---
name: "Cédric Klapisch"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/cedric-klapisch"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "4 September 1961"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "director"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-17T14:15:55.837063+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Cédric Klapisch

Director. Born 4 September 1961 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 4 September 1961, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9dric_Klapisch, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q513632, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0458251/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/17520

## Streaming the US now

- **Netflix:** [*Call My Agent!*](https://film.one/tv/call-my-agent.md) (82)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Cédric Klapisch

> Klapisch puts a group of people in a room, a flat or an office and watches how they get on, and his best work is warm, quick and generous with its cast. The charge against him is lightness, and it is not always unfair.

A Klapisch scene has more people in it than the frame can comfortably hold. Someone is talking, someone else is not listening, a third is on the phone, and the point is not what any one of them says but how the group rearranges itself while they say it. He has been making that scene for thirty years, and he has said of his films that "they all deal with the relationship between the individual and the collective." Directors are not usually the best judges of their own habits. He is.

He began with short films in the 1980s, after studying in Paris and then at NYU, and made his first feature, *Riens du tout*, in 1992. The breakthrough came in 1996 with two films at once: *When the Cat's Away*, a Paris neighbourhood story that mixed non-professional actors with professionals, and *Family Resemblances*, a play brought to the screen without losing the people in it. Then the long project: *L'Auberge espagnole* (2002), *Russian Dolls* (2005) and *Chinese Puzzle* (2013), one set of characters followed across eleven years, from student travel to family and identity, and by the end to New York. Around the trilogy he kept working in the same vein, *Paris* (2008), *My Piece of the Pie* (2011), *Back to Burgundy* (2017), *Someone, Somewhere* (2019), *Rise* (2022) and *Colours of Time* (2025), and he kept his actors. Romain Duris and Zinedine Soualem have each made five films with him, in different parts each time, and a dream or fantasy sequence tends to turn up somewhere.

The work of his we have reviewed is *Call My Agent* (2015), where he is one of six directors, and the first thing to say is that you cannot tell where he begins and ends. It looks like one show. Denis Rouden, Yves Cape, Antoine Monod and Antoine Roch film the agency as a working office, glass and corridors and two phones per person, and Guillaume Lauras, Sophie Brunet and Catherine Schwartz cut at the speed of a call. We laughed a good deal, mostly at Camille Cottin, and we noticed afterwards that we had never once been left in a shot long enough to feel sorry for anybody, which we found a relief and also a little suspicious.

That suspicion is the case against Klapisch. He likes his people, all of them, and a director who likes everyone this much rarely does anyone lasting harm. *Call My Agent* is fond of the business it mocks, and the fondness keeps it warm and stops it drawing blood; the same word, light, follows his features around. It is a fair criticism and a small one. Plenty of directors can be cruel to a crowd. Very few can keep eight people alive in one room and make you want to stay for the argument.

Start with *Call My Agent*, which is the easiest way in and has Cottin. Then take the trilogy in order and over a few weeks, because it is built for that. He is now in his sixties and still making the same scene, and we see no reason he should stop.

## Biography

Cédric Klapisch is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He was born on 4 September 1961 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. He studied cinema at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle and the University of Paris VIII before attending New York University’s film school from 1983 to 1985.

Klapisch began his career with short films in the 1980s. His feature debut was *Riens du tout* (1991). He is known for films including *Family Resemblances* (1996), *The Spanish Apartment* (2002), *Russian Dolls* (2005), *Chinese Puzzle* (2013), *Back to Burgundy* (2017) and *Rise* (2022). He has frequently collaborated with actor Romain Duris.

In 2015 he directed two episodes of the series *Call My Agent!*. His later work includes *Someone, Somewhere* (2019) and *Colours of Time* (2025).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, cedric-klapisch.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Call My Agent!* (2015), Fi1m 82, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/call-my-agent.md)

## Complete filmography (36)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Les vrais chercheurs ne savent pas ce qu’ils cherchent* (2025), Director
- *Colours of Time* (2025), Passager omnibus, Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *La flûte enchantée au Théâtre des Champs Elysées* (2024), Director
- *Dans le Rétro* (2024), series, Acting
- *Greek Salad* (2023), series, Screenplay, Director, Creator
- *Babyphone* (2023), as Le psychiatre
- *Rise* (2022), Writer, Director, Producer
- *Someone, Somewhere* (2019), Producer, Director, Writer
- *To the Ends of the World* (2018), Co-Producer
- *La Fête du Cinéma* (2018), Director
- *Back to Burgundy* (2017), Un vendangeur (uncredited), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Renaud Lavillenie, all the way to the top* (2016), Cédric Klapisch, Writer, Director
- *Call My Agent!* (2015), series, Director — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/tv/call-my-agent.md)
- *Opéra national de Paris: L'histoire de Manon* (2015), Director
- *Chinese Puzzle* (2013), le photographe (caméo), Writer, Director, Producer
- *My Piece of the Pie* (2011), Director, Writer
- *Aurélie Dupont, Instants of Grace* (2010), Director
- *Paris* (2008), Screenplay, Director, Associate Producer
- *Russian Dolls* (2005), L'homme qui veut aller aux toilettes dans le train (uncredited), Screenplay, Director
- *Not For, or Against (Quite the Contrary)* (2003), Director, Screenplay
- *The Spanish Apartment* (2002), Un professeur à la recherche de ses élèves, Screenplay, Director
- *Princesses* (2000), Producer
- *Peut-être* (1999), L'épicier, Director, Screenplay
- *Sodomites* (1998), Thanks
- *The Lilac Sweep* (1998), Le chauffeur, Director, Writer
- *Family Resemblances* (1996), Le père en 1967, Director, Writer
- *When the Cat's Away* (1996), Director, Screenplay
- *Lumière & Company* (1995), Director
- *Good Old Daze* (1995), Obstetricien, Scenario Writer, Director
- *The Goldfish* (1994), Director
- *La Chambre* (1994), Director, Screenplay
- *Little Nothings* (1992), Director, Writer
- *Ce qui me meut* (1989), Director, Writer
- *The Californian* (1986), Sound Recordist
- *In Transit* (1986), Musician, Director, Writer
- *Babysitter* (1984), Cinematography

## Gallery

- ![Cédric Klapisch](https://film.one/media/person/898082/gallery-f82eebc1bcc1.jpg) Cédric Klapisch — Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/C%C3%A9dric_Klapisch-9062.jpg/1280px-C%C3%A9dric_Klapisch-9062.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Cédric Klapisch présentant "Les Nuits de Cabiria" de Federico Fellini au Grand Action, en novembre 2022.](https://film.one/media/person/898082/gallery-d91d74807271.jpg) Cédric Klapisch présentant "Les Nuits de Cabiria" de Federico Fellini au Grand Action, en novembre 2022. — ManoSolo13241324, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/C%C3%A9dric_Klapisch_2022.jpg/1280px-C%C3%A9dric_Klapisch_2022.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Cédric Klapisch Cinemania 2011](https://film.one/media/person/898082/gallery-df9fddcc5655.jpg) Cédric Klapisch Cinemania 2011 — Cinemania film festival, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/C%C3%A9dric_Klapisch_Cinemania_2011.jpg/1280px-C%C3%A9dric_Klapisch_Cinemania_2011.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Other awards — 2 won, 3 nominated

- César Award for Best Director 2023: César Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Rise*
- César Award for Best Original Screenplay 2023: César Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominated), for *Rise*
- René Clair Award 2023: René Clair Award (won)
- European Film Award - People's Choice Award for Best Director 2002: European Film Award - People's Choice Award for Best Director (nominated), for *L'Auberge espagnole*
- César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation 1997: César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation (won), for *Family Resemblances*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/cedric-klapisch