Agnès Varda

Filmmakers

Agnès Varda (May 30, 1929 – March 29, 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her work was pioneering for, and central to, the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s (which also included Claude Chabrol, her husband Jacques Demy, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, Chris Marker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette, Éric Rhomer, François Truffaut). Her films focused on achieving documentary realism, addressing feminist issues, and producing other social commentary, with a distinctive experimental style.

Varda’s work employed location shooting in an era when the limitations of sound technology made it easier and more common to film indoors, with constructed sets and painted backdrops of landscapes, rather than outdoors, on location. Her use of non-professional actors was also unconventional for 1950s French cinema.

Among several other awards and nominations, Varda received an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, an Academy Honorary Award, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. She was married to fellow director Jacques Demy from 1962 until his death in 1990. She had a daughter, Rosalie Varda (born 1958), from from a previous union with actor Antoine Bourseiller (who starred in her early film Cléo from 5 to 7), and a son, Mathieu Demy (born 1972), with Demy.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

  • La Pointe Courte (1955)
  • Diary of a Pregnant Woman (1958) – aka L’opéra-mouffe – short
  • La cocotte d’azur (1958) – short
  • Along the Coast (1958) – aka Du côté de la côte – short
  • Ô saisons, ô châteaux (1958) – short
  • Les fiancés du pont MacDonald
  • (Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires) (1961) – short
  • Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) – aka Cléo de 5 à 7
  • Salut les cubains (1964) – documentary short
  • Happiness (1965) – aka La Bonheur
  • The Creatures (1966) – aka Les Créatures
  • Elsa la rose (1966) – documentary short
  • Far from Vietnam (1967) – directed with Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker & Alain Resnais – aka Lion du Vietnam – documentary
  • Uncle Yanco (1967) – aka Oncle Yanco – documentary short
  • Black Panthers (1968) – documentary short
  • Lions Love (… and Liea) (1969) – aka Lions Love
  • Nausicaa (1971) – TV movie – never properly aired
  • Daguerréotypes (1975) – documentary
  • Women Reply (1975) – aka Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe – documentary short
  • The Pleasure of Love in Iran (1976) – aka Plaisir d’amour en Iran – documentary short
  • One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977) – aka L’Une chante, l’autre pas
  • Mural Murals (1981) – aka Mur Murs – documentary
  • Documenteur (1981)
  • Une minute pour une image (1983) – TV documentary
  • Ulysse (1983) – documentary short
  • 7rm., kitch., bath., … for sale (1984) – aka 7p. cuis., s. de b., … à saisir – short
  • The So-Called Caryatids (1984) – aka Les dites cariatides – documentary short
  • Vagabond (1985) – aka Sans toit ni loi
  • The Story of an Old Lady (1985) – aka Historie d’une vielle dame – short
  • You’ve Got Beautiful Stairs, You Know (1986) – aka T’as de beaux escaliers, tu sais – short
  • Kung Fu Master! (1987) – aka La petit amour
  • Jane B. by Agnes V. (1988) – aka Jane B. par Agnes V
  • Jacquot (1991) – aka Jacquot de Nantes
  • The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993) – aka Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans – documentary
  • One Hundred and One Nights (1995) – aka Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma
  • The World of Jacques Demy (1995) – aka L’univers de Jacques Demy – documentary
  • The Gleaners and I (2000) – aka Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse – documentary
  • The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later (2002) – aka Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse… deux ans après – documentary
  • Homage to Zgougou the Cat (2002) – aka Hommage à Zgougou (et salut à Sabine Mamou) – documentary short
  • The Vanishing Lion (2003) – aka
  • Le lion volatil – short
  • Ydessa, the Bears and etc. (2004) – aka Ydessa, les ours et etc. – documentary short
  • Cinévardaphoto (2004) – documentary
  • Viennale Walzer (2004) – short
  • The So-called Caryatids 2 (2005) – aka Les dites cariatides bis – documentary short
  • Cléo from 5 to 7: Remembrances and Anecdotes (2005) – aka Cléo de 5 à 7: souvenirs et anecdotes – short
  • Rue Daguerre in 2005 (2005) – documentary short
  • Some Widows of Noirmoutier (2006) – aka Quelques veuves de Noirmoutier – documentary
  • The Beaches of Agnès (2008) – aka Les plages d’Agnès – documentary
  • Agnès Varda: From Here to There (2011) – aka Agnès de ci de là Varda – documentary miniseries, 5 episodes
  • A Salute to Henri Langlois (2014) – aka Un salut à Henri Langlois – short
  • The Three Buttons (2015) – aka Les 3 Boutons – short
  • Places Villages (2017) – aka Visages Villages – documentary
  • Varda by Agnès (2019) – aka Varda par Agnès – documentary TV series, 2 episodes