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Éric Rohmer

French film director (1920-2010)

20.41body-of-work score · ranked #18 of 2631 directors · 25 films in our library

A director's score is the sum of their films' composite canon scores — methodology.

Born
March 21, 1920 · Tulle
Died
January 11, 2010 · 13th arrondissement of Paris
Nationality
France
Work
film director, journalist, writer, screenwriter
Movement
French New Wave
Reference
Wikipedia · Wikidata
Portrait of Éric Rohmer
Smdl · CC BY-SA 3.0

The talker who made looking dramatic

The standard complaint about Rohmer is that nothing happens — people talk, at length, about whether to sleep with someone, and mostly decide not to. The complaint is also the achievement. He is the one New Wave director who staked everything on speech and second-guessing, who made moral hesitation itself the event. Where Godard shattered the medium and Truffaut romanced it, Rohmer quietly turned it into an instrument for watching people lie to themselves. Half a century of talky independent cinema descends from that decision.

Critic first, late to the camera

Born Jean Marie Maurice Schérer on March 21, 1920 in Tulle, he came to filmmaking the long way round — a teacher, then a Paris journalist, then the editorial engine of Cahiers du cinéma, which he edited from 1957 to 1963 while the younger men he had championed raced ahead of him into features. The pen name, adopted around 1955, stitched together Erich von Stroheim and the pulp novelist Sax Rohmer, partly to hide the disreputable business of cinema from a disapproving family. With Chabrol he co-wrote the 1957 study of Hitchcock that helped make auteurism a working method. He was, per the fact sheet, "the last of the post-World War II French New Wave directors to become established" — his real arrival came with My Night at Maud's (1969), which drew Academy Award nominations at last. From there the work organized itself into cycles: the Six Moral Tales, the Comedies and Proverbs of the 1980s, then the Tales of the Four Seasons made in his seventies. Claire's Knee (1970) took the Louis Delluc Prize; The Marquise of O (1976) won the Grand Prix at Cannes; The Green Ray (1986) took the Golden Lion at Venice; a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement followed in 2001. He died in Paris on January 11, 2010.

A cinema of weather and words

His method was ascetic to the point of provocation. By the 1980s the crew could shrink to a camera operator and a sound engineer; he cooked lunch on set, shot in sequence, refused non-diegetic music, and scheduled around the sky — "my films are slaves to weather," he said, and The Green Ray, which waits an entire runtime for one atmospheric flash, means it literally. That constraint is the style: natural light, real Paris and real beaches, dialogue that sounds overheard rather than written. To my eye it has aged better than the flashier New Wave gestures precisely because it never dated itself with technique.

What the numbers say

Our library holds 25 Rohmer films and ranks him #18 among all directors at a composite 20.41 — a body of work broad and consistent rather than peaked. The internal order rewards the festival laurel: The Green Ray leads at #174 (2.88), his Golden Lion film, ahead of Claire's Knee at #330 (2.14). But the citation counts tell a subtler story — Claire's Knee and My Night at Maud's each appear on six of our source lists, the most of any Rohmer film, yet Maud's scores far lower at #673 (1.43). The two Moral Tales the canon most often names are outranked in the aggregate by a single late miniature about a sunset. Below them the curve is long and shallow — The Marquise of O at #858, Autumn Tale (1998) at #962. No film spikes, which is the honest shape of a director whose greatness was distributional.

Where to start

My Night at Maud's for the talk at full philosophical pressure, Claire's Knee for desire observed like a specimen, The Green Ray for the patience that pays off in a single frame of light. Save The Marquise of O for the same intelligence bent to period costume.

Films in our library, ranked

Ranked by composite canon score across 20+ authoritative lists, awards and polls — our ordering, with every placement citing its evidence on the film's page.

  1. 1
    The Green RayLe Rayon vertMust-See #174

    1986 · France · romance, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1986 #1 · Venice Golden Lion winner 1986 · Sarris's annual top 10 1986 #1

    2.884 citations
  2. 2
    Claire's KneeLe Genou de ClaireMust-See #330

    1970 · France · drama, romance, comedy

    San Sebastián Golden Shell winner 1971 · Siskel's annual top 10 1971 #1 · Sarris's annual top 10 1971 #2

    2.146 citations
  3. 3
    The Aviator's WifeLa Femme de l'aviateur

    1981 · France · comedy, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1981 #1 · Sarris's annual top 10 1981 #1 · Kehr's annual top 10 1982 #null

    1.503 citations
  4. 4
    My Night at Maud'sMa nuit chez Maud

    1969 · France · drama

    Siskel's annual top 10 1970 #1 · Sarris's annual top 10 1970 #2 · Ebert's annual top 10 1970 #6

    1.436 citations
  5. 5
    The Marquise of OLa Marquise d'O...

    1976 · France / Germany · drama

    Cannes Grand Prix winner 1976 · Kehr's annual top 10 1977 #3 · Sarris's annual top 10 1976 #4

    1.223 citations
  6. 6
    Autumn TaleConte d'automne

    1998 · France · comedy, romance, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1998 #3 · Kehr's annual top 10 1999 #2 · Sarris's annual top 10 1999 #2

    1.133 citations
  7. 7
    The Lady and the DukeL'Anglaise et le Duc

    2001 · France · biography, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 2001 #2 · Sarris's annual top 10 2002 #3 · Hoberman's annual top 10 2002 #6

    1.063 citations
  8. 8
    Full Moon in ParisLes Nuits de la pleine lune

    1984 · France · romance, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1984 #1

    1.001 citation
  9. 9
    Le Beau Mariage

    1982 · France · comedy, drama

    Sarris's annual top 10 1982 #1 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1982 #10 · NYT Best 1,000 Movies

    0.963 citations
  10. 10
    Pauline at the BeachPauline à la plage

    1983 · France · comedy, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1983 #5 · Sarris's annual top 10 1983 #2 · Siskel's annual top 10 1983 #8

    0.863 citations
  11. 11
    A Tale of SpringtimeConte de printemps

    1990 · France · comedy, drama

    Sarris's annual top 10 1990 #1 · Sarris's annual top 10 1992 #3

    0.752 citations
  12. 12
    Perceval le Gallois

    1978 · France / Italy / Switzerland · drama

    Kehr's annual top 10 1979 #4 · Hoberman's annual top 10 1978 #6 · Sarris's annual top 10 1978 #6

    0.684 citations
  13. 13
    Four Adventures of Reinette and MirabelleQuatre aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle

    1987 · France · comedy, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1987 #6 · Sarris's annual top 10 1989 #8 · Kehr's annual top 10 1989 #10

    0.663 citations
  14. 14
    A Tale of WinterConte d'hiver

    1992 · France · comedy, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1992 #8 · Sarris's annual top 10 1994 #5 · Roger Ebert's Great Movies

    0.643 citations
  15. 15
    Romance of Astree and CeladonLes Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon

    2007 · France / Spain / Italy · comedy, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 2007 #7 · Film Comment year-end poll 2008 #33

    0.532 citations
  16. 16
    L'Arbre, le maire et la médiathèque

    1993 · France · comedy, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1993 #3

    0.501 citation
  17. 17
    Six in ParisParis vu par…

    1965 · France · comedy, drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1965 #4

    0.431 citation
  18. 18
    Sign of the LionLe Signe du Lion

    1959 · France · drama

    Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1962 #5

    0.391 citation
  19. 19
    Love in the AfternoonL'Amour l'après-midi

    1972 · France · drama

    Siskel's annual top 10 1972 #7 · Criterion Collection spine #348

    0.332 citations
  20. 20
    Boyfriends and GirlfriendsL'Ami de mon amie

    1987 · France · comedy, romance, drama

    Sarris's annual top 10 1989 #2

    0.321 citation
  21. 21
    La Collectionneuse

    1967 · France · drama, comedy

    Criterion Collection spine #346 · Roger Ebert's Great Movies

    0.292 citations
  22. 22
    Rendezvous in ParisLes Rendez-vous de Paris

    1995 · France · comedy, romance

    Sarris's annual top 10 1996 #5

    0.191 citation
  23. 23
    A Summer's TaleConte d'été

    1996 · France · comedy, drama

    Film Comment year-end poll 2014 #37

    0.191 citation
  24. 24
    The Bakery Girl of MonceauLa Boulangère de Monceau

    1962 · France · drama, comedy

    Criterion Collection spine #343

    0.161 citation
  25. 25
    Suzanne's CareerLa Carrière de Suzanne

    1963 · France · comedy, drama

    Criterion Collection spine #344

    0.161 citation

Complete filmography

All 56 directorial credits recorded on Wikidata, in chronological order; films in our library link to their canon-score page.