--- name: "Olivier Assayas" canonical: "https://film.one/person/olivier-assayas" roles: ["Director","Writer"] born: "25 January 1955" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 75 average_as: "director" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-17T13:19:30.203671+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." --- # Olivier Assayas Director and writer. Born 25 January 1955 in Paris, France. ## Details - **Work:** Director, Writer - **Born:** 25 January 1955, Paris, France - **Active:** 2016–present - **Also known as:** 올리비에 아사야스 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 3: 2 directing, 1 other - **Frequently works with:** [Lars Eidinger](https://film.one/person/lars-eidinger.md) - **Cannes Film Festival:** 1 Cannes prize (1 won) - **Average Fi1m score:** 75, as director, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 76 (1), 2020s 76 (2) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Assayas, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q550717, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000801/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/21678 ## Streaming the US now - **AMC+:** [*Personal Shopper*](https://film.one/film/personal-shopper.md) (76) - **HBO Max:** [*Irma Vep*](https://film.one/tv/irma-vep-2022.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Olivier Assayas > Olivier Assayas makes films about how people live now, on phones and trains and in other people's houses, and he is at his best when he lets an ordinary object carry the fear. We rate him, with the caveat that his films do not always hold to the end. Three dots on a phone screen. A woman on a train to London, a stranger typing, and Assayas holds on it while Marion Monnier cuts between the phone and Kristen Stewart's face and almost nothing else. Nothing that a horror film would recognise as frightening is happening, and we wanted to lean across the aisle and take the phone away. That scene in *Personal Shopper* (2016) is Assayas in one piece: he notices how we actually spend our days, on scooters and couriers' runs and in other people's empty houses, and he finds the strangeness already sitting there. He began as a critic at Cahiers du Cinéma in the early 1980s, made his first feature, *Disorder*, in 1986, and broke through with *Cold Water* (1994). *Irma Vep* (1996), a satire about remakes and Hong Kong cinema with Maggie Cheung, brought him attention outside France, and he went back to it as a television series in 2022. Between those two visits the work went international: *Summer Hours* (2008), the miniseries *Carlos* (2010) with Édgar Ramírez, *Clouds of Sils Maria* (2014), *Personal Shopper*, *Non-Fiction* (2018) and *Wasp Network* (2020). He has made thrillers, period pieces and comedies. What stays the same is the subject: people whose work and private lives have become the same thing, and who are not sure they mind. He is good with actresses, and better with the same ones twice. Juliette Binoche has made three films with him, Stewart two, and both *Clouds of Sils Maria* and *Personal Shopper* are about women performing a self and watching themselves do it. Yorick Le Saux, his cinematographer on three films, lights the night scenes of *Personal Shopper* with what appears to be the glow from the street and nothing else, and François-Renaud Labarthe gives the haunted house bare walls, a staircase and too many doors. Assayas is not coy. When he decides to show a ghost he shows an old-fashioned one and has it gone before we can object, and it frightened us more than most horror films manage. The trouble comes later, and it is a habit. Around the hour mark *Personal Shopper* turns towards a crime story, and Assayas handles it with markedly less confidence than the haunting: a police interview played flat when it needs pressure, a hotel corridor waiting for a payoff only he can see, a television programme about Victor Hugo's séances that plays like the film handing over its reading list. The charge against his later work is that it talks too much and softens its politics into nostalgia, and *Non-Fiction* and *Something in the Air* (2012) have both drawn it. We have not reviewed those, but we recognise the shape. He has said that making films is about listening to your guts. His guts are good for an hour. See the first hour of *Personal Shopper*, and stay for the rest knowing that the man who made the train scene will shortly want to explain it. ## Biography Olivier Assayas is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. Born on 25 January 1955 in Paris, he began his career as a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma before making short films and his feature debut with Désordre in 1986. He is known for films including Irma Vep (1996), Summer Hours (2008), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), Personal Shopper (2016), for which he shared the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director, and Non-Fiction (2018). Assayas created, directed and wrote the 2022 television series Irma Vep, a remake of his earlier film. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (3) ### Directed (2) — the average rests on these - *Irma Vep* (2022), Fi1m 74, Director, Creator, Writer, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/irma-vep-2022.md) - *Personal Shopper* (2016), Fi1m 76, Dialogue, Director, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/personal-shopper.md) ### Also credited (1) — thanks, archive footage, uncredited - *Passages* (2023), Fi1m 77, Thanks — [page](https://film.one/film/passages.md) ## Complete filmography (49) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Wizard of the Kremlin* (2026), Director, Writer - *Jean-Pierre Léaud: The Child of Cinema* (2024), Thanks - *Suspended Time* (2024), Narrator (voice) (uncredited), Producer, Screenplay, Director - *Passages* (2023), Thanks — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/passages.md) - *Irma Vep* (2022), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Director, Creator — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/tv/irma-vep-2022.md) - *The Emma Bovary Trial* (2021), Thanks - *Bergman Island* (2021), Thanks - *Wasp Network* (2020), Director, Screenplay - *Non-Fiction* (2018), Director, Writer - *Based on a True Story* (2017), Screenplay - *Personal Shopper* (2016), Screenplay, Director, Dialogue — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/personal-shopper.md) - *Clouds of Sils Maria* (2014), Director, Writer - *Something in the Air* (2012), Director, Writer - *Carlos* (2010), Director, Screenplay - *Carlos* (2010), series, Director, Script Editor, Creator - *Summer Hours* (2008), Director, Writer - *Eldorado* (2008), Director - *Inventory* (2008), as Interviewee - *Eldorado/Sonntags Abschied: Live Performance* (2008), Director, Writer - *To Each His Own Cinema* (2007), Director, Writer - *Boarding Gate* (2007), Director, Writer - *Paris Je T'aime* (2006), Director, Writer - *Quartier des Enfants-Rouges* (2006), Director, Writer - *Noise* (2006), Director of Photography, Director - *Clean* (2004), Director, Writer - *Demonlover* (2002), Writer, Director - *Sentimental Destinies* (2000), Director, Screenplay - *HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien* (1999), Director, Screenplay - *Late August, Early September* (1999), Director, Writer - *Alice and Martin* (1998), Writer - *Man Yuk: A Portrait of Maggie Cheung* (1997), Director - *Irma Vep* (1996), Director, Writer - *All the Boys and Girls of Their Time* (1994), series, Director - *Cold Water* (1994), Director, Writer - *A New Life* (1993), Director, Screenplay - *Paris Awakens* (1991), Director, Writer - *Lovely Child* (1990), Writer - *Winter's Child* (1989), Director, Writer - *Broken April* (1987), Writer - *Disorder* (1986), Director, Writer - *Scene of the Crime* (1986), Screenplay - *L'unique* (1986), Writer - *Secret Passage* (1985), Writer - *Rendez-vous* (1985), Screenplay, Dialogue - *Winston Tong In Studio* (1984), Director - *Laissé inachevé à Tokyo* (1982), Director, Screenplay - *Scopitone* (1980), Writer - *Nuit féline* (1978), Writer - *The Prince and the Pauper* (1977), Third Assistant Director ## Gallery - ![Olivier Assayas](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-e777625176a8.jpg) Olivier Assayas — Manfred Werner - Tsui, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Viennale_2010.10.30_Olivier_Assayas.jpg/1280px-Viennale_2010.10.30_Olivier_Assayas.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Olivier Assayas, le producteur Charles Gilibert, Édith Scob et Alice de Lencquesaing à l'avant-première de L'Heure d'été diffusée à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, (2008)](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-706a24d138f8.jpg) Olivier Assayas, le producteur Charles Gilibert, Édith Scob et Alice de Lencquesaing à l'avant-première de L'Heure d'été diffusée à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, (2008) — Thierry Caro, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Assayas-Scob-Lencquesaing-L%27Heure.JPG/1280px-Assayas-Scob-Lencquesaing-L%27Heure.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Photo of the interior of Deichman Bjørvika, the main library of Oslo Public Library (Deichman) located between the Central Station and the Oslo Opera House in O (2023)](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-84479f3d09e1.jpg) Photo of the interior of Deichman Bjørvika, the main library of Oslo Public Library (Deichman) located between the Central Station and the Oslo Opera House in O (2023) — charlotte henard, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Deichman_Bj%C3%B8rvika%2C_Oslo_-_53131654961.jpg/1280px-Deichman_Bj%C3%B8rvika%2C_Oslo_-_53131654961.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Frédéric Taddeï, Delphine de Vigan, Roman Polanski et Olivier Assayas - Livre Paris 2017](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-cba3ff8f44e7.jpg) Frédéric Taddeï, Delphine de Vigan, Roman Polanski et Olivier Assayas - Livre Paris 2017 — ActuaLitté, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Tadde%C3%AF%2C_Delphine_de_Vigan%2C_Roman_Polanski_et_Olivier_Assayas_-_Livre_Paris_2017_%2833659343375%29.jpg/1280px-Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Tadde%C3%AF%2C_Delphine_de_Vigan%2C_Roman_Polanski_et_Olivier_Assayas_-_Livre_Paris_2017_%2833659343375%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Olivier Assayas](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-34624d88983d.jpg) Olivier Assayas — Image via TMDB - ![Olivier Assayas](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-b76e82c2d86a.jpg) Olivier Assayas — Image via TMDB - ![Olivier Assayas lors d'une séance de dédicace à la librairie de la Cinémathèque française. (2023)](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-59933a9b9757.jpg) Olivier Assayas lors d'une séance de dédicace à la librairie de la Cinémathèque française. (2023) — ManoSolo13241324, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Moi_et_Olivier_Assayas.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Olivier Assayas à l'avant-première de L'Heure d'été diffusée à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, à Paris. (2008)](https://film.one/media/person/357705/gallery-25d56556f4ae.jpg) Olivier Assayas à l'avant-première de L'Heure d'été 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/1/13/Olivier-Assayas-L%27Heure.JPG/1280px-Olivier-Assayas-L%27Heure.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) ## Awards ### Primetime Emmy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 2011: Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special (nominated), for *Carlos* ### Cannes Film Festival — 1 won - 2016: Cannes Best Director Award (won), for *Personal Shopper* ### Other awards — 4 won, 6 nominated - Louis Delluc Prize 2014: Louis Delluc Prize (won), for *Clouds of Sils Maria* - César Award for Best Director 2011: César Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Carlos* - European Film Award for Best Director 2010: European Film Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Carlos* - National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director 2010: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Carlos* - National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2010: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film (won), for *Carlos* - New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2010: New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film (won), for *Carlos* - Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2009: Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film (won), for *Summer Hours* - National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director 2009: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Summer Hours* - National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay 2009: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay (nominated), for *Summer Hours* - César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation 1986: César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation (nominated), for *Rendez-vous* *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/olivier-assayas