekend senator Henri Pagès and his wife entertain guests at their beautiful mansion in a peaceful village near Paris. But this time around, things go awry: Pierre Collier, a psychoanalyst and consummate womanizer, is brutally murdered. Claire, his wife, dazed and confused by his corpse, with a smoking gun still in her hand, seems to be the ideal culprit...
The Great Alibi
2008
6.2Elderly woman Berthe leaves her house to live with her daughter Emilie. Emilie and her brother Antoine had a falling out three years ago and have not seen each other since, but Emilie invites him for Christmas. Memories will resurface and impact both Berthe's destiny and the strange relationship between Emilie and Antoine.
My Favorite Season
1993
5.9Vittorio stops to help Kate when her car breaks down on a mountain road. When they meet again, Vittorio discovers that Kate has rejoined a circus after a long time away. He begins to learn about the troupe's buried past and Kate's connection to it, while experiencing the magic of the circus.
Around a Small Mountain
2009
5.1Nora is a bright young professional whose new job at a financial firm turns out to be a trial by fire when she learns that her bosses share a tumultuous history with her prickly mathematician father. Meanwhile, an interoffice romance with a competitive colleague leads to even more complications, leaving Nora to navigate a minefield of delicate relationships as she climbs the corporate ladder.
Right Here Right Now
2016
5.1Nora is a bright young professional whose new job at a financial firm turns out to be a trial by fire when she learns that her bosses share a tumultuous history with her prickly mathematician father. Meanwhile, an interoffice romance with a competitive colleague leads to even more complications, leaving Nora to navigate a minefield of delicate relationships as she climbs the corporate ladder.
Right Here Right Now
2016
5.8A playwright offers two actress friends the chance to appear in his new, unfinished play, which consists of only one female part.
Love on the Ground
1984
7.0Convinced only she can lead France to victory against the invading English, Jeanne leaves her childhood home to plead with Charles, heir to the French throne, to allow her to guide his troops on the battlefield.
Joan the Maid I: The Battles
1994
7.2A librarian, a gangster's ex-lover, and a woman who has recovered from a coma spend an eye-opening summer in Paris.
Up, Down, Fragile
1995
5.9Bruno, a communist newspaper journalist, is suffering a mid-life crisis. Torn between his wife Gaëlle and his young girlfriend Nathalie, his political beliefs battered by the wind of history, Bruno seems to have lost his bearings.
Small Cuts
2003
5.9Bruno, a communist newspaper journalist, is suffering a mid-life crisis. Torn between his wife Gaëlle and his young girlfriend Nathalie, his political beliefs battered by the wind of history, Bruno seems to have lost his bearings.
Small Cuts
2003
6.5An attorney defends a young man on trial for killing his aunt — a psychiatrist who took him in to study possible homicidal tendencies.
Genealogies of a Crime
1997
5.6In a small Parisian building, a diverse group of people crosses paths, likes and observes each other, without always seeing each other.
Valentin Valentin
2015
3.8The 35-year-old ministry official Baron Leisenbohg had the stage career ten years ago as the cast of the "Queen of the Night", opera that promoted singer Klare Hell. Klare shows no gratitude however.
The Fate of Baron Leisenbohg
1991
In a village of the French Juras, Daniel, 15, and Marie, 14, live in the shadow of their brutal, domineering father, who can only express his love through violence. When their mother dies, the two inseparable children flee into the forest pursued by their father...
The Lambs
1996
3.9In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, a middle-aged Port-au-Prince couple come face to face with the stark contradictions of Haitian society when they are forced to rent out their villa to a foreign aid worker and his enterprising local girlfriend.
Murder in Pacot
2014
No synopsis available yet.
Nagasaki
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No synopsis available yet.
Nagasaki
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