François Ozon

"A luminary and frequently controversial figure of the French cinema since the 1990s, François Ozon has continued to surprise and delight with his ever-stylish, daring and genre-defying films. Ozon first made a name for himself as an auteur with a series of audacious and darkly exuberant works that included See the Sea, Sitcom, Water Drops on Burning Rocks and 8 Women." - Haden Guest (Harvard Film Archive, 2019)
François Ozon
Director / Screenwriter
(1967- ) Born November 15, Paris, France

Key Production Countries: France, Belgium, Italy
Key Genres: Drama, Psychological Drama, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Erotic Drama, Gay & Lesbian Films
Key Collaborators: Olivier Delbosc (Producer), Marc Missonnier (Producer), Philippe Rombi (Composer), Jeanne Lapoirie (Cinematographer), Katia Wyszkop (Production Designer), Nicolas Altmayer (Producer), Eric Altmayer (Producer), Yorick Le Saux (Cinematographer), Melvil Poupaud (Leading Actor), Charlotte Rampling (Leading Actress), Claudie Ossard (Producer), Monica Coleman (Editor)

"Frequently and inaccurately described as yet another bad boy of French cinema, François Ozon is really its cheeky imp, sporting both the appearance and the directorial presence of a naughty pixie. He used to make movies, on his father's Super 8 camera, in which most of his family would take acting parts and often wind up dead. A number of critics have seized upon these films as early signifiers of a familiar trope of Ozon's - the lingering death of the nuclear unit." - Lloyd Hughes (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)
"From Hitchcock to Fassbinder, each new genre-bending treat from François Ozon comes steeped in references to the great directors of the past… Ozon does not make the same film twice. Seventeen features into his career, the French writer-director is still exploring new genres in which to demonstrate his wit and visual trickery." - Nick Chen (BFI, 2018)
Under the Sand
Under the Sand (2000)
"Critics have a hard time placing François Ozon. He does not belong in the hallowed tradition of the French Nouvelle Vague, and yet his films are intimate and personal, bearing the mark of his obsessions and recurring fancies. He is hailed as the "poster boy of contemporary queer cinema", and yet his films are pleasing commercial entertainments with no blaring political agenda – and he is equally at ease with male or female, gay or straight subject matter. His films display a very solid, classical sense of storytelling craft, and yet they are mysterious, elliptical, poetic. He has been derided as representing a new, exportable, internationalised 'cinema of French quality', and yet the more one digs into his films, the more one cherishes their sly, perverse aspects." - Adrian Martin, 2004
"One of the most provocative and vibrant filmmakers to emerge during the 1990s, French director François Ozon has distinguished himself with dark, mordantly psychological films that draw their impact from Ozon's frank and often disturbing explorations of transgression and sexuality. Combining wry humor, sensitivity, and subversive insight with a talent for manipulation, Ozon has earned comparisons to Hitchcock and Chabrol, directors whose works have provided ample inspiration for the young director as he has staked out his own, impressive territory in the cinema." - Rebecca Flint Marx (Allmovie)
"If Ozon’s motion pictures are all varying in genre, content and form, they continuously challenge the rules of conventional cinema by tackling taboo issues of various kinds, including same-sex desires. Ozon does not confine himself to gay issues, but their recurrence, coupled with the director’s self-proclaimed homosexuality, make his status in French filmmaking fairly unusual, and therefore, worthy of attention." - Thibaut Schilt (Senses of Cinema, 2004)
Selected Filmography
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GF Greatest Films ranking ( Top 1000 ● Top 2500)
21C 21st Century ranking ( Top 1000)
T TSPDT
François Ozon / Favourite Films
See 43 of François Ozon’s favourite films at La Cinetek (2018).
François Ozon / Fan Club
John Waters, Alex Ramon, Dennis Lim, Ginette Vincendeau, Melissa Anderson, Dennis Dermody, Jonathan Romney, Jessica Winter, Anne Billson, Peter Sobczynski.
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