Pascal Bonitzer

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

La Belle Noiseuse poster
7.3

The 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

Gemma Bovery poster
6.2

Martin, 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

Maigret and the Dead Lover poster
6.0

Commissioner 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

Golden Eighties poster
6.5

In 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

The Young Karl Marx poster
6.8

26 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

Auction poster
6.1

André 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

2010s · 4 titles

2000s · 5 titles

1990s · 10 titles

Encore poster
5.9

The 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

Three Lives and Only One Death poster
6.5

Four 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

Augustin, King of Kung-Fu poster
7.1

The 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

Genealogies of a Crime poster
6.5

An 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

Chasing Butterflies poster
5.8

Two 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

Les Infortunes de la beauté poster
3.8

This 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

Don't Forget You're Going to Die poster
6.6

Benoit 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

The Sky Above Paris poster
5.8

Marc is in love with Lucien, who's in love with Suzanne, who's in love with someone else.

The Sky Above Paris

1992

Son of Gascogne poster
5.1

You'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

Nothing About Robert poster
6.0

Didier 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

The Red Shade poster
5.2

The 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

The One-Eyed Man poster
9.0

With 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

Winter's Child poster
6.5

Feckless 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

Simone Barbès or Virtue poster
5.4

Simone, 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

Liberty Belle poster
4.2

The story of a group of students' involvement with a group who oppose the French-Algerian war.

Liberty Belle

1983

Stray Bullets poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Stray Bullets

1983

L'Homme aux cheveux bleus poster
NR

From 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

Daniel Asleep poster
10.0

The love uncertainties of a young homosexual in search of himself.

Daniel Asleep

1988

Robin poster
5.1

After 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

Snakes and Ladders poster
6.6

A man awakens to find himself immersed in a real-life scenario of a board game with an ever expanding cartography.

Snakes and Ladders

1980

No artwork available
NR

Reel 14 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series.

Cinématon XIV

1981

Behind the camera

La Belle Noiseuse poster
7.3

The 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

Gemma Bovery poster
6.2

Martin, 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

Maigret and the Dead Lover poster
6.0

Commissioner 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

Maigret and the Dead Lover poster
6.0

Commissioner 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

Golden Eighties poster
6.5

In 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

The Young Karl Marx poster
6.8

26 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

Auction poster
6.1

André 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

Auction poster
6.1

André 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

Hugo poster
6.5

Imbued 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

The Story of Marie and Julien poster
6.5

Julien 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

The Duchess of Langeais poster
5.2

At 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

Changing Times poster
5.6

In 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

Scene of the Crime poster
5.7

In 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

Encore poster
5.9

The 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

Joan the Maid II: The Prisons poster
7.0

Jeanne 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

Looking for Hortense poster
5.6

Damien, 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

Looking for Hortense poster
5.6

Damien, 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

Wuthering Heights poster
7.0

In 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

Secret Defense poster
6.3

After 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

The Bronte Sisters poster
5.8

In 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

Three Lives and Only One Death poster
6.5

Four 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

Va savoir+ poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Va savoir+

2001

The Great Alibi poster
5.3

Like 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

The Great Alibi poster
5.3

Like 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

My Favorite Season poster
6.2

Elderly 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

Around a Small Mountain poster
5.9

Vittorio 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

Right Here Right Now poster
5.1

Nora 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

Right Here Right Now poster
5.1

Nora 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

Love on the Ground poster
5.8

A 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

Joan the Maid I: The Battles poster
7.0

Convinced 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

Up, Down, Fragile poster
7.2

A 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

Small Cuts poster
5.9

Bruno, 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

Small Cuts poster
5.9

Bruno, 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

Genealogies of a Crime poster
6.5

An 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

Valentin Valentin poster
5.6

In a small Parisian building, a diverse group of people crosses paths, likes and observes each other, without always seeing each other.

Valentin Valentin

2015

The Fate of Baron Leisenbohg poster
3.8

The 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

No artwork available
4.5

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

Murder in Pacot poster
3.9

In 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 artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Nagasaki

—

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Nagasaki

—