Arnaud Desplechin — Director (19)

Movie

The Thing That Hurts (2025)
Douban
Early details are scant, except notice that The Thing That Hurts shoots in Brussels and (per quick translation) “evokes the meeting, following the death of a famous American psychotherapist based in Paris, of some of her patients, who confided in their relationship with the deceased.” Desplechin’s cinema is nothing if not the mingling of memory with grief––these four playing in that world is nearly as sterling a guarantee as the film struggling to receive U.S. distribution. As the result of a 2024 financing initiative, the project likely rolls cameras this year. by Film Stage

Movie

Filmlovers! (2024)
Spectateurs! WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
other title: 电影观众们! / Spectateurs! …
What does it mean, to go to the movies? Why have people been going for over one hundred years? I set out to celebrate movie theaters and their manifold magic. So I walked in the footsteps of young Paul Dédalus, as if in a filmgoer’s coming-of-age story. Memories, fiction, discoveries come together in an irrepressible torrent of pictures.

Performance

天使在美国:千禧年降临 2020 Comédie-Française 版
part of Performance: 天使在美国:千禧年降临 Douban
language: 法语 french theater: Comédie-Française director: Arnaud Desplechin
other title: 2020 Comédie-Française 版 playwright: Tony Kushner actor: Clément Hervieu-Léger / Michel Vuillermoz …
Set in New York City in 1985, Act One of Millennium Approaches introduces us to the central characters . As the play opens, Louis Ironson, a neurotic , gay Jew learns his lover, WASP Prior Walter, has AIDS . As the play and Prior's illness progress, Louis becomes unable to cope and moves out. Meanwhile, closeted homosexual Mormon and Republican law clerk Joe Pitt is offered a major promotion by his mentor , the McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn . Joe doesn't immediately take the job because he feels he has to check with his Valium -addicted, agoraphobic wife, Harper, who is unwilling to move. Roy is himself deeply closeted , and soon discovers that he has AIDS . As the seven-hour play progresses, Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who proclaim him to be a prophet ; Joe finds himself struggling to reconcile his religion with his sexuality ; Louis struggles with his guilt about leaving Prior and begins a relationship with Joe; Harper's mental health deteriorates as she realizes that Joe is gay; Joe's mother, Hannah, moves to New York to attempt to look after Harper and meets Prior after a failed attempt by Prior to confront Hannah's son; Harper begins to separate from Joe whom she has depended upon and finds strength she was unaware of; and Roy finds himself in the hospital, reduced to the companionship of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and his nurse, Belize, a former drag queen and Prior's best friend, who meanwhile has to deal with Louis's constant demands for updates on Prior's health. The subplot involving Cohn is the most political aspect of the play. Portrayed as a self-loathing, power-hungry hypocrite, he prides himself on his political connections and influence, which he has amassed through decades of corruption. In the play, he recollects with pride his role in having Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage . As he lies alone in the hospital, dying of AIDS, the ghost of Rosenberg sings him a Yiddish lullaby and then brings him the news that the New York State Bar Association has just disbarred him, destroying his final hope of dying as a lawyer. The play ends on a note of optimism. After his friends procure for him a stash of AZT , in 1990 Prior is still alive and is managing to live with AIDS. With his friends, he looks at the statue of an angel in Bethesda Fountain and talks of the legend of the original fountain, and how it will flow again some day. The play is deliberately performed so that the moments requiring special effects often show their theatricality. Most of the actors play multiple characters ( eg, the actor playing Prior's nurse also appears as the Angel). There are heavy Biblical references and references to American society , as well as some fantastical scenes including voyages to Antarctica and Heaven , as well as key events happening in San Francisco and at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park .

Movie

The Forest (2014)
La forêt WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
阿诺·戴普勒尚 actor: 德尼·波达利德斯 / 米歇尔·罗班 …
other title: 森林 / La forêt …
The Forest is both a vibrantly spontaneous and brutally funny family drama, and a glorious tribute to acting and theater - in other words, an Arnaud Desplechin film. With Michel Vuillermoz and Denis Podalydès as the nephew and his friend, Adeline D’Hermy as the niece, and Martine Chevallier in a stunning performance as the sublimely selfish aunt Raissa.

Movie

The Beloved (2007)
L'aimée Douban
other title: 挚爱 / L'aimée
Arnaud Desplechin films his father who has just sold the family house. The emptying is the occasion to open drawers, browse old photos and read ancient post. The father chooses this moment to speak of his own mother Thérèse, who passed away when he was 18 months old. He has no memory from her, and yet he seems to know her very well.

Movie

My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument (1996)
Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 8.0 10 ratings
other title: 我的性生活 / Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle) …
Paul Dedalus is at a crossroads in his life. He has to make several decisions; should he complete his doctorate, does he want to become a full professor, does he really love his long-standing girlfriend, or should he re-start with one of his other lovers?

Movie

Playing 'In the Company of Men' (2004)
Léo en jouant "Dans la compagnie des hommes" WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
阿诺·戴普勒尚 actor: Sami Bouajila / 让-保罗·鲁西荣 …
other title: 内心戏中戏 / Léo en jouant "Dans la compagnie des hommes" …
A troupe of actors rehearse a play. In the play-within-the-film, an ambitious son and his distant father fight for control of an armaments firm and are pushed to eventual destruction by dangerous outside forces and traitorous aides.

Movie

Kings and Queen (2004)
Rois et Reine WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 8.2 13 ratings
阿诺·戴普勒尚 actor: 艾曼纽·德芙 / 杰弗里·凯里 …
other title: 国王与王后 / Rois et Reine …
Shortly before her wedding, art gallery director Nora travels from Paris to Grenoble to visit her preteen son, Elias, who is spending time with her aging professor father, Louis, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. During her stay, she reaches out to her former lover, Ismaël, a viola player and father figure to Elias who has been committed against his will to a mental hospital. Ismaël, however, has his own problems to sort out.

Movie

A Christmas Tale (2008)
Un conte de Noël WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 7.6 16 ratings
阿诺·戴普勒尚 actor: 凯瑟琳·德纳芙 / 让-保罗·鲁西荣 …
other title: 属于我们的圣诞节 / Un conte de Noël …
When their regal matriarch falls ill, the troubled Vuillard family come together for a hesitant Christmastime reunion. Among them is rebellious ne'er-do-well Henri and the uptight Elizabeth. Together under the same roof for the first time in many years, their intricate, long denied resentments and yearnings emerge again.

Movie

Ismael’s Ghosts (2017)
Les Fantomes d'Ismaël WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 6.1 37 ratings
other title: 伊斯梅尔的幽魂 / Les Fantomes d'Ismaël …
Just as the disheveled and alcoholic filmmaker Ismaël embarks on a difficult new film project, his life is sent into a tailspin. His wife Carlotta, presumed dead for 20 years, come crashing back into his life creating chaos in his work and his current romantic relationship with the starry-eyed astronomer Sylvia.

Movie

My Golden Days (2015)
Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 7.7 30 ratings
阿诺·戴普勒尚 actor: 康坦·多尔迈尔 / 露·罗-伊莱科内 …
other title: 青春的三段回忆 / Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse …
Paul is preparing to leave Tajikistan, while thinking back on his adolescent years. His childhood, his mother's madness, the parties, the trip to the USSR where he lost his virginity, the friend who betrayed him and the love of his life.