Patrice Leconte (born November 12, 1947, in Paris, France) is a French film director and screenwriter.

While attending film school in the late 1960s, Leconte also worked as cartoonist, in particular for the magazine Pilote. He directed his first feature film in 1976, and had a number of major successes with comedy films that were barely distributed outside France. He first came to international attention in 1989 with Monsieur Hire , which was shown at the Cannes film festival and which was a radical departure from his previous work. Although he had already directed more than half a dozen features, many foreign critics, unfamiliar with his previous work, essentially treated him as a newcomer. Since then, he has alternated between films such as Ridicule and L'homme du train which have had success in the international arthouse market, and others, like Les grands ducs , whose appeal has been limited to France.

He is sometimes credited as Patrice Lecomte.

Filmography

• Les Vécés étaient fermés de l'interieur (1976)
• Les Bronzés (1978)
• Les Bronzés font du ski (1979)
• Viens chez moi, j'habite chez une copine (1981)
• Ma femme s'appelle reviens (1982)
• Circulez y'a rien à voir (1983)
• Les Spécialistes (1985)
• Tandem (1987)
• Monsieur Hire (1989)
• Le Mari de la coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's Husband) (1990)
• Tango (1993)
• Le Parfum d'Yvonne (1994)
• Les Grands ducs (1996)
• Ridicule (1996)
• Une chance sur deux (1998)
• La Fille sur le pont (The Girl On the Bridge ) (1999)
• La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (The Widow of Saint-Pierre ) (2000)
• Félix et Lola (2001)
• Rue des plaisirs (2002)
• L'homme du train (The Man on the Train ) (2002)
• Confidences trop intimes (Intimate Strangers ) (2004)

External links

• Patrice Leconte at All Movie Guide
• Short bio