For nearly six decades, Catherine Deneuve has been the face of French cinema, the embodiment of its sophistication, allure, and cool glamour. Following her star-making turn in Jacques Demy’s THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, Deneuve’s porcelain beauty and aloof elegance caught the attention of some of the most renowned European directors of the 1960s and ’70s, including Luis Buñuel (BELLE DE JOUR, TRISTANA), François Truffaut (MISSISSIPPI MERMAID, THE LAST METRO), and Roman Polanski (REPULSION), all of whom could only begin to scratch the surface of her enigmatic magnetism. Since then, Deneuve has continued to entrance a new generation of post–New Wave French filmmakers like Arnaud Desplechin (A CHRISTMAS TALE), confirming her status as the reigning grande dame of Gallic cinema.
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1964 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo
The angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a h...
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1966 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Eva Dahlbeck
One of Agnès Varda least-seen films is also one of her most fascinating: an eccentrically imaginative science-fiction fantasia that touches on human nature, free will, and the creative process. Worki...
Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1967 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli
Catherine Deneuve’s porcelain perfection hides a cracked interior in one of the actress’s most iconic roles: Séverine, a Paris housewife who begins secretly spending her afternoon hours working in a b...
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1967 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac
Jacques Demy followed up THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG with another musical about missed connections and second chances, this one a more effervescent confection. Twins Delphine and Solange, a dance instructor and...
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1970 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, Delphine Seyrig
In this lovingly crafted, wildly eccentric adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend o...
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1973 • France
In this surreal comedy from Jacques Demy, Marcello Mastroianni plays a driving school instructor who, complaining of strange discomforts, learns he is four months pregnant. A frenzy of complications, scrutiny and celebrity ensues.
Directed by François Truffaut • 1980 • France
Starring Gérard Depardieu, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Poiret
Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve star as members of a French theater company living under the German occupation during World War II in François Truffaut’s gripping, humanist character st...
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1993 • France
For this documentary about the making of THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, filmmaker Agnès Varda, director Jacques Demy’s widow, returned to the town of Rochefort for the film’s twenty-fifth anniversary. In it, she interviews actors Catherine Deneuve, Jacque...
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1995 • France
Starring Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, Henri Garcin
A celebration of cinema’s centennial, ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS finds Agnès Varda at her most playful. It is also perhaps her unlikeliest project: a star-studded comic fantasy with an extravagant...
Directed by Arnaud Desplechin • 2008 • France
In Arnaud Desplechin's beguiling A CHRISTMAS TALE (Un conte de Noël), Catherine Deneuve brings her legendary poise to the role of Junon, matriarch of the troubled Vuillard family, who come together at Christmas after she learns she needs a bone marro...
This portrait of Catherine Deneuve, shot during production for two films she made in the late 1970s, features extensive interviews with the iconic star.
