Vincent Cassel began his career playing minor parts in French television production like ‘La belle Anglaise’ (1988) and ‘Le stagiaire’ (1991) and was then roped in to play a bit part in director Philippe de Broca comedy film ‘Les Cles du Paradis’ (1991). He worked in several other television and film projects like Mathieu Kassovitz directed romance comedy film ‘Café au Lait’ (1993) before landing the breakthrough role of his career in the crime drama film ‘La Haine’. The 1995 movie, directed once again by Mathieu Kassovitz, had him playing the role of a troubled, self-destructive youth living in the deprived French suburb. It went on to win critical acclaim as well as two ‘César Awards’ nominations (Best Actor and Most Promising Actor) for him. The year also saw him making his debut in American films in a small role in James Ivory’s historical drama ‘Jefferson in Paris’. The following year, he once again won critical acclaim for starring in the romance mystery drama film L'Apartement’.
He was next seen as the lead character of French violent thriller ‘Dobermann’ (1997), as the youngest son of King Henry II (France) in the British biographical drama ‘Elizabeth’ (1998) and as lord Gilles de Rais in the English language French historical drama ‘The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc’ (1999). His other films during the 90s include ‘Adultery: A User's Guide’ (1995), ‘L'élève’ (1996), ‘Come mi vuoi’ (1997), ‘Unruly’, ‘Guest House Paradiso’ and ‘Femmes enragées’ (all 1999).
Vincent Cassel’s significant films in the decade of 2000 included ‘Brotherhood of the Wolf’ (2001), ‘Read My Lips’ (2001), ‘Ocean's Twelve’ (2004), ‘Ocean's Thirteen’ (2007), ‘Eastern Promises’ (2007) and ‘Mesrine’ (2008). The first of these, a French action-adventure drama, had him playing the role of the one-armed villain Jean-Francois. It was an international hit. The second, a French crime drama romance earned him his second nomination for ‘César Awards’ and has a Rotten Tomato score of 97%. The Steven Soderbergh’s directed crime thriller movies Ocean's Twelve’ and ‘Ocean's Thirteen’, wherein he portrayed the character of François Toulour, were huge commercial successes. His performance in David Cronenberg's crime thriller ‘Eastern Promises’ won him tremendous critical acclaim while the two-part French biographical crime film ‘Mesrine’, additionally, won him numerous best actor awards too. These include the ‘César Award’, ‘Lumières Award’, ‘Globes de Cristal Award’, ‘Étoiles d'Or Award’ and ‘Tokyo International Film Festival Award’. It also won him the Best European Actor award at the ‘Golden Globes, Italy’.
His other film releases of the decade were the psychological thriller ‘The Crimson Rivers’ (2000), the comedy crime thriller ‘Birthday Girl’ (2001), the highly controversial mystery crime drama ‘Irréversible’ (2002), the murder mystery ‘The Reckoning’ (2002), the western adventure ‘Blueberry’ (2004), the crime action thriller ‘Secret Agents’ (2004), another crime thriller ‘Derailed’ (2005), the horror ‘Sheitan’ (2006), the fantasy comedy ‘His Majesty Minor’ (2007) and the drama ‘Adrift’ (2009). Apart from these, he lent his voice in various computer animated films as well. These include the character of Monsieur Hood in ‘Shrek’ (original English; 2001); Diego in the ‘Ice Age’ (French language version, 2002) as well as its two sequels ‘The Meltdown’ (2006) and ‘Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ (2009); Rodney Copperbottom in ‘Robots’ (French language version, 2005) and Tony Merguez in ‘Lascars’ (original French, 2009).
In the year 2010, Vincent Cassel became a part of director Darren Aronofsky's critically acclaimed thriller drama ‘Black Swan’ and played the role of Thomas Leroy, the manipulative director of the New York City Ballet Company. The following year, he played the lead in the French thriller drama ‘The Monk’ and also starred in English historical film ‘A Dangerous Method’. In 2014, he played the role of the beast in the commercially successful French adaptation of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. The year 2015 saw him acting in the Australian drama film ‘Partisan’ and the French romance drama ‘My King’. These earned him nominations for best actor at the ‘Australian Film Critics Association awards’ and ‘César Awards respectively. The very next year, his performance in the French drama film ‘It's Only the End of the World’ once again won him nominations in the category of best supporting actor/best actor at the ‘César Awards’, ‘Globes de Cristal Award’ and ‘Riviera International Film Festival Jury awards. The film also won him the best supporting actor award at the ‘Canadian Screen Awards’. His other release in 2016 was the commercially successful American action thriller ‘Jason Bourne’. In 2012 and 2016, he once again lent his voice to the character of Diego in the French language version of Ice Age sequels – ‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’ and ‘Ice Age: Collision Course’. In between in 2015, he also lent his voice to the character of The Fox in the French version of the computer animated fantasy adventure film ‘The Little Prince’.
His notable films after this include the comedy crime ‘The World Is Yours’, the mystery crime drama ‘Black Tide’ (both 2018) and the comedy drama ‘The Specials’ (2019). His work in ‘The Specials’ once again got him nominated at the ‘César Award’ for Best Actor.
Apart from these, since 2010, Vincent Cassel has appeared in several other movies too. These include ‘Our Day Will Come’ (2010), ‘Trance’ (2013), ‘Rio, I Love You’ (2014), ‘Child 44’, ‘Tale of Tales’, ‘One Wild Moment’ (all 2015), ‘The Movie of My Life’, ‘Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti’ (both 2017), ‘The Great Mystical Circus’, ‘The Emperor of Paris’, ‘Default’ (all 2018), ‘Underwater’, ‘A Friendly Tale’ (both 2020) and ‘Les méchants’ (2021).
On television, he became a part of the third season of HBO’s dystopian science fiction mystery drama series ‘Westworld’ in 2020. In addition, he also narrated the documentaries ‘Reset’ and ‘Becoming Cousteau’ in 2021.
Vincent Cassel’s upcoming projects include movies ‘Li Na: My Life’, ‘Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom’, ‘The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan’, ‘The Three Musketeers: Milady’, ‘The Shrouds’ and ‘Eastern Promises 2’ as well as TV Series ‘Liaison’.
When the production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet demands a ballerina who can portray both the pure White Swan and the dark sensual Black Swan, Nina is the first choice; however, she faces competition from Lily who is better suited to play the Black Swan. As she struggles to keep the role for herself, Nina loses her hold on reality and herself.
Anna Khitrova, a British midwife of Russian origin, comes across the diary of Russian teenager Tatiana who died during childbirth, and learns that she was raped, drugged and forced into prostitution by Russian crime-lord Semyon. In her quest to deliver the baby to Tatiana's family, she finds an unlikely ally in Nikolai, Semyon's driver and family "cleaner".
Mesrine is a French biographical crime drama film which is based on the life of Jacques Mesrine, an infamous French gangster. The film focuses on his life before the early 1970s and the events that led him to being declared a ‘Public Enemy’ in France.
After the death of Catholic Queen Mary, in 1558, her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth becomes the Queen of England. But the country is in debt, under attack from Mary of Guise, and her court is full of treacherous novels. Elizabeth must rise to become ‘the virgin Queen’ with the help of Francis Walsingham.
Jacques Mesrine, one of the most notorious French gangsters, manages to escape from a courtroom, and he kidnaps a judge at gunpoint. However, the police manages to capture him and they put him behind bars, inside a tight security prison. The film shows us events surrounding his life and his death.
The Apartment is a romantic drama mystery film which tells the story of Max, an amateur writer who gets a job in New York, after which he decides to leave his girlfriend Lisa. He eventually returns to his home in Paris, where he decides to settle down. He soon gets engaged to a woman named Muriel. However, upon catching a glimpse of Lisa, he decides to pursue her. However, the woman might not be what she seems.
Irreversible is a romantic crime drama thriller film which tells the story of Alex, a young woman, who is raped by a stranger inside a tunnel. Her lover and her ex-boyfriend decide to bring the criminal to justice.
In a rural province of France, a mysterious creature has been savagely killing numerous women and children. Although he is unseen, he possesses enormous strength and intelligence, and has managed to elude capture for years. Eventually, King Louis sends a renowned scientist with a team to bring the beast down.
In this final film in the Ocean's trilogy, Danny Ocean and his team set out to bring down hotelier and casino owner Willy Bank after the latter betrayed Reuben Tishkoff. His audacious plan, if successful, will lead to the failure of Bank’s new casino on its opening day itself.
Art auctioneer, Simon, teams with a gang led by Franck to steal a costly painting from his own auction house, but loses memory after receiving a blow in the head during the heist. After unsuccessfully torturing him to find where he hid the painting, Franck hires hypnotist Elizabeth to probe his mind, but she reaches deeper than they had anticipated.
Detective Superintendent Pierre Niemans is a well known police investigator who is assigned to investigate a murder in a small town in the French Alps. Soon, more murders begin to occur, and he feels that it might point towards a conspiracy.
Louis, a young playwright dealing with terminal illness takes a short flight to his home and reunites with his family after 12 years to tell them that he is dying. However, unsure of how they will react, he finds it difficult to tell them the truth.
In this fifth film of Bourne series, the former CIA operative Jason Bourne, now recovered from his amnesia, attempts to find the truth behind his father’s death. He works with Nicky Parson who hacks CIA systems for program information, inviting attention of CIA cyber division’s head, Heather Lee. Alerted by Lee, CIA Director Dewey gives orders to hunt down Parson and Bourne.
A difficult married life thrusts Charles Schine into an affair with Lucinda Harris, a stranger he meets on a train. While consummating their affair in a seedy hotel, they are violently attacked by an armed man named Philippe LaRoche. Out of secrecy, they don’t report it to the police but LaRoche then starts blackmailing and threatening Charles.
Dobermann is a crook who has a soft spot for guns, which he love to use for robbing banks. With a gang of fellow criminals, he pulls off a tricky heist that results in the death of few cops. The gang is soon pursued by a rogue cop named Cristini, who is going to stop at nothing to take down Dobermann and his gang.
The Reckoning is a mystery crime drama film which takes us to 14th century England, and it revolves around a disgraced priest who joins a traveling acting troupe. When he discovers a murder, he tries to solve the case by recreating it in one of their performances.
Following the success Ocean’s Eleven, the sequel Ocean’s Twelve sees the return of Danny Ocean’s heist-gang who need to return the millions, they stole from Terry Benedict. They are also being pursued by Europol detective Isabel Lahiri and are up against master-thief Night Fox, François Toulour as they try to steal the first-ever stock certificate.
A young Russian woman named Sabina Spielrein seeking treatment for hysteria is successfully treated by Carl Jung and later becomes a respected professional in psychoanalysis. Later they meet Freud in person and the married Jung begins an affair with Sabina. Unfortunately, a rift develops between Freud and Jung and Sabina wants more from Jung.
The movie tells the story of St. Joan of Arc, the French war heroine who led the French army to many victories against the English and was instrumental in allowing Charles VII to take the throne of France. Joan was later betrayed by Charles VII and burned alive by the English, on the pretext of religious heresy.
Secret police officer Leo Demidov is investigating suspicious deaths of boys, including a colleague’s son. He tries to question when he suspects that superiors are camouflaging truth as accident. When he refuses to denounce his wife Raisa as a traitor, both are exiled to remote post where more dead children are found. Can Leo and new superior, General Nesterov, solve the case?
A bankrupt merchant finds himself at an enchanted castle of an ugly beast. When he plucks a sweet scented rose, he encounters the owner of the castle who threatens to kill him. He is eventually forgiven but in order to pay for his crime, his daughter Belle needs to stay at the castle as a caretaker.
This fantasy horror drama film tells us three different stories, which are based on collections of tales written by Giambattista Basile, Italian poet. The first story tells the story of a King and Queen in the Kingdom of Longtrellis, who are unable to conceive. A necromancer suggests that in order to have a child, the queen will need to eat the heart of a sea dragon cooked by a virgin. The second story is about a lustful king, and the last story is about a king who is fascinated by a flea.
Guest House Paradiso is a comedy thriller film which tells the story of Richard and Edward, who are running the worst guest house in the entire United Kingdom. While their chef is an illegal immigrant, their waiter is a psychiatric patient who had escaped from a mental hospital. However, Richard and Edward’s life takes a turn when a movie star named Gina Carbonara checks in, as she needs to hide from her fiancé, whom she immensely dislikes.
Shy and reticent bank clerk John Buckingham arranges to get online mail-order bride Nadia from Russia. Though Nadia’s inability to speak English creates communication difficulties, inhibited John is happy with sexually bold Nadia. But when her cousin Yuri and his friend Alexei arrive unexpectedly to celebrate her birthday, everything turns topsy-turvy. as John gets pulled into a vortex of deceit and crime.
Three friends partying at a club decide to visit the country home of a woman whom they had just met. They take another woman named Yasmin along with them. Things get ugly when they accidentally run into a shepherd who is preparing for a night of pure insanity.
A group of professionals are assigned to bring down a ship loaded with illegal arms, belonging to notorious Russian gunrunner Igor Lipovsky.
Years after a brutal encounter with an outlaw at a brothel, Mike Blueberry returns to his town as a marshal, and tries to keep the peace between the Whites and the Native Indians. However, the peace is threatened by the arrival of gold-hunters.
Grumpy ogre Shrek's blissful solitude is interrupted when a host of fairy creatures, including a talkative Donkey, are banished to his swamp by the diminutive Lord Farquaad. As Shrek attempts to complain, Farquaad, a scheming ruler planning to become a king, assigns him to rescue Princess Fiona from a tower guarded by a fire-breathing dragon.
The Little Prince is an animated fantasy film, which revolves around a little girl, who is taken by her neighbor, the Aviator, to a magical world, the world of the Little Prince.