--- name: "Xavier Beauvois" canonical: "https://film.one/person/xavier-beauvois" roles: ["Director"] born: "20 March 1967" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-17T12:13:30.060579+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." --- # Xavier Beauvois Director. Born 20 March 1967 in Auchel, Pas-de-Calais, France. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 20 March 1967, Auchel, Pas-de-Calais, France - **Also known as:** 자비에 보브와, 泽维尔·布瓦 - **Cannes Film Festival:** 1 Cannes prize (1 won) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Beauvois, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1323312, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0064741/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/72320 ## Coming up - *Badinter* (2027-03-03), as General Attorney ## Fi1m on Xavier Beauvois > Xavier Beauvois puts a small group of people under pressure and watches them decide, at their pace rather than ours. The method is austere and occasionally in love with its own stillness, and in *Of Gods and Men* it earns nearly every quiet minute. Brother Luc hands out tablets and second-hand shoes to a queue of villagers, and Xavier Beauvois lets us watch the queue. Nothing in the first half hour of *Of Gods and Men* (2010) hurries. The monks keep bees, sell honey at the market and go to chapel a great deal, and by the time the army arrives at the gate offering soldiers we know exactly what the prior is refusing on everyone's behalf. That is the Beauvois method in one film: show the routine, put the routine at risk, then watch the people inside it work out what to do. He came up the slow way, on short films and assistant jobs in the mid-1980s after failing the entrance exam for the national film school, and his debut *Nord* (1991) was an autobiographical picture of a fractured family in the Pas-de-Calais where he was born. *Don't Forget You're Going to Die* (1995), a disenchanted portrait of a student facing his own death, got him noticed. *The Young Lieutenant* (2005) took the same patience into a police station and built a procedural out of routine, prepared like a documentary. Then came the monastery, and after it *The Price of Fame* (2014), *The Guardians* (2017), about women keeping rural life going through the First World War, and *Drift Away* (2021), a gendarme in the countryside living with an accidental killing. The subjects change; the shape hardly does. A group, a place, a pressure from outside, and a great deal of looking. The looking is done mostly with Caroline Champetier, who has shot six of his films and frames people head-on and without decoration, so that we are standing among them rather than admiring the picture. Marie-Julie Maille has edited five of them. In *Of Gods and Men* the monastery designed by Michel Barthélémy is whitewash, worn wood and one bare bulb to a room, and the plainchant runs its full length every time. We sat through the first two hymns close to tears at how plain the men's voices were, and through the fourth wondering how much of the office was left. That is the risk he runs. Austerity is a choice and he makes it every time, and a viewer who wants the drama brought to the sofa will find him distant. What he does better than most is a group under threat trying to agree, with the camera declining to take sides. He co-wrote *Of Gods and Men* with Étienne Comar, and he has said that the film is about men more than gods, which is the right way in to all of his work. Michael Lonsdale's Luc, dispensing tablets and shoes to whoever turns up, is the performance to start with. Start there, on an evening with nothing planned after it. ## Biography Xavier Beauvois is a French actor, film director and screenwriter. Born on 20 March 1967 in Auchel, Pas-de-Calais, he began directing with the short film *Le Matou* (1986) and his first feature *North* (1991). His film *Don't Forget You're Going to Die* (1995) won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. *Of Gods and Men* (2010), which he directed and co-wrote, received the Grand Prix and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes and was selected as France's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Beauvois has also acted in films including *House of Pleasures* (2011), *Farewell, My Queen* (2012) and *Let the Sunshine In* (2017), and appeared as himself in the series *Call My Agent!* (2015). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Of Gods and Men* (2010), Fi1m 84, Director, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/of-gods-and-men.md) ## Complete filmography (48) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Badinter* (2027), as General Attorney - *Sailing Home* (2024), Le nouveau chef, Director, Writer - *Haven of Grace* (2024), series, as Sébastien Prevost - *Making Of* (2024), as Marquez - *Belmondo: The Incorrigible* (2022), Acting - *Drift Away* (2021), Jacques, Director, Writer - *Paris Pigalle* (2018), as Henri Pachard - *The Summer House* (2018), as Producer - *The Guardians* (2017), Director, Screenplay - *Maryline* (2017), as Michel Roche - *Go, Toto!* (2017), as Deputy Mayor #1 - *Let the Sunshine In* (2017), as Vincent - *Django* (2017), as STO doctor - *Chocolat* (2016), as Jacques Potin - *The Price of Fame* (2015), Monsieur Loyal, Director, Screenplay - *Bodybuilder* (2014), as Le comptable - *A Castle in Italy* (2013), as Serge - *Turf* (2013), as Commissaire Dubiton - *Twice Upon a Time* (2012), as Stéphane - *In a Rush* (2012), as François - *Farewell, My Queen* (2012), as Le roi Louis XVI - *Early One Morning* (2011), as Alain Fisher - *House of Pleasures* (2011), as Jacques - *Meeting with an Angel* (2011), as l'homme au bar chic - *Of Gods and Men* (2010), Director, Writer — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/of-gods-and-men.md) - *The Chameleon* (2010), as Gendarme - *Villa Amalia* (2009), as Thomas - *Duel* (2009), series, as Alexandre Konygnski - *À bicyclette* (2009), Acting - *Marie-Octobre* (2008), as Marc Donizzi - *Disco* (2008), as Le chef Buffalo Grill, Docker 1 - *Female Agents* (2008), as Claude Granville - *The Killer* (2008), as Franzen - *24 Bars* (2007), as Patron Peep-Show - *The Witnesses* (2007), as Publisher - *The Young Lieutenant* (2005), Nicolas Morbé, Director, Screenplay - *To Mathieu* (2001), Director, Writer - *The Wind of the Night* (1999), Paul, Dialogue - *Disparus* (1998), as Félix - *Day and Night* (1997), as Carlo - *Ponette* (1996), as Le Père - *Don't Forget You're Going to Die* (1996), Benoit, Director, Writer - *Lovers* (1994), as Marc's lover - *Life's Little Treasures* (1994), as Marc - *North* (1992), Bertrand, the son, Director, Writer - *The Sky Above Paris* (1992), as The Sigher - *Daniel Asleep* (1988), as Le jeune dragueur - *La Fête sauvage*, Acting ## Gallery - ![Xavier Beauvois réalisateur scénariste acteur français (2022)](https://film.one/media/person/693323/gallery-28559cee9758.jpg) Xavier Beauvois réalisateur scénariste acteur français (2022) — Luckyvac, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Xavier_Beauvois.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Xavier Beauvois](https://film.one/media/person/693323/gallery-86b49a3d7095.jpg) Xavier Beauvois — Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Xavier_Beauvois_2011.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) ## Awards ### Cannes Film Festival — 1 won - 2010: Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix (won), for *Of Gods and Men* ### Other awards — 2 won, 2 nominated - European Film Award for Best Film 2010: European Film Award for Best Film (nominated), for *Of Gods and Men* - Knight of the National Order of Merit 2010: Knight of the National Order of Merit (won) - Prix Jean Vigo 1995: Prix Jean Vigo (won), for *Don't Forget You're Going to Die* - Young European Film of the Year 1992: Young European Film of the Year (nominated), for *North* *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/xavier-beauvois