No one makes movies like Claire Denis, one of contemporary cinema’s foremost masters. Raised in colonial West Africa, Denis apprenticed as an assistant to Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders before striking out on her own in the late eighties in an entirely original cinematic language shaped by her outsider’s perspective. Atmospheric, elliptical, and hypnotically absorbing, her films unfold as sensuous washes of sound and image that manage to balance intimate human stories with weighty themes of postcolonial tension, modern alienation, and the boundless complexities of love and sex. This selection of some of Denis’s key works—including a new restoration of her simmering erotic masterpiece BEAU TRAVAIL—reveals a wholly original artist who is as much a storyteller as she is a poet of rhythm, movement, and mood.
Directed by Claire Denis • 1988 • France, West Germany, Cameroon
Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet
Claire Denis drew on her own childhood experiences growing up in colonial French Africa for her multilayered, languorously absorbing feature debut, which explores many of t...
Directed by Claire Denis • 1990 • France, West Germany
Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Solveig Dommartin
Inspired by the writings of anticolonialist philosopher Frantz Fanon, Claire Denis’s second feature is a dark, moody exploration of immigrant alienation. Two young men living in Fran...
Directed by Claire Denis • 1996 • France
Starring Grégoire Colin, Alice Houri, Jacques Nolot
One of Claire Denis’s most poignant films centers on the relationship between estranged teenage siblings Boni (Denis regular Grégoire Colin), a starry-eyed pizza maker, and his troubled younger sister, N...
Directed by Claire Denis • 1999 • France
Starring Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin
With her ravishingly sensual take on Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd, Sailor,” Claire Denis firmly established herself as one of the great visual tone poets of our time. Amid the azure waters and sunbaked ...
Directed by Claire Denis • 2005 • France
Starring Mathilde Monnier
Emphasizing raw physicality, craft, and in-the-moment fervor over exposition, Claire Denis’ TOWARDS MATHILDE is a documentary portrait of Mathilde Monnier, a renowned choreographer and dancer whose demanding performances are capt...
Directed by Claire Denis • 2008 • France
Starring Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Grégoire Colin
An achingly poignant family drama from Claire Denis, the renowned director of BEAU TRAVAIL, the sublime 35 SHOTS OF RUM is the moving story of a father and daughter whose close-knit, tender relationship is d...
Directed by Claire Denis • 2009 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Christophe Lambert, Isaach De Bankolé
In WHITE MATERIAL, the great contemporary French filmmaker Claire Denis, known for her restless, intimate dramas, introduces an unforgettably crazed character. Played by a ferocious Isabelle...
