Lino Ventura
Birthday: 1919-07-13
Place of Birth: Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Biography: Angiolino Giuseppe Pasquale Ventura (14 July 1919 – 22 October 1987), known as Lino Ventura, was an Italian-born actor and philanthropist, who lived and worked for most of his life in France. He was considered one of the greatest leading men of French cinema during the 1960s and 1970s, known for his portrayal of tough characters on both sides of the law in crime dramas. Born in Parma and raised in Paris, Ventura worked as a professional wrestler before an injury ended his career. He made his film debut as a gangster in the 1954 Jacques Becker film Touchez pas au grisbi and rapidly became one of France's favourite film actors, playing opposite many other great stars and working with such leading directors as Louis Malle, Claude Sautet, and Claude Miller. Usually portraying a tough man, either a criminal or a cop, he also featured as a leader of the Resistance in the Jean-Pierre Melville-directed Army of Shadows (1969). He was nominated for a Cesar Award for his portrayal of Jean Valjean in the 1982 film adaptation of Les Misérables. After one of his four children, a daughter, was born handicapped, he and his wife founded a charity Perce-Neige (Snowdrop) which aids disabled children and their parents. Though a lifelong resident and pop cultural icon in France, Ventura always considered himself an Italian first and foremost, and never took French citizenship. He was nonetheless voted 23rd in a 2005 poll of the 100 greatest Frenchmen. ... Description above from the Wikipedia article Lino Ventura, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Movies
Elevator to the Gallows
A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally prov...
View Movie
The Sicilian Clan
An ambitious mobster plans an elaborate diamond heist while seducing the daughter-in-law of a ruthle...
View Movie
Les Misérables
In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless po...
View Movie
The Inquisitor
Martinaud, an illustrious notary suspected of being the perpetrator of two horrendous crimes, volunt...
View Movie
The Last Adventure
Two adventurers and best friends, Roland and Manu, are the victims of a practical joke that costs Ma...
View Movie
The Medusa Touch
A French detective in London reconstructs the life of a man lying in hospital with severe injuries w...
View Movie
The Great Spy Chase
A cold-war spy parody. After the death of an armaments manufacturer, an international group of spies...
View Movie
A Pain in the Ass
Ralf Milan, a hitman, arrives in Montpellier to kill an important witness. He checks in a hotel with...
View Movie
Le Deuxième Souffle
A gangster escapes jail and quickly makes plans to continue his criminal ways elsewhere, but a deter...
View Movie
Crooks in Clover
An aging gangster, Fernand Naudin is hoping for a quiet retirement when he suddenly inherits a fortu...
View Movie
Taxi for Tobruk
During World War II, French Commandos join forces with a German officer in order to survive the Afri...
View Movie
Greed in the Sun
A truck driver ventures into the Moroccan desert to retrieve a stolen truck, facing danger, bad luck...
View Movie
Way of Youth
This movie is a Marcel Aymé adaptation and it deals with the not-so-glorious side of the Occupation:...
View Movie
Let's Not Get Angry
One-time gangster Antoine is enjoying retirement on the coast, now managing a boating club. He recei...
View Movie
The Valachi Papers
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to p...
View Movie
The Big Risk
Two men pull off a daring daylight payroll heist in Milan, making a fast getaway. One is returning t...
View Movie
Money Money Money
When they realize the times are changing, five crooks decide to switch from bank robberies to person...
View Movie
Touchez Pas au Grisbi
Gentleman gangster Max and his partner, Riton, pull off their last, most successful heist and find t...
View Movie
Emile's Boat
Charles-Edmond, the eldest of the Larmentiel brothers, decides to return to La Rochelle, his hometow...
View Movie
Army of Shadows
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Th...
View Movie
Spy, Stand Up
Sebastien Grenier, a former French spy, is working as a financial analyst in Zurich. However, his pe...
View Movie
Illustrious Corpses
A detective is assigned to investigate the mysterious murders of some Supreme Court judges....
View Movie
Razzia
Henri, the Man from Nantes, comes back to his country after a successful stay in the United States, ...
View Movie
Dishonorable Discharge
Burt Brickford, a deserted U.S. Navy captain stranded in a South American port, rents out his servic...
View Movie
One Hundred Days in Palermo
In the late 1970s and early 80s, assassinations in Sicily get the attention of Communist deputy, Pio...
View Movie
Fantasia Among the Squares
Sagamore Noonan lives in seclusion on a farm in Alabama, where he distills moonshine during Prohibit...
View Movie
125 rue Montmartre
Desperate, Didier throws himself out in the Seine. Pascal, a newsboy, jumps and saves him. It’s the ...
View Movie
The Lovers of Montparnasse
Biographic film chronicling the last year of the life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, 1919...
View Movie
La Rumba
Paris, 1938. In a lavishly decorated nightclub, couples dance the syncopated rhythms of Latin Americ...
View Movie
To Skin a Spy
A French secret agent gets a license to kill when he is sent to Vienna to plug a security leak in th...
View Movie
The Ruffian
The adventures of a group of friends who plan to recover crates full of gold from a fall in Canada....
View Movie
To Catch a Spy
The blueprints of an aeroplane built from an ultra-secret metal are stolen from national security. F...
View Movie
The Silent One
Who is Anton Haliakov, who has just been abducted by the M.I.5 in London? A Soviet scientist apparen...
View Movie
The Seventh Target
Bastien Grimaldy, a man driven to heightened anxiety as the plot against him begins to take effect. ...
View Movie
Last Known Address
Marceau Léonetti, a competent and energetic officer stops by chance the son of an influential lawyer...
View Movie
The Devil and the Ten Commandments
The film consists of seven roughly 15 minute episodes, each showing what will happen if one or more ...
View Movie
Cloportes
Three little criminals get a tip for a great coup with lots of money in it. Unfortunately they lack ...
View Movie
The Wise Guys
Hector Valentin returns to France from Canada when he inherits a small sawmill. He has difficulties ...
View Movie
Girl in the Window
A romantic drama partially set in Amsterdam, this standard tale starts out in a mining area in Holla...
View Movie
Rum Runners
During the prohibition era, Cornelius, a bootlegger, is on the run from the American coastguards. He...
View Movie
Butterfly on the Shoulder
On a stopover in Barcelona, Fériaud Roland discovers a corpse in the hotel room next door. He wakes ...
View Movie
The Dictator's Guns
An experienced skipper is hired to buy a boat from an American heiress in the Caribbean, but when th...
View Movie
The Slap
A Parisian teacher loses his cool when his teenage daughter tells him she plans to drop out of schoo...
View Movie
The Lions Are Loose
A young woman leaves her hometown and husband to explore Paris, where she becomes entangled in a riv...
View Movie
Marie-Octobre
A group of ex-resistance fighters are brought together by Marie-Octobre, the code name of Marie-Hele...
View Movie
Happy New Year
Released from prison under a New Year amnesty, a criminal tries to pick up the threads of a life cha...
View Movie
The Last Judgment
In Naples, a voice from the skies announces one morning that the final judgment will be at 6 p.m. on...
View Movie
Carmen di Trastevere
Carmen, wife of a certain Vincenzo detained for theft, chooses Antonio as a friend. When the husband...
View Movie
The French Detective
When political thugs murder an opponent's volunteer and also kill a cop, chief inspector Verjeat bel...
View Movie
Three Tough Guys
Isaac Hayes plays as Lee in his feature film debut, as Father Charlie and himself solve a bank robbe...
View Movie
Speaking of Murder
Louis Bertain is the owner of a Paris garage which is the front for a robbery gang. He and his accom...
View Movie
Hitch-Hike
Agathe, 18, dreams of change. Gone are her vacations on the rainy beaches of Belgium! She decides to...
View Movie
The Mask of the Gorilla
Géo Paquet, aka The Gorilla, breaks from jail. Now an escaped convict, the elite agent must infiltra...
View Movie
Witness in the City
Industrialist Pierre Verdier kills his mistress Jeanne Ancelin by throwing her off a train. Her husb...
View Movie
The Beast Is Loose
Paul Lamiani, a wizened mobster, is asked to return to duty following the disappearance of secret do...
View Movie
Pensione Edelweiss
A man who was injured in an accident has a visitor in his hospital. The visitor suggests a strange d...
View Movie
Three Days to Live
Struggling actor Simon witnesses a murder; he didn't see the killer, but that doesn't stop him from ...
View Movie
Burning Fuse
Lola, the wife of arms dealer Pedro Wassewich, is attracted to Ludovic, a young painter who turns ou...
View Movie
Code Name: Melville
Mixing interviews, rare archival footage and film extracts, the film shows how Melville's works were...
View Movie
Black City
A charming rogue, the self-proclaimed leader of Naples, locks horns with an American Army general an...
View Movie
Birds of Prey
1938, a Central America country. A Frenchman who goes by the name "Le Rital" is hired to take out th...
View Movie
Sunday Lovers
A sex comedy anthology containing four stories, each from a different country (England, France, USA ...
View Movie
L'Homme en colère
Romain Dupree arrives to Montreal from France only to be informed that his son is dead. However, the...
View Movie
Twelve Hours by the Clock
Three criminals escape from a French prison and hide in a coastal village where they have to wait fo...
View Movie
The Threepenny Opera
The Gangster Macheath secretly marries the daughter of beggar king Peachum. When Peachum finds out, ...
View Movie
Mistress of the World - Part I
Professor Johansson has made a huge scientific breakthrough; a device that will create a huge magnet...
View Movie
The Cage
The story of a woman who is suddenly visited by her estranged ex-husband. The ex-hubby wants to buy ...
View Movie
Weeping for a Bandit
José María "El Tempranillo" fleeing from justice, takes refuge in Sierra Morena. After a period of h...
View Movie
Bacri, comme un air de famille
Jean-Pierre Bacri was never happy about anything. But beyond the caricature of the grumpy man, from ...
View Movie
Maigret Sets a Trap
Four women were murdered, each was knifed and, though they had their clothes torn, they weren't mole...
View Movie
La TV des 70's : Quand Giscard était président
In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a n...
View Movie
Mistress of the World - Part II
Karin is now continuing her father's research and is also caught in the cross hairs of the mysteriou...
View Movie
Crime and Punishment
A young tormented student can no longer stand his miserable life. To avoid his sister marrying an ol...
View Movie
Far West
This Belgian/French tale chronicles the efforts of Jacques (Jacques Brel) to find the Old West in mo...
View Movie
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
The actress Lola Dewaere recounts the film career and traumatic life of celebrated actor Patrick Dew...
View Movie
The Strange Mr. Steve
Georges Villard, a minor bank employee, is won over by Mr Steve who does him favours, treats him to ...
View Movie
Sword of Gideon
Chronicles a Mossad team hand picked to hunt down the terrorists involved in the 1972 Munich Olympic...
View Movie
Law of the Streets
Yves Tréguier, a young orphan, escapes from a reform school in Brittany to join "Dédé la Glace" in P...
View Movie
Lino Ventura, la part intime
The fall of 2017 marked the 30th anniversary of Lino Ventura's death. Whether in the role of tough c...
View Movie
Jean-Pierre Melville on the Set of Le Deuxième Souffle
Director Jean-Pierre Melville and actor Lino Ventura are interviewed about their 1966 film....
View Movie
The Monocle's Sour Laugh
A French agent goes after a gang of Asian terrorists who plan to blow up an American nuclear aircraf...
View Movie
Breakpoint: A Counter History of Progress
An account of the last two centuries of the Anthropocene, the Age of Man. How human beings have prog...
View Movie
Aznavour by Charles
In 1948, French singer Charles Aznavour (1924-2018) receives a Paillard Bolex, his first camera. Unt...
View Movie
The Right of the Maddest
The guardian of a nursing home lends a compassionate ear to the complaints of two new pensioners who...
View Movie
Deux Romains en Gaule
This film is directly inspired by Asterix, created by René Goscinny and Albert UDERZO, chronicles th...
View Movie
De Gaulle, the Last King of France
Charles de Gaulle, the first president (1958-1969) of the Vth Republic, France’s current system of g...
View Movie
At the End of the Day
In an increasingly crazy world, Lino, who has decided to leave everything behind, will come to reali...
View Movie
Michel Audiard et le mystère du triangle des Bermudes
A documentary about writer Michel Audiard (1920-1985). Contemporary interviews are interwoven with a...
View Movie