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French film legend Alain Delon died in the early hours of Sunday morning. He is an actor who has played various roles under the guidance of great filmmakers, such as Visconti, Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Melville and René Clement.
From his charisma in “The Sun” to his irresistible gangster roles to his final film, “Astylex at the Olympic Games” (main picture), Delon left an indelible mark. Together with Jean-Paul Belmondo, they made French cinema a triumph internationally.
Here’s a rundown of his ten most iconic films:
“Sunny Day” (1960)
Directed by René Clement, the film was adapted from the American novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Delon, who was not yet a star at the time, played Tom Ripley, a Machiavellian character who murders a wealthy man to steal his identity. In 1999, Hollywood remade a film called The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
A classic of Italian neorealism. This melodrama was directed by Luchino Visconti, who was fascinated by Delon and made the actor well-known outside France. The film tells the difficulties of life for Rosalia and her four children as they flee the hardships of southern Italy to come to Milan. He won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
The Black Cat (1963)
Visconti’s historical film, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film depicts the decline of the aristocracy in the 1860s and contains a legendary dance scene. With his elegant moustache and side-parted hair, Delon embodies an iconic role. His couple with Claudia Cardinale is historic in the world of cinema.
The Adventurer (1967)
In this film adaptation of José Giovanni’s novel, an inventor (Lino Ventura) and his courageous friend (Alain Delon) discover a hidden treasure together with a sculptor (Joanna Shimkus), with whom they both fall in love. In this adventure film, Delon sings the song “Leticia”, which is remembered by the audience.
The Silence of Men (1967)
This first collaboration with Jean-Pierre Melville is one of the actor’s masterpieces in film history, as he plays the lone assassin Jeff Costello.
Impassive and expressionless, obsessed with control, with an icy gaze, wearing a raincoat and a hat: this is the mythical figure that Delon embodies.
Delon and Melville’s collaboration produced another masterpiece, The Red Circle (1970).
Swimming Pool (1969)
Slipping between the drama and the police genre, Jacques Delray’s erotic film marked a reunion between Delon and Romy Schneider, with whom he had famously been in a relationship in real life.
While they didn’t reunite romantically, Schneider’s fading career resurfaced with the film.
The couple often frequented the swimming pool on the Cote d’Azur with Maurice Ronet and Jane Birkin. Delon later admitted: “I can’t watch this movie again. It’s too painful to see Romy and Maurice laughing out loud again,” referring to the actors who have since passed away.
“Sicily” (1969)
This gangster film directed by Henri Verneuil brings together three of the stars of French cinema: Delon, Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura. A subtly erotic scene went down in cinema history: when the charming Delon kills an eel he has just caught and beats it against a rock, the actress Irina Demick is naked.
“The Other Mr. Klein” (1976)
“There are so many things about me in this movie: my love of painting, the ambiguous relationships with people, this game of somehow I am Mr. Klein,” the actor said.In the film, directed by Joseph Losey, Delon plays Robert Klein, a wealthy art dealer who in 1942 acquires works that belonged to Jews.
The poster, which showed Delon’s face framed by a yellow star, made a huge public impact at the time. Although the film did not win an award at the Cannes Film Festival, it was screened in a restored version in 2019 when the honorary Palme d’Or was presented to the then 83-year-old Delon.
“The Right to Kill” (1980)
Directed by Jacques Delray, this film kicks off a string of hit crime films in the 1980s starring Delon, which had mixed results, but became well-known to younger generations due to the films’ repeated broadcasts on television.
“ASTERIX at the Olympics” (2008)
Although it is a minor work in Delon’s filmography, the film has great symbolic value (main image). The actor, who was often mocked in France for his ego and habit of speaking about himself in the third person, mocked his character of Julius Caesar.
“Caesar succeeded in everything, he conquered everything. He was a brown cat, a warrior, he would not tell anyone anything, not Rocco or his brothers, not the Sicilian tribes (…) He shouted in the recording: ‘Hail me! ‘
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