Alain Delon: 10 of his iconic films

In full sunlight (1960)

René Clement directed the film based on the American novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Delon, who was not yet a star, played Tom Ripley, a Machiavellian character who kills a wealthy man to steal his identity. A Hollywood remake was filmed in 1999 (The Talented Mr. Ripley).

Rocco and his brothers (1960)

A classic of Italian neorealism. The actor became well known outside France thanks to this melodrama written by Luchino Visconti, who was fascinated by Delon.

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The film follows the troubles of life in Milan as Rosalia and her four children flee the hardships of southern Italy. He won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

leopard (1963)

This period film directed by Visconti, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

It documents the decline of the aristocracy in the 1860s and contains a legendary dance scene. Delon embodies elegance with his elaborate moustache, parted on one side. He and Claudia Cardinale became a couple that entered cinema history.

A man’s silence (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.

Poor-faced, obsessed with control, with a cold gaze, wearing a raincoat and a hat: this is the mythical figure that Delon embodies.

The collaboration between Delon and Melville produced another masterpiece, Red circle (1970).

Swimming pool (1969)

Jacques Delray’s sizzling, erotic cross between a gangster film and a drama marked a reunion between Delon and Romy Schneider, a famous couple in real life. Although there was no romantic reunion, her career, which had once languished, took off again.

The couple frequented the pool on the Cote d’Azur, where Maurice Ronet and Jane Birkin also frequented. Delon later said: “I can’t watch this movie again. It’s too painful to see Romy and Maurice laughing again,” referring to the then-deceased actors.

Sicilian clans (1969)

Henri Verneuil’s gangster drama brings together three of the stars of French cinema: Delon, Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura. A subtly erotic scene went down in cinema history: the handsome Delon kills an eel he has just caught by hitting it with a stone, while nude actress Irina Demick looks on.

Another Mr. Klein (1976)

“There’s a lot about me in this movie: my love of drawing, my ambiguous relationships with people, this game where somehow I’m Mr. Klein,” the actor said.

In the film, directed by Joseph Losey, Delon plays Robert Klein, a wealthy art dealer who in 1942 buys a number of works that belonged to Jewish people.

The poster, which showed Delon’s face framed by a yellow star, shocked the public at the time. The film went home empty-handed at the Cannes Film Festival, before being screened in a restored version in 2019 when the honorary Palme d’Or was presented to the then 83-year-old actor.

The right to kill (1980)

Directed by Jacques Deray, the film kicked off a series of popular detective films that Delon would make in the 1980s with varying degrees of success, and which made him known to a younger generation through television broadcasts of films of varying quality.

Private room (1984)

Delon won the César Award for Best Actor (the French Oscar) only for his performance in this comedy directed by Bertrand Blier, which tells the story of the encounter on a train between a jaded forty-something Robert and a disillusioned young woman, Donatien (Nathalie Baye).

Although the film did not capture the public’s imagination, critics welcomed Delon’s risky gamble, playing a vulnerable, alcoholic character far removed from the tough men in his previous roles.

Asterix at the Olympics (2008)

The film is first and foremost symbolic in comparison to Delon’s filmography. The actor, often mocked in France for his egocentricity and his habit of speaking about himself in the third person, laughs at himself for the first time in his role as Julius Caesar.

“Caesar succeeded in everything, he conquered everything, he was a brown cat, a samurai, he told no one anything, neither Rocco nor his brothers nor the Sicilian clans (…) Salute me, him!” exclaimed the tape.