The films of Bertrand Tavernier are suffused with his love for cinema. In addition to being one of France’s foremost auteurs, Tavernier was also a film critic and historian who drew from his deep knowledge of classic French and American cinema to create his own uniquely absorbing, finely wrought works. Though his films span a wide variety of genres—from the politically charged crime thriller THE CLOCKMAKER OF ST. PAUL to the sci-fi cult classic DEATH WATCH to the darkly comic neonoir COUP DE TORCHON to the bittersweet family portrait DADDY NOSTALGIA—each displays the exceptional craftsmanship, rigorous intelligence, and profound humanist and moral themes that made him one of the leading lights of Gallic cinema for over four decades.
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1974 • France
Starring Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, Jacques Denis
Clockmaker Michel Descombes (Philippe Noiret, in the first of many collaborations with director Bertrand Tavernier) finds his well-ordered life blown apart by the discovery that his son is want...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1976 • France
Starring Philippe Noiret, Michel Galabru, Isabelle Huppert
In nineteenth-century France, a crazed former soldier (Michel Galabru) embarks on a killing spree across the country. His crimes spark a frantic manhunt, and he soon becomes the prey of an a...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1980 • France
Starring Nathalie Baye, Gérard Lanvin, Flore Fitzgerald
On the verge of an emotional collapse, schoolteacher Laurence (Nathalie Baye) takes a week off from work in order to figure out her life, reconnecting with friends and family as she wrestles wi...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1980 • France, West Germany
Starring Romy Schneider, Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton
Part human drama, part sci-fi cautionary tale, Bertrand Tavernier’s DEATH WATCH unfolds in a future where death by disease has become extremely rare. When it is discovered that...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1981 • France
Starring Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Marielle
An inspired rendering of Jim Thompson’s pulp novel POP. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier’s COUP DE TORCHON deftly transplants the story of an inept police chief turned heartless killer and his...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1984 • France
Starring Louis Ducreux, Michel Aumont, Sabine Azéma
Bertrand Tavernier paints a bittersweet family portrait with a delicacy worthy of Ozu. On a Sunday in 1912, Monsieur Ladmiral (Louis Ducreux), a painter in the twilight of his life, gets together w...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1989 • United States
Starring Philippe Noiret, Sabine Azéma, Pascale Vignal
With this gorgeously photographed antiwar epic, Bertrand Tavernier examines the emotional hurdles that separate rich from poor, history from truth, and regret from hope. A year after Worl...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1990 • France
Starring Dirk Bogarde, Jane Birkin, Odette Laure
Dirk Bogarde delivers a spirited final screen performance opposite Jane Birkin in this poignant and perceptive tale about the regrets that mark a lifetime. As a father to his screenwriter daughter Car...
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier • 1996 • France
Starring Philippe Torreton, Samuel Le Bihan, Bernard Le Coq
Bertrand Tavernier delves into the murky morality of wartime in this complex human drama. Following the signing of the armistice in the waning days of World War I, the courageous Captain Co...
