Jan 24, 2025
Jacques Audiard Screen Career
August 15, 2020
William Dieterle Career Summary:
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Jacques Audiard (born April 30, 1952), the acclaimed French director, producer, and writer, has received numerous accolades including two British Academy Awards, ten Cesar Awards, four prizes from Cannes Film Fest, and four Oscar nominations.
Audiard made his feature film directorial debut with See How They Fall (1994), followed by Read My Lips (2001), The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), and Rust and Bone (2012).
His film, the prison crime drama, A Prophet (2009) earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for Dheepan (2015). He directed his first English-language feature film, the western The Sisters Brothers (2018). His latest film, the musical crime comedy Emilia Perez (2024), won the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. For this film, Audiard also received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song, and Best International Feature.
Audiard was born in Paris, the son of Marie-Christine Guibert and Michel Audiard, who was a film director and screenwriter.
He began his screenwriting career in the 1980s with films including Réveillon chez Bob!, Mortelle randonnée, Baxter, Fréquence Meurtre, and Saxo.
In 1994, he directed See How They Fall (French: Regarde les hommes tomber), a road movie starring Mathieu Kassovitz and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film won the César Award for best first film and the Prix Georges-Sadoul. Two years later he reunited with Kassovitz and Trintignant for Un Héros Très Discret – A Self-Made Hero in English, adapted from the novel by Jean-François Deniau.
In 1996, A Self-Made Hero won the Best Screenplay at Cannes and received six César Awards nominations.
In 2002, Read My Lips was nominated for nine Césars and won three, for Best Actress (Emmanuelle Devos), Best Screenplay and Best Sound.
His fourth movie, De Battre Mon Cœur s’est Arrêté, received 10 nominations at the Césars and won eight, among them the Césars for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Film Music and Best Cinematography.
He has won both the César Award for Best Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language twice, in 2005 for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and in 2010 for A Prophet, as well as winning Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Fest.
In 2009, A Prophet won the Grand Prix at Cannes and the BAFTA award for Best Film Not in the English Language. It was nominated for 13 César Awards, winning nine: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Most Promising Actor for Tahar Rahim, Best Supporting Actor for Niels Arestrup, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Production Design.
His 2012 film Rust and Bone competed for the Palme d’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, and won the BFI London Film Fest Best Film.
In 2015, his seventh movie, Dheepan won the Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
Audiard is one of the first filmmakers to participate in LaCinetek’s project, a streaming platform where films are curated exclusively from lists of favorites by acclaimed directors. Published on the platform’s launch day, his list of 61 films includes Charlie Chaplin’s comedies from both Essanay Studios and Keystone Studios.
He has released some music videos, among them Comme Elle Vient by Noir Désir in which all the actors were deaf-mute and interpreted the lyrics of the song in sign language. The beginning of the feature (a sequence with subtitles) created a minor scandal; it displayed three women discussing politics who come to the conclusion that “it is better to be deaf than to listen to that”.
On 2 September 2018, his first English language American film The Sisters Brothers had its world premiere at the Venice Film Fest.
Emilia Pérez premiered May 18, 2024 at the 77th Cannes Film Fest, winning the Jury Prize; its female ensemble won the Best Actress Award. It was selected as the French entry for the 2025 Best International Feature Film Oscar
Filmography (as Director)
1994 Dead Tired No Yes No
See How They Fall Yes Yes No
1996 A Self-Made Hero Yes Yes No
1998 Norme française Yes Yes No Short film
1999 Venus Beauty Institute No Yes No
2001 Read My Lips Yes Yes No
2005 The Beat That My Heart Skipped Yes Yes No
2009 A Prophet Yes Yes No
2012 Rust and Bone Yes Yes Yes
2015 Dheepan Yes Yes Uncredited
2018 The Sisters Brothers Yes Yes No
2021 Paris, 13th District (Uncredited)
2024 Emilia Pérez
