Costa-Gavras Filmography

Born:: February 12, 1933 in Klivia, Greece
Occupation:: Director, Screenwriter
Birth name:: Konstantinos Gavras
Biography:: Costa-Gavras gleaned his political activism literally from his father's knee. The senior Gavras was a Greek government functionary who performed heroically in the resistance movement against the occupying Nazi forces in World War II. At war's end, the outspoken Gavras found himself labeled a...Read More

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The Colonel

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Olivier Gourmet, Robinson Stévenin, Cécile De France, Charles Aznavour, Bruno Solo

Synopsis: A man of principle is led down a sinister path in the name of patriotism in this drama co-written by the legendary political filmmaker Costa Gravas. Colonel DuPlan is a powerful but elderly officer in the French military who is found murdered in his flat after appearing on a television talk show Read More

2006
The Ax

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: José Garcia, Karin Viard, Olivier Gourmet, Ulrich Tukur, Yvon Back

2005
Amen

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ulrich Tukur, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ulrich Mühe, Michel Duchaussoy, Ion Caramitru

Synopsis: The collective crimes against humanity known as the Holocaust have been well-documented since the end of World War II, but lingering questions remain about how much was known about the Nazi mass-extermination schemes outside Germany, and what could have been done to prevent them. Political Read More

1/24/03
Mad City

Crew: Director

Actors: John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Mia Kirshner, Alan Alda, Robert Prosky

Synopsis: Investigative TV journalist Max Brackett (Dustin Hoffman) suffers setbacks and winds up filing routine reports from Madeline, California. Max and his eager intern Laurie (Mia Kirshner) are doing a story at the local Museum of Natural History when a bigger story erupts. The Museum's director, Mrs. Read More

1997
À Propos De Nice, La Suite

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This French anthology is a tribute to A Propos de Nice (1930), a classic documentary that took a poetic and sometimes satirical look at life in the French Riviera town. This version blends fact and fiction to chronicle life in modern-day Nice and is comprised of seven vignettes, each directed by Read More

1995
Lumière and Company

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Lumière brothers' first films, filmmakers Sarah Moon and Philippe Poulet challenged 39 renowned international directors to each complete a 52-second film using the original Cinematographe camera under the conditions endured by the brothers. The result Read More

1995
La Petite Apocalypse

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jirí Menzel, André Dussollier, Pierre Arditi, Anna Romantowska

Synopsis: In this cynical comedy, an renowned, out-of-work, unpublished "underground" writer from formerly Communist Poland is driven to unusually desperate measures in order to get his work published. Stan (Jiri Menzel) has been living in the attic apartment of his ex-wife's home, which he shares with a Read More

1993
Contre L'Oubli

Crew: Director

Actors: Catherine Deneuve, Philippe Noiret, Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sami Frey

Synopsis: Amnesty International produced this film, which features more than two dozen greats of French cinema making pleas for the lives of political prisoners around the world. Each filmmaker speaks passionately on behalf of an individual whose life has been warped by political intolerance, imprisonment Read More

1991
The Music Box

Crew: Director

Actors: Jessica Lange, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Frederic Forrest, Donald Moffat, Lukas Haas

Synopsis: Jessica Lange plays an attorney whose affable Hungarian-immigrant father Armin Mueller-Stahl is arrested. He is threatened with deportation for lying about his activities during World War II; part of the charge is that Mueller-Stahl was a Nazi collaborationist, guilty of wartime atrocities. Read More

12/25/89
Betrayed

Crew: Director

Actors: Debra Winger, Tom Berenger, John Heard, Betsy Blair, John Mahoney

Synopsis: Set in the American South, Betrayed stars Debra Winger as an FBI agent who infiltrates a Klanlike white supremacist organization. Allegedly a woman of intelligence and perception, Winger throws caution and logic to the winds when she falls in love with local farmer Tom Berenger. Much to her Read More

8/26/88
Conseil De Famille

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Johnny Hallyday, Fanny Ardant, Guy Marchand, Laurent Romor, Remi Martin

Synopsis: Renowned director Constantin Costa-Gavras (whose 1969's feature Z won multiple international awards and was a box office success) tries his hand at an unusual mix of comedy and crime in this story. When a father (Johnny Hallyday) gets out of prison, he comes home to his wife (Fanny Ardant) and two Read More

1986
Spies Like Us

Actors: Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Forrest, Donna Dixon, Bruce Davison

Synopsis: Director John Landis helmed this Cold War farce starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase as Austin Millbarge and Emmett Fitz-Hume -- two loser misfits who dwell in the lower ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency. Convinced despite much evidence to the contrary that they're prime secret agent Read More

1985
Hanna K.

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jill Clayburgh, Jean Yanne, Gabriel Byrne, Mohammad Bakri, David Clennon

Synopsis: In this political drama, Hannah Kaufman, a Jewish-American attorney, must defend Selim Bakri, a young Palestinian suing Israel for the right to live on his Left Bank ancestral land. The government's lawyer, a cocky Israeli attorney, is Hannah's lover and the father of her unborn child. Conflict Read More

1983
Missing

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, Melanie Mayron, John Shea, Charles Cioffi

Synopsis: Costa-Gavras's tense political drama opens in an unspecified South American country (though clearly intended to be Chile) in the throes of a military coup. American activist Charles Horman (John Shea), who has been a thorn in the side of the country's military ever since his arrival, suddenly Read More

1982
Clair De Femme

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Yves Montand, Romy Schneider, Romolo Valli, Lila Kedrova, Heinz Bennent

Synopsis: Noted political filmmaker Costa-Gavras turned his attention to personal issues in this drama. Michel (Yves Montand) has had to deal with the death of his wife, while Lydia (Romy Schneider) is mourning the loss of her daughter. Both Michel and Lydia are lonely, and they are attempting to start a Read More

8/29/79
La Vie Devant Soi

Actors: Simone Signoret, Claude Dauphin, Sammy Ben Youb, Gabriel Jabbour, Michael Bat-Adam

Synopsis: Madame Rosa (Simone Signoret) is an aging former prostitute who, in her dotage, makes a living by caring for the children of other prostitutes in Paris' Arab community. Haunted by memories of her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, Rosa is seized with the notion that the Gestapo is still Read More

1977
Section Spéciale

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Louis Seigner, Michel Lonsdale, François Maistre, Ivo Garrani, Henri Serre, Roland Bertin, Pierre Dux

Synopsis: Based on a true story, Costa-Gavras' Special Section (Section Speciale) is set in wartime France, but the parallels to contemporary political persecution are inescapable. A young German naval officer is killed in occupied Paris. The supplicative Vichy government sets about to locate the Read More

4/23/75
State of Siege

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Yves Montand, Renato Salvatori, O.E. Hasse, Jacques Weber, Jean-Luc Bideau

Synopsis: Like most of Costa-Gavras' political thrillers, the French State of Siege is based on a true story. The incident dramatized herein is the kidnapping of a U.S. official somewhere in Latin America. The director's sympathies clearly lie with the kidnappers, especially since the official (played by Yves Montand Read More

2/8/73
L'Aveu

Crew: Director

Actors: Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Michel Vitold, Jean Bouise

Synopsis: This Costa-Gavras thriller stars Yves Montand as an East European government functionary, inexplicably imprisoned by his Communist superiors. He is not told why he has been arrested, nor has his wife (Simone Signoret) been informed of his fate. Undergoing psychological torture, Montand is grilled Read More

4/29/70
Z

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacques Perrin, François Perier

Synopsis: Z is one of the most politically insightful films ever made, exposing government hypocrisy and cover-up in the wake of a political assassination. Zei (Yves Montand) is a scientist who is scheduled to give a speech against the use of the atomic bomb. On the way to the event, he is attacked outside Read More

1969
Un Homme De Trop

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Michel Piccoli, Bruno Cremer, Jean-Claude Brialy, Gérard Blain, Claude Brasseur

Synopsis: In this WW II drama, twelve captured French soldiers await their impending executions in a German prison camp. Fortunately, a wily resistance fighter and his men come to rescue the ill-fated dozen. The rescue attempt succeeds, but the rebels become worried when they discover a thirteenth prisoner Read More

1967
The Sleeping Car Murders

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Pierre Mondy, Simone Signoret, Catherine Allegret, Jacques Perrin

Synopsis: The first film directed by Costa-Gavras, The Sleeping Car Murders was based on a novel by Sebastien Japrisot. During a Marseilles-to-Paris overnight train trip, a girl is found dead in a sleeping car. As Paris detective Yves Montand steps up his investigation, more and more passengers turn up Read More

11/17/65
Bay of Angels

Crew: First Assistant Director

Actors: Jeanne Moreau, Claude Mann, Paul Guers, Henri Nassiet

Synopsis: Bay of the Angels (La Baie des anges) stars Jeanne Moreau as a middle-aged Parisian gambling addict who leaves her husband and children and heads for the roulette tables of Nice. There she meets young and handsome Claude Mann--a meeting which coincides with Moreau's first winning streak. She Read More

1963