Alex DescasFilmography

Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: French actor Alex Descas began building up his résumé in the mid-'80s, appearing in numerous film and TV roles in his native country. Over the coming decades, Descas would become a bankable name in the French cinema, even catching the attention of American audiences with roles in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes...Read More

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The Limits of Control

Actors: Isaach de Bankolé, Hiam Abbass, Gael García Bernal, Paz de la Huerta, Alex Descas

Synopsis: A mysterious loner attempts to successfully complete his criminal mission while operating outside of the law in contemporary Spain. His objectives shrouded in secrecy, the untrusting lone wolf (Isaach de Bankolé) sets out on his latest assignment knowing that the law is never too far behind. Bill Murray Read More

5/1/09
35 Rhums

Actors: Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Grégoire Colin, Nicole Dogue, Ingrid Caven

Synopsis: Time and romantic attraction threaten to sour a family relationship in this drama from writer and director Claire Denis. Lionel (Alex Descas) is a middle-aged widower who makes his living driving a train and shares an apartment with his twentysomething daughter, Joséphine (Mati Diop). Lionel and Read More

2/18/09
Persécution

Actors: Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Alex Descas

Synopsis: A man struggling with a failing romantic relationship now has to deal with an admirer he doesn't want in this drama from French filmmaker Patrice Chereau. Daniel (Romain Duris) is a successful self-employed businessman who has been dating Sonia (Charlotte Gainsbourg) for nearly three years. Daniel Read More

2009
Boarding Gate

Actors: Asia Argento, Michael Madsen, Carl Ng, Kelly Lin, Joana Preiss, Alex Descas, Kim Gordon

Synopsis: From director Olivier Assayas comes this erotic thriller starring Asia Argento as Sandra, a former prostitute, and Michael Madsen as Miles, her onetime pimp-turned-high-powered businessman. Brought back together after a separation, Sandra and Miles are reunited when Sandra returns to Paris after Read More

3/21/08
Tag!

Actors: Alex Descas, Mata Gabin, Vincent M. Muwanga, Emma Warg, Klas Jahnberg

2007
L'Intrus

Actors: Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin, Katya Golubeva, Karin Bambourough, Florence Loiret-Caille

Synopsis: Claire Denis' elliptical drama L'Intrus was inspired by a short book written by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy about his heart transplant. In the film, Michel Subor (Le Petit Soldat) stars as Louis, who lives fairly self-sufficiently in a small cabin in the snowy wilds near the Swiss border. Louis has Read More

12/23/05
In Your Dreams

Actors: Disiz LaPeste, Blandine Bury, Vincent Elbaz, Edouard Montoute, Béatrice Dalle

2005
Coffee and Cigarettes

Actors: Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Joie Lee, Cinqué Lee, Steve Buscemi

Synopsis: Jim Jarmusch's black-and-white feature Coffee and Cigarettes contains three vignettes originally released as short films along with separate yet somewhat related sketches. As the title suggests, most of the vignettes involve famous people smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. The first, "Coffee Read More

5/14/04
The United States of Albert

Actors: Eric Bruneau, Émilie Dequenne, Andréa Ferréol, Roy Dupuis, Laurent Deshusses

2004
La Beuze

Actors: Michaël Youn, Vincent Desagnat, Alex Descas, Zoe Felix, Jorge Cabezas

Synopsis: La Beuze is a drug comedy from France directed by François Desagnat and Thomas Sorriaux. Alphonse Brown (Michaël Youn), who firmly believes he is the bastard son of James Brown, meets up with his best friend Scotch (Vincent Desagnat) after Brown gets out of jail. On their way to Paris to begin Read More

2003
Tiresia

Actors: Clara Choveaux, Thiago Teles, Laurent Lucas, Celia Catalifo

Synopsis: Director Bertrand Bonello adapts the Greek myth of Tiresias to a modern day setting with this unforgiving tale of a transsexual prostitute held captive by a man obsessed with her ethereal beauty. Bound in her lonely prison and deprived of the hormones that keep her from reverting back to manhood Read More

2003
Ten Minutes Older: The Cello

Actors: Amit Arroz, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Mark Long, Alexandra Staden, Dominic West

Synopsis: Eight master directors of world cinema combine forces for this omnibus film that focuses cumulatively on the subject of time. Bookended by cello interludes, Ten Minutes Older: The Cello presents just one parameter to each of its filmmakers: no final entry can be more or less than ten minutes long. Read More

2002
Lumumba

Actors: Eriq Ebouaney, Alex Descas, Moussa Théophile Sowie, Maka Kotto

Synopsis: Patrice Lumumba was a passionate advocate for freedom in colonial Africa, and when the Belgian Congo was granted independent (and was later renamed Zaire), Lumumba was the new nation's first prime minister. However, Lumumba's dream of freedom and dignity for the people of the Congo made him a Read More

6/27/01
Trouble Every Day

Actors: Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle, Alex Descas, Florence Loiret

Synopsis: Two strangers share a strange and terrible bond in this stylish horror tale that juggles sex and graphic bloodshed. Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo) is a strange man with a forbidding nature who has just married lovely but nervous June (Tricia Vessey), and they've decided to go to Paris for their Read More

3/1/01
Late August, Early September

Actors: Mathieu Amalric, Virginie Ledoyen, François Cluzet, Jeanne Balibar, Alex Descas, Arsinée Khanjian

Synopsis: Olivier Assayas directed this French drama, examining several relationships over a year's span, capturing varying textures and shades of feeling between people from late August of one year until early September of the next. Gabriel (Mathieu Amalric) and Jenny (Jeanne Balibar) separate, despite the Read More

8/20/99
L'Honneur De Ma Famille

Actors: Seloua Hamse, Karole Rocher, Roschdy Zem, Alex Descas, Firmine Richard

Synopsis: In this French comedy, Algerian Nora (Seloua Hamse) tells her parents she works the nightshift at a hospital emergency ward, but in truth, Nora and her friend Carol (Karole Rocher) cross the border each night to work the bar at a large disco. Nora's travel plans are interrupted by a surprise Read More

1998
Harem

Actors: Marie Gillain, Alex Descas, Lucia Bosé, Valeria Golino, Malick Bowens

Synopsis: Following the success of Hamam, Turkey-born, Italy-based Ferzan Ozpetek delivers another exotic film that delves into the traditions of his origin. Once again, the exotic city of Istanbul is the place of intrigue. But, unlike Hamam, which was a contemporary story, Harem Suare takes place at the Read More

1998
The House

Actors: Francisco Nascimento, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi

Synopsis: Like its predecessor Few of Us, Lithuanian cult film director Sarunas Bartas's The House is highly abstract and nearly silent but for a pair of narrators. Whereas the first film was primarily centered on life in a remote mountain village in Lithuania and had loose plot, this one pays tribute to a Read More

10/1/97
Clubbed to Death

Actors: Élodie Bouchez, Béatrice Dalle, Roschdy Zem, Richard Courcet

Synopsis: A young woman in her 20s spends a day visiting Paris. When she misses the last bus home, she finds herself stranded on the outskirts of Paris. While wandering about, she encounters a youth who suggests she hang out at a local club. He then gives her a little of the drug Ecstasy to help pep her up. Read More

6/25/97
Nénette et Boni

Actors: Grégoire Colin, Alice Houri, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Vincent Gallo, Jacques Nollot

Synopsis: Nenette (Alice Houri) is a 14-year-old girl with an attitude problem who runs away from her boarding school only to knock on the door of her older brother Boni (Gregoire Colin). Boni has his own problems most of which center around an erotic fixation with the baker's sexy wife (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi Read More

1/29/97
Saraka Bô

Actors: Richard Bohringer, Yvan Attal, Anne Roussel, Aïssa Maïga

Synopsis: A pair of French detectives enter a different world after they are assigned to solve a puzzling double homicide that occurred in an African neighborhood in Paris. The corpses of the two masked Malian women were discovered ritually mutilated and hanging from a ceiling. The detectives' search leads Read More

1/15/97
Irma Vep

Actors: Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard, Antoine Basler

Synopsis: Written and directed by Olivier Assayas, Irma Vep tells the story of has-been French filmmaker René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Léaud). In an attempt to reinvigorate his career, Vidal decides to remake Les Vampires, the classic silent serial featuring the adventures of jewel thief Irma Vep. Playing Read More

11/13/96
Le Grand Blanc De Lambarene

Synopsis: This African comedy takes a sharp, satiric poke at one of the white colonialist's most sacred cows--the humanitarian work of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The film was shot beside Ganon's Ogooue River in Lambarene, where the real Schweitzer did most of his work, and the settings are more realistic than Read More

1994
I Can't Sleep

Actors: Yekaterina Golubeva, Richard Courcet, Line Renaud, Alex Descas, Béatrice Dalle

Synopsis: This French drama uses two plots that occasionally come together. The stories are set within the multiethnic neighborhoods of Paris. In the first, Daiga (Yekaterina Golubeva), a spunky Lithuanian actress, drives into to town to collect on the promise of a director she slept with. He lied to her Read More

1994
Le Cri du Coeur

Actors: Said Diarra, Richard Bohringer, Felicite Wouassi, Alex Descas, Clémentine Célarié

Synopsis: This drama focuses upon the psychological adjustment problems of a young boy whose family moves him from Africa to Paris, France. Moctar, a boy whose first 11 years were spent in a small village in Mali, is having difficulty adjusting to his new life in Paris. After several years in Paris, Moctar Read More

1994
Die Abwesenheit

Actors: Alex Descas, Bruno Ganz

Synopsis: In this aimless and meandering film, five separate individuals drop out of their lives in order to drift around Europe with no clear end in mind. Despite the diversity of the individuals beginning these journeys, the film apparently offers no appealing characters, incidents, or insights, as it was Read More

1992
La Desirante

Actors: Alex Descas, Tse Tran, Jean-Claude Leguay

1992
S'en Fout la Mort

Actors: Isaach de Bankolé, Alex Descas, Jean-Claude Brialy, Solveig Dommartin

Synopsis: The two black men in this tragedy live on the fringes of French society, and come from Africa and the Caribbean. Among the things they share in common is involvement in the illegal sport of cockfighting. The film follows their exploits and daily lives among the poor of France, as they train their Read More

1990
Bleu Comme L'Enfer

Actors: Lambert Wilson, Tchéky Karyo, Myriem Roussel, Agnes Soral, Sandra Montaigu

Synopsis: If the hunt that lends dramatic action to this fast-paced story could be notched up into a more harrowing adventure, then the fates of escaped thief Ned (Lambert Wilson) and Lilly (Myriem Roussel) the wife of his pursuer, would engage viewers' attention all the more. The half-psychotic cop Franck (Tcheky Karyo Read More

1986
Taxi Boy

Actors: Claude Brasseur, Richard Berry, Charlotte Valandrey, Evelyne Didi, Isaach de Bankolé

Synopsis: An unusual assortment of characters is brought together in this film noir influenced story: Petrus (Claude Brasseur) spends his life escaping the gamblers he cheated at the card table. Manuel (Richard Berry) has an ambition to open a tango school, but in the meantime he drives a cab for a living. Read More

1986