21 Movies Starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin

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Martine and Jacques knew their friend before he became an important television personality, but have not seen him for over ten years. They are hospitable people - witness the fact that they have been putting up with having writer Georges be their informal roommate, as he sleeps on their living-room sofa off and on over the years whenever he is between jobs. They have invited their friend and his wife Charlotte over for dinner, and are on pins and needles, as they want everything to go just right. Instead, George allows his bitterness that Charlotte, his ex-girlfriend, married a success to overwhelm him, and Martine and Jacques are apalled when their brother, who hasn't a penny and is deeply in debt, persuades their guest of honor to join him in a high-stakes poker game.

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Gilles and Christine a boy and a girl live in the outskirts of Paris, their families are ineffective and distant and they lead a purposeless life. They steal some records in a supermarket but she is caught and sent to a nursing home by force by her parents. She escapes and follows Gilles to a house where some other youths live. They then decide to go south: Christine has been told there is a commune there, where artists live. So they head south sleeping rough...

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An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.

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Muriel, a writer nearing 50 whose older lover won't live with her in Paris, meets a man on a train - Samuel, an Arab. He's attracted to her and pursues her, dropping in, asserting himself. She's willing to connect. He's passionate, then boorish, then jealous and possessive. He seems fixed on "Who's the strongest?," while she wants respect and trust. She's self-possessed as well as sexually charged, willing to laugh, and alternately firm and forgiving. He has little money, no immigration papers, few prospects, and a gambling jag. What does each want, and why does she stick with it? Is this colonial strife, war between the sexes, or a love story?

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A private investigator (nicknamed Octopus after his long arms) travels to the small town of Angernaud with his bisexual girlfriend to collect the money he spent for the reconstruction of his family grave after it was vandalized by a group of young people. He seeks them out one by one but every time he finds the person dead. When he learns that a drunkard Scotsman, a local celebrity and an extreme right politician are involved in the mysterious deaths and all signs lead to a boat in the harbor, he calls in his sidekick Pedro for reinforcement.

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Such an inconsequential event - the unfortunate purchase of a package of cling film - reveals the character and behavior of a small group of individuals caught up in the chaos of today's society. Though it creates arguments and inner questioning, this event - and its various consequences - also creates bonds.

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A dark tale of working-class life in Marseilles, a city in crisis. Interesting characters include a hard-bitten but compassionate fish market worker with a drug addicted daughter and a moody bartender with a shocking secret life.

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Marie-Jo is a middleaged woman living an ordinary life in Marseilles with her husband, Daniel and her daughter, Julie. Daniel runs a small construction business in which Marie-Jo helps. She also works at the local hospital. Outwardly their marriage is loving. But Marie-Jo has been in love with another man for more than twelve months.Marco works as a harbour pilot and is deeply in love with Marie-Jo. Learning that loving two men is impossible, Marie-Jo is forced to make a choice.

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7 a.m. Catherine receives a phone call from someone called Kirsch. This untimely call throws her into a great state of agitation, which she takes out on her boyfriend, Raphaèl. Upset, in turn, Raphaèl fights with his employer and even succeeds in getting himself fired. To excuse himself for his early morning call, Kirsch decides to send Catherine a bouquet of flowers, which, in Catherine's absence, winds up with her neighbors Alice and Antoine. The bouquet will go from hand to hand, setting off all manner of mistakes, misunderstanding and misinterpretations. The bouquet is the catalyst of a multitude of insignificant events, which reveal the whimsy of our lives today.

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Between Alice, a hospital nurse and Aldo, a shampoo sales representative, things have turned sour of late. Alice blames her husband for lacking ambition and contemplates divorce.One day Aldo wins the ten million euro lotto prize. But, unwilling to share the bonanza, he keeps mum about it, all the more as he finds out Alice has an affair with Gèrard, Aldo's former friend and ... new boss. However, Aldo, leading a double life, starts spending his money ...

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The life of four best friends in Paris: Antoine (a gym school teacher), Jeff (director of a monthly journal), Alex (Jeff's associate in the monthly journal and a Don Juan) and Manu (owner of fine food store). Their time is shared between their respective jobs, their relationship with women (their own and others...) and the times they meet together to discuss about life and play sport lottery. Several events happen that immediately change their routine : the death of Manu's father, the break up of Antoine's couple when he learns that his wife once cheating on him, and the wedding of Jeff's daughter. Soon, Manu meets a charming and magical young lady (Juliette). Jeff thinks he is at a turning point in his life and decides to retire, to be friends with his ex-wife (whom he hardly spoke to) and to go to the South of France to live in the sun with his girlfriend. Despite all the hard times they have in their lives, the four friends managed to support each other and keep their friendship running.

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Antoine and Helene drive to South France to return their kids from a holiday camp. The traffic is dense and the atmosphere growingly tense; he is an alcoholic and becomes increasingly drunk the more often they stop. After a fierce discussion they split and both have to face great danger during the night.

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In Paris, after winning the lottery, the clerk Franèois goes to a bar in Pigalle and offers one hundred thousand Euros per month to the prostitute Daniela to live with him until the end of his money. Franèois is a lonely man, with heart problems and Daniela stays with him for eight days. Then, she decides to come back to her man, the mobster Charly, but she misses Franèois and returns to his place. But once a whore, always a whore.

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A successful artist, weary of Parisian life and on the verge of divorce, returns to the country to live in his childhood house. He needs someone to make a real vegetable garden again out of the wilderness it has become. The gardener happens to be a former schoolfriend. A warm, fruitful conversation starts between the two men...

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The action takes place in a typical French town in the early sixties, at the end of the Algerian war. In a fit of criminal madness, a married, affluent and respected town-citizen named Gregoire Duval kills a young woman who spurns his advances. As no one witnesses him committing this crime, he chooses to remain silent while the girl's boyfriend, a young Algerian farm worker, is wrongly convicted. In a strange twist of fate, the killer becomes one of the jurors of the trial and suddenly does everything in his power to defend the wrongly accused young man.

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Provence, the days before World War II. Rustic well-digger Pascal Amoretti, a widower, encourages fellow laborer Fèlipe Rambert to date his virgin eldest daughter Patricia, the only of his five who attended a Parish finishing school. Getting drunk, Felipe unwittingly helps her date wealthy general store owner Mazel's handsome, womanizing son, dashing air force pilot Jacques, who gives her a motorbike ride home, make love and get her pregnant. Shortly after, both men are called for military service. On leave, Felipe finds out the truth and still proposes. Jacques is reported missing in action, his family refuses to recognize the baby, so Pascal sends Patricia with it to his outcast sister.

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A dock worker in Le Havre hears a human sound inside one of the containers in port, that container which left Gabon three weeks ago and which was supposed to arrive in London five days after its departure from Gabon, which didn't happen. The Le Havre police and French border guards find a still alive group of illegal African immigrants inside. On the sign from one of his elders, a young teen boy among the illegal immigrants manages to escape, news of which hits the local media. The first friendly face that boy, Idrissa, encounters is that of former artist now aged shoeshine Marcel Marx. Marcel decides to help Idrissa by hiding him in his house, news which slowly trickles through his community of friends - most of whom he associates with at his local bar - and neighbors, most who assist Marcel in this task. Marcel goes to great lengths to find out Idrissa's story, which leads to Marcel's further task of trying to get Idrissa to London, his original end destination. The one neighbor who wants to turn Idrissa in and the authorities seem to be on to Marcel's activities, most specifically hard nosed police Inspector Monet, who may have his own private agenda. Through it all, Marcel has on his mind the health of his terminally ill and hospitalized wife Arletty, the terminal aspect being something of which he is unaware and which may in turn eventually kill him as Arletty is his life.

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At a French shipyard, a trade unionist named Michel deliberately arranges to have himself on the dockworkers' randomly chosen downsizing list to spare another of his fellow workers. While he has his severance package and his friends and family's generosity to ease this sacrifice, this also gets his home invaded and robbed along with his wife and friends. Through pure luck, Michel finds out the identity of one of his assailants, a young worker who was on the same downsizing list himself, and gets him arrested. However, both Michel and his wife find that their vindictive satisfaction is soured by their realization of their assailant's motives and the larger consequences of their revenge. Struggling with their conscience, the couple finds themselves independently trying to live up to their ideals for a greater sense of justice.

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"Fanny" is the second part of the "Marseille trilogy", made by Marcel Pagnol with the generic name of "Marius, Fanny and Cèsar". Fanny falls in love and is abandoned by Marius. Now she discovers she is pregnant. Her mother and Marius's father, Cèsar, persuade her to accept the romantic advances of a much older man. To save face, Fanny accepts to marry Honorè Panisse, a rich merchant of the Vieux Port, 30 years her senior who will recognize her son.

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"Marius" takes place in Marseilles' Old Port, at the La Marine Bar, owned by Cèsar and his son Marius. Marius' biggest dream is to embark on one of the boats passing by his dad's bar and to set off to a faraway land. Fanny, a young and pretty seafood peddler, has secretly been in love with Marius since her childhood; Marius, never admitting it, has always loved Fanny. One day, a sailor drops by La Marine and offers him a job on an exploratory ship. Trying to hold him off and to make him jealous, Fanny confesses his love to him and provokes a fight between Marius and one of Cèsar's old friends, Panisse, a boat merchant, who despite his old age, has been courting Fanny for a while. Torn between the call of the sea and his love for her, Marius abandons his dream to be with Fanny who gives herself to him. As Cèsar and Honorine, Fanny's mother, are getting ready for the wedding, Marius changes his mind, drawn back to the call of the sea. Sacrificing her love, Fanny convinces Marius to embark on his journey, leaving her behind. Devastated but holding back her tears, she hides Marius' decision to his father.

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Brigitte and Xavier are a couple of cattle farmers living and working together in Normandy. They have always got on well but now that their two children have left the household routine and weariness have set in. One night, Brigitte, who has been invited to a party by a group of Parisians in the house next to their farm, lets herself be wooed by Stan, a witty, cool attractive young man. Some time later, giving a visit to a dermatologist as an excuse, she goes to Paris to meet him. But things do not go according to plan...