---
name: "Géraldine Pailhas"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/geraldine-pailhas"
fi1m_id: "geraldine-pailhas"
imdb_id: "nm0656768"
tmdb_id: 19888
wikidata_id: "Q469967"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "8 January 1971"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-21T02:10:39.817139+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."
---

# Géraldine Pailhas

## Identity

Géraldine Pailhas

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/geraldine-pailhas
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** geraldine-pailhas
- **IMDb ID:** nm0656768
- **TMDB ID:** 19888
- **Wikidata ID:** Q469967
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9raldine_Pailhas, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q469967, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0656768/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/19888

Actor. Born 8 January 1971 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 8 January 1971, Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9raldine_Pailhas, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q469967, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0656768/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/19888

## Fi1m on Géraldine Pailhas

> Trained as a dancer and known in France for how she moves, Géraldine Pailhas has spent thirty-odd years in supporting parts for François Ozon and others. The one performance we have reviewed uses only her voice, and it got to us.

Augustine Pagnol is drawn thin and tired and always looking at her son. Géraldine Pailhas gives her a voice that is patient about everything except his safety, and in a stretch of *A Magnificent Life* (2025) where nothing happens except a family walking home through the hills in the heat, we found ourselves, without warning, close to tears. Sylvain Chomet's film is a run of fond anecdotes for most of its length and we had not expected to be got at by any of them. Those scenes are where it stops telling us Pagnol loved something and lets us see why, and a good part of that is her.

It is an odd place to meet her. Pailhas trained as a classical dancer and turned to acting after an injury, and the thing French critics keep noticing in her is the body and how she moves. Our one review of her is a performance in which the body is drawn by somebody else. That she still lands the scene says something about how much of the work was always in the voice.

The career began with small film parts from 1988 and a breakthrough as Christiane Mercier, a nurse in the wartime romance *La neige et le feu* (1991). *Don Juan DeMarco* (1994) put her opposite Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando, and *Le Garçu* (1995) opposite Gérard Depardieu under Maurice Pialat, as Sophie. From 2004 she became one of François Ozon's regulars: Valérie in *5×2* (2004), a marriage told backwards; Sylvie in *Young & Beautiful* (2013), about a girl with a double life; Pascale Bernheim in *Everything Went Fine* (2021), a family drama about assisted dying. Between the auteurs came comedies, popular films and television, including *Marseille* (2016–2018) and *OVNI(s)* (2021–2022).

What holds it together is a temperament. She has said she likes to be "à la disposition des cinéastes", at the film-maker's disposal, and the filmography bears it out: three films each with Ozon, Thierry Klifa and Christopher Thompson, and a run of supporting parts rather than the poster. The one reservation anyone raises is that the career mixes the high-profile with the modest and has never settled into leading roles. We suspect that is the point, and that she would put it the same way.

We cannot tell you at length how good she is in the Ozon films, because we have not reviewed them yet. We can tell you that a woman with a reputation built on movement made us cry as a line drawing, which is not nothing. When we get to the live-action work, we will be watching how she stands.

## Biography

Géraldine Pailhas is a French actress. She was born on 8 January 1971 in Marseille.

Pailhas won the César Award for Most Promising Actress in 1992 for her role in *La neige et le feu*. Her early international credit came in *Don Juan DeMarco* (1994). She has appeared in films including *The Adversary* (2002), *Five Times Two* (2004), *Young & Beautiful* (2013) and *Everything Went Fine* (2021). She received César nominations for Best Supporting Actress for *The Cost of Living* (2004) and *Young & Beautiful* (2014).

She provided the voice of Augustine Pagnol in the animated film *A Magnificent Life* (2025). Pailhas is married to actor Christopher Thompson.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *A Magnificent Life* (2025), Fi1m 61, as Augustine Pagnol (voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/a-magnificent-life.md)

## Complete filmography (64)

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

- *Elite Force* (2026), series, as Mélanie
- *Baise-en-ville* (2026), as Sprite's mother
- *Les saisons* (2025), series, as Suzanne
- *A Magnificent Life* (2025), as Augustine Pagnol (voice) — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/a-magnificent-life.md)
- *Les Malvenus* (2024), as Carole
- *Bardot* (2023), series, as Anne-Marie Bardot
- *The Butcher's Daughter* (2022), as Charly Fleury
- *Everything Went Fine* (2021), as Pascale Bernheim
- *UFOs* (2021), series, as Élise
- *Inside Suspicion* (2019), series, as Sophie Lancelle
- *The Sower* (2017), as Marianne
- *The New Life of Paul Sneijder* (2016), as Anna Sneijder
- *Marseille* (2016), series, as Rachel Taro
- *Mobile Étoile* (2016), as Hannah Hermann
- *Louis-Ferdinand Céline* (2016), as Lucette Destouches
- *Capitaine Marleau* (2015), series, as Clémence Dos Santos / Clara de Combelle
- *Rouge* (2015), as Célia Bhy
- *Portrait of the Artist* (2015), as L'autre Célia Bhy
- *Disappeared in Winter* (2015), as Christine
- *SMS* (2014), as Stéphane
- *Divin enfant* (2014), as Pauline
- *La rupture* (2013), as Marie-France Garaud
- *Young & Beautiful* (2013), as Sylvie
- *The Fall of the Male Empire* (2013), as Camille
- *It Happened in Saint-Tropez* (2013), as Une people à Cannes soirée Melko
- *Vanished* (2012), as Betty Gaillon
- *Le Paradis des bêtes* (2012), as Cathy Lenikart
- *Une nouvelle vie* (2011), as Nathalie Vaillant
- *His Mother's Eyes* (2011), as Maria Canalès
- *L'Amour, la Mort, les Fringues* (2011), Actor
- *Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs)* (2010), as Rebecca Herry / Géraldine Pailhas
- *Bus Palladium* (2010), as Prune Angelli
- *Spy(ies)* (2009), as Claire
- *Château en Suède* (2008), as Éléonore
- *Hikers in Saint-Tropez* (2008), as Nadine
- *Didine* (2008), as Alexandrine Langlois, dite Didine
- *The Price to Pay* (2007), as Caroline
- *Family Hero* (2006), as Marianne Bensalem
- *Made in Paris* (2006), as Diane
- *Sky Fighters* (2005), as Maelle Coste
- *The Returned* (2004), as Rachel
- *Five Times Two* (2004), as Valérie
- *Les parallèles* (2004), as Louise
- *I've Been Waiting So Long* (2004), as Claire
- *The Cost of Living* (2003), as Helena
- *The Adversary* (2002), as Christine Faure
- *L'Héritière* (2002), as Juliette Destrac
- *The Officers' Ward* (2001), as Clémence
- *Enchanted Interlude* (2000), as Marie
- *Peut-être* (1999), as Lucie
- *Hikers* (1997), as Nadine
- *Le Garçu* (1995), as Sophie
- *Tom est tout seul* (1995), as Hélène
- *Suite 16* (1994), as Helen
- *Don Juan DeMarco* (1994), as Dona Ana
- *La folie douce* (1994), as Louise
- *Un homme à la mer* (1993), as Lena
- *Comment font les gens* (1993), as Léa
- *IP5: The Island of Pachyderms* (1992), as Gloria
- *Snow and Fire* (1991), as Christiane Mercier
- *Les arcandiers* (1991), as Véronique / Bernadette Soubirous
- *David Lansky* (1989), series, as Souad
- *Big Man* (1988), series, as Blanche
- *Three Seats for the 26th* (1988), as Dancer

## Gallery

- ![Géraldine Pailhas](https://film.one/media/person/94785/gallery-c24869212965.jpg) Géraldine Pailhas — Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/G%C3%A9raldine_Pailhas_2017.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![La Disparition (2011)](https://film.one/media/person/94785/gallery-a4daa012eb77.jpg) La Disparition (2011) — Jxdelestrade, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/G%C3%A9raldine_Pailhas.jpg/1280px-G%C3%A9raldine_Pailhas.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Géraldine Pailhas à l'avant-première de Didine diffusée à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, à Paris. (2008)](https://film.one/media/person/94785/gallery-90b0ef7e354e.jpg) Géraldine Pailhas à l'avant-première de Didine diffusée à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, à Paris. (2008) — Thierry Caro, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/G%C3%A9raldine-Pailhas-Didine.JPG/1280px-G%C3%A9raldine-Pailhas-Didine.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Other awards — 2 won

- Officer of Arts and Letters 2010: Officer of Arts and Letters (won)
- César Award for Best Female Revelation 1992: César Award for Best Female Revelation (won), for *La Neige et le Feu*

*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/geraldine-pailhas