The Most Famous

ACTORS from France

This page contains a list of the greatest French Actors. The pantheon dataset contains 13,578 Actors, 431 of which were born in France. This makes France the birth place of the 5th most number of Actors behind India, and Canada.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary French Actors of all time. This list of famous French Actors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of French Actors.

1. Alain Delon (1935 - 2024)

With an HPI of 83.15, Alain Delon is the most famous French Actor. His biography has been translated into 119 different languages on wikipedia.

Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon (French: [alɛ̃ dəlɔ̃]; 8 November 1935 – 18 August 2024) was a French actor, film producer, screenwriter, singer, and businessman. Acknowledged as a cultural and cinematic leading man of the 20th century, Delon emerged as one of the foremost European actors of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and became an international sex symbol. He is regarded as one of the most well-known figures of the French cultural landscape. His style, looks, and roles, which made him an international icon, earned him enduring popularity. Delon achieved critical acclaim for his roles in films such as Women Are Weak (1959), Purple Noon (1960), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), L'Eclisse (1962), The Leopard (1963), The Black Tulip (1964), The Last Adventure (1967), Le Samouraï (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), La Piscine (1969), Le Cercle Rouge (1970), Un flic (1972), and Monsieur Klein (1976). Over the course of his career, Delon worked with many directors, including Luchino Visconti, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Louis Malle. Delon received many film and entertainment awards throughout his career. In 1985, he won the César Award for Best Actor for his performance in Notre histoire (1984). In 1991, he became a member of France's Legion of Honour. At the 45th Berlin International Film Festival, he won the Honorary Golden Bear. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, he received the Honorary Palme d'Or. In addition to his acting career, Delon also recorded the spoken part in the popular 1973 song "Paroles, paroles", a duet with Dalida as the main singing voice. He acquired Swiss citizenship in 1999.

2. Brigitte Bardot (b. 1934)

With an HPI of 82.65, Brigitte Bardot is the 2nd most famous French Actor. Her biography has been translated into 117 different languages.

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( brizh-EET bar-DOH; French: [bʁiʒit baʁdo] ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a French former actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist. Famous for portraying characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she is one of the best known symbols of the sexual revolution. Although she withdrew from the entertainment industry in 1973, she remains a major pop culture icon. She has acted in 47 films, performed in several musicals, and recorded more than 60 songs. She was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1985. Born and raised in Paris, Bardot was an aspiring ballerina during her childhood. She started her acting career in 1952 and achieved international recognition in 1957 for her role in And God Created Woman (1956), catching the attention of many French intellectuals and earning her the nickname "sex kitten". She was the subject of philosopher Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay The Lolita Syndrome, which described her as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the most liberated woman of France. She won a 1961 David di Donatello Best Foreign Actress Award for her work in The Truth (1960). Bardot later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's film Le Mépris (1963). For her role in Louis Malle's film Viva Maria! (1965), she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress. French President Charles de Gaulle called Bardot "the French export as important as Renault cars". After retiring from acting in 1973, Bardot became an animal rights activist and created the Brigitte Bardot Foundation. She is known for her strong personality, outspokenness, and speeches on animal defense; she has been fined twice for public insults. She has also been a controversial political figure, as of November 2021 having been fined six times for inciting racial hatred when she criticised immigration and Islam in France and called residents of Réunion "savages". She is married to Bernard d'Ormale, a former adviser to Jean-Marie Le Pen, a far-right French politician. Bardot is a member of the Global 500 Roll of Honour of the United Nations Environment Programme and has received several awards and accolades from UNESCO and PETA. In 2011, Los Angeles Times Magazine ranked her second on the "50 Most Beautiful Women In Film".

3. Sarah Bernhardt (1844 - 1923)

With an HPI of 78.73, Sarah Bernhardt is the 3rd most famous French Actor. Her biography has been translated into 158 different languages.

Sarah Bernhardt (French: [saʁa bɛʁnɑʁt]; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, Fédora and La Tosca by Victorien Sardou, and L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand. She played female and male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", and Hugo praised her "golden voice". She made several theatrical tours worldwide and was one of the early prominent actresses to make sound recordings and act in motion pictures. She is also linked with the success of artist Alphonse Mucha, whose work she helped to publicize. Mucha became one of the more sought-after artists of this period for his Art Nouveau style.

4. Louis de Funès (1914 - 1983)

With an HPI of 78.46, Louis de Funès is the 4th most famous French Actor. His biography has been translated into 86 different languages.

Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza (French: [lwi d(ə) fynɛs]; 31 July 1914 – 27 January 1983) was a French actor and comedian. He is France's favourite actor, according to a series of polls conducted since the late 1960s, having played over 150 roles in film and over 100 on stage. His acting style is remembered for its high-energy performance and his wide range of facial expressions and tics. A considerable part of his best-known acting was directed by Jean Girault. The larger-than-life, conservative petit bourgeois characters he played, who typically kissed up to authority while persecuting their subordinates, particularly resonated with the changing Western societies of the 1960s and drove him to success. Yet in private life, De Funès was a notoriously shy and reserved man, and a devout Catholic. One of the most famous French actors of all time, Louis de Funès remains to this day the most bankable actor in French cinema history. He enjoys widespread international recognition: in addition to his immense fame in the French-speaking world, he remains a household name throughout most of continental Europe including the former Eastern Bloc, the former Soviet Union, as well as Iran, Turkey, and Israel. Despite this international popularity, Louis de Funès remains an obscure figure in the English-speaking world. He was exposed to a wider audience only once in the United States, in 1973, with the release of The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, which is best remembered for its Rabbi Jacob dance scene and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. De Funès has two museums dedicated to his life and acting: one in the Château de Clermont, near Nantes, where he resided, as well as another in the town of Saint-Raphaël, Southern France.

5. Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933 - 2021)

With an HPI of 78.36, Jean-Paul Belmondo is the 5th most famous French Actor. His biography has been translated into 92 different languages.

Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃pɔl ʃaʁl bɛlmɔ̃do]; 9 April 1933 – 6 September 2021) was a French actor. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward, frequently portraying police officers and criminals in action thriller films. His best known credits include Breathless (1960), That Man from Rio (1964), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Borsalino (1970), and The Professional (1981). An undisputed box-office champion like Louis de Funès and Alain Delon of the same period, Belmondo attracted nearly 160 million spectators in his 50-year career. Between 1969 and 1982 he played four times in the most popular films of the year in France: The Brain (1969), Fear Over the City (1975), Animal (1977), Ace of Aces (1982), being surpassed on this point only by Louis de Funès. Belmondo frequently played heroic, brave, and virile characters, which made him popular with a wide audience both in France and abroad. Despite being heavily courted by Hollywood, Belmondo refused to appear in English-language films . During his career, he was called the French counterpart of actors such as James Dean, Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart. Described as an icon and national treasure of France, Belmondo was seen as an influential actor in French cinema and an important figure in shaping European cinema. In 1989, Belmondo won the César Award for Best Actor for his performance in Itinéraire d'un enfant gâté. He was nominated for two BAFTA Awards throughout his career. In 2011, Belmondo received the Palme d'honneur at the Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017 he received the César d'honneur at the 42nd César Awards.

6. Catherine Deneuve (b. 1943)

With an HPI of 75.72, Catherine Deneuve is the 6th most famous French Actor. Her biography has been translated into 73 different languages.

Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (born 22 October 1943), known professionally as Catherine Deneuve (UK: , US: , French: [katʁin dənœv] ), is a French actress. She is considered one of the greatest European actresses on film. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her as one of the greatest actors of the 21st century. Deneuve made her screen debut in 1957 at age 13, in a film shot the previous year when she was only 12. A major figure of the New Wave, she became, like Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon, one of the best-known French artists in the world. In a career spanning nearly 70 years, she has played more than a hundred roles and is recognized in France and internationally for being one of the key faces of the musical film genre with appearances in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Donkey Skin, 8 Women and The Beloved. Early in her career, she gained acclaim for her portrayals of aloof and mysterious beauties while working for well-known directors such as Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Roman Polanski, and Agnès Varda. She played in films attracting a total of nearly 99 million spectators in theaters, making her the working actress with the most admissions in France. In 1985, she succeeded Mireille Mathieu as the official face of Marianne, France's national symbol of liberty. She has received numerous accolades over her career including two César Awards and the Venice Film Festival's Volpi Cup for Best Actress as well as nominations for an Academy Award and BAFTA Award. She has received honorary awards, including the Berlin International Film Festival's Golden Bear in 1998, the Cannes Film Festival's Honorary Palme d'Or in 2005, and the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion in 2022.

7. Gérard Depardieu (b. 1948)

With an HPI of 75.46, Gérard Depardieu is the 7th most famous French Actor. His biography has been translated into 79 different languages.

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu (UK: , US: , French: [ʒeʁaʁ ɡzavje maʁsɛl dəpaʁdjø] ; born 27 December 1948) is a French actor, known to be one of the most prolific in film history. Icon of French cinema, a world star in the same way as Alain Delon or Brigitte Bardot, he has completed over 250 films since 1967, almost exclusively as a lead. Depardieu has worked with over 150 film directors whose most notable collaborations include Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Maurice Pialat, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Ridley Scott, and Bernardo Bertolucci. He is the second highest-grossing actor in the history of French cinema behind Louis de Funès. As of January 2022, his body of work also includes countless television productions, 18 stage plays, 16 records and 9 books. He is known for having portrayed numerous leading historical and fictitious figures of the Western world including Georges Danton, Joseph Stalin, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Auguste Rodin, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean Valjean, Edmond Dantès, Christopher Columbus, Obélix, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Depardieu is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur and Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite. He was granted citizenship of Russia in January 2013 (officially adopted name in Russian: Жерар Ксавие Депардьё, romanized: Zherar Ksavie Depardyo), and became a cultural ambassador of Montenegro during the same month. Depardieu has received acclaim for his performances in The Last Metro (1980), for which he won the César Award for Best Actor, in Police (1985), for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, Jean de Florette (1986), and Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), for which he won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and his second César Award for Best Actor as well as garnering a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He co-starred in Peter Weir's comedy Green Card (1990), winning a Golden Globe Award, and later acted in many big-budget Hollywood films, including Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996), Randall Wallace's The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), and Ang Lee's Life of Pi (2012). Depardieu has been repeatedly accused of sexual assault. The French authorities have charged him with rape and, since 2021, have had him under formal investigation. Depardieu has denied any wrongdoing and has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations against him. He was stripped of the National Order of Quebec in 2023.

8. Jean Marais (1913 - 1998)

With an HPI of 73.45, Jean Marais is the 8th most famous French Actor. His biography has been translated into 67 different languages.

Jean-Alfred Villain-Marais (11 December 1913 – 8 November 1998), known professionally as Jean Marais (French: [ʒɑ̃ maʁɛ]), was a French actor, film director, theatre director, painter, sculptor, visual artist, writer and photographer. He performed in over 100 films and was the lover, muse and friend of acclaimed director Jean Cocteau. In 1996, he was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his contributions to French cinema.

9. Jean Gabin (1904 - 1976)

With an HPI of 70.67, Jean Gabin is the 9th most famous French Actor. His biography has been translated into 72 different languages.

Jean Gabin Alexis Moncorgé, known as Jean Gabin (French: [ʒɑ̃ gabɛ̃]; 17 May 1904 – 15 November 1976), was a French actor and singer. Considered a key figure in French cinema, he starred in several classic films, including Pépé le Moko (1937), La grande illusion (1937), Le Quai des brumes (1938), La bête humaine (1938), Le jour se lève (1939), and Le plaisir (1952). During his career, he twice won the Silver Bear for Best Actor from the Berlin International Film Festival and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor from the Venice Film Festival, respectively. Gabin was made a member of the Légion d'honneur in recognition of the important role he played in French cinema.

10. Jean-Louis Trintignant (1930 - 2022)

With an HPI of 70.07, Jean-Louis Trintignant is the 10th most famous French Actor. His biography has been translated into 50 different languages.

Jean-Louis Xavier Trintignant (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ lwi tʁɛ̃tiɲɑ̃]; 11 December 1930 – 17 June 2022) was a French actor. He made his theatrical debut in 1951, and went on to be regarded as one of the best French dramatic actors of the post-war era. He starred in many classic films of European cinema, and worked with many prominent auteur directors, including Roger Vadim, Costa-Gavras, Claude Lelouch, Claude Chabrol, Bernardo Bertolucci, Éric Rohmer, François Truffaut, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Michael Haneke. He made a critical and commercial breakthrough in And God Created Woman (1956), followed by a starmaking romantic turn in A Man and a Woman (1966). He won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 1968 Berlin International Film Festival for his performance in The Man Who Lies and the Best Actor Award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival for Costa-Gavras's Z. Trintignant's other notable films include The Great Silence (1968), My Night at Maud's (1969), The Conformist (1970), Three Colours: Red (1994), and The City of Lost Children (1995). He won the 2013 César Award for Best Actor for his role in Michael Haneke's Amour.

People

Pantheon has 474 people classified as French actors born between 1615 and 1999. Of these 474, 276 (58.23%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living French actors include Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, and Gérard Depardieu. The most famous deceased French actors include Alain Delon, Sarah Bernhardt, and Louis de Funès. As of April 2024, 43 new French actors have been added to Pantheon including Christian Marquand, Claire Lacombe, and Vernon Dobtcheff.