With this death on Sunday at age 88, Alain Delon left behind a robust cinematic legacy. First appearing on the silver screen in the mid-1950s, the French actor collaborated with some of the most important filmmakers of the late 20tb century, from Luchino Visconti to Jean-Pierre Melville and René Clément, his magnetism inspiring generations of cinephiles.
Here, in his honor, a closer look at some of Alain Delon’s most memorable—and brilliant—performances.
Plein Soleil (1960)
1960 marked the start of Alain Delon’s legendary film career. He began by working with two directors who were to play a major role in his life going forward: Luchino Visconti, for Rocco and His Brothers, and René Clément, who offered him the lead role in Purple Noon. Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s classic novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, the film sees the then 25-year-old actor metamorphose into a high-flying and seductive swindler with impeccable style and an impenetrable mien. It was the kind of role that Delon would return to time and time again.
Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
A timeless masterpiece of Italian cinema, Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers is a further demonstration of Delon’s cinematic range. The actor plays Rocco Parondi, one of four brothers in a family that has decided to flee poverty and misery for the promise of Milan—only to confront new tensions and terrifying violence. Epic and unmissable.
The Leopard (1963)
In this historical drama, also helmed by Luchino Visconti, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963, Delon plays Tancredi Falconeri, a disenchanted young prince who rejoices in the decline of the nobility in Sicily in the early 1860s. A sumptuous costume drama that left its mark on its time and on many subsequent filmmakers, The Leopard remains highly topical and exceptionally modern in its direction.
Le Samouraï (1967)
In Jean-Pierre Melville’s iconic Le Samouraï, Delon plays Jef Costello, a professional hitman trying to find out who hired him and then tried to have him killed. Stylish and thrilling—notably favoring silence and discretion over incessant gunfire—the film left an indelible mark on pop culture: Nicolas Winding Refn cited it as a major inspiration for Drive, as did Jim Jarmusch for Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai; and Madonna paid tribute to Delon’s character with a song called “Beautiful Killer†in 2012. Another masterpiece.
La Piscine (1969)
Is La Piscine the most sensual film in the history of cinema? Very possibly, featuring a parade of sublime faces (Delon, Romy Schneider, Jane Birkin, and Maurice Ronet) in a psychological thriller as elegant as it is intense.
Borsalino (1970)
In the early 1970s, Jacques Deray reunited the two most popular French actors of the period, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo, in Borsalino. The film follows François Capella and Roch Siffredi, two mobsters hoping to become big shots in the Marseilles mafia in the 1930s.
Borsalino was a project close to Delon’s heart, since it was he himself who suggested that Deray adapt journalist Eugène Saccomano’s collection of short stories. Such was Borsalino’s popularity that it was nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign film in 1971.
The Red Circle (1970)
With Jean-Pierre Melville, Delon shot some of the darkest thrillers in French cinema. Le Cercle Rouge is one of them: In it, Delon again plays a crook, Corey, just out of prison and already prepared to embark on a heist at a jewelry store on the Place Vendôme. The operation must be meticulously planned to avoid arousing the suspicions of the police—but Commissaire Mattei (played by Bourvil) is already on the trail of one of Corey’s fellow robbers, Vogel, who escaped during a convoy from Marseille to Paris. A breathtaking classic.
Un Flic (1972)
Jean-Pierre Melville’s final film before his death in 1973, Un flic was considered a flop at the time of its theatrical release, but remains undoubtedly one of the director’s finest films, and the acme of his collaboration with Delon. Playing the role of a police chief, the actor tracks down a drug dealer who is also the boyfriend of the woman with whom he is having an affair. Once again, Melville plays with the codes and expectations of the crime thriller to produce a film that bewildered audiences 50 years ago—and continues to do so now.
Indian Summer (1972)
The same year as Un Flic, Alain Delon starred in Valerio Zurlini’s beautiful (and often underrated) Italian drama Indian Summer, also known as The Professor. A theatrical re-release in 2019 has shed new light on this sad, delicate film, in which the actor plays a substitute literature teacher who becomes fascinated by one of his pupils, Vanina (Sonia Petrovna). Shedding the glamorous image that had long been his calling card, Delon revealed a deeper and more melancholy side to his actory palette.
Mr. Klein (1976)
It wasn’t until Mr. Klein in 1976 that Delon earned his first César nomination for best actor. In Joseph Losey’s magnificent drama, Delon plays an art dealer in occupied France who one day discovers that a Jewish man is using his name. The winner of three Césars, including best film, Mr. Klein sees Delon play an almost indifferent spectator to the horrors of the world he’s living through, the cracks in his façade nearly impossible to identify.
This story originally appeared on gqmagazine.fr.