One of the most magnetic and prominent French actors of the post-war era, Alain Delon’s first outstanding success was in Rene Clement's stylish 1960 thriller Plein Soleil. An international hit that made the most of Delon’s unique blend of menace and charisma, the film cast him as a murderous American traveling abroad. Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, Plein Soleil was remade in 1999 as the star-studded The Talented Mr Ripley.

Delon was utilised quite brilliantly by Antonioni as a brash young stockbroker in the enigmatic L’Eclisse, a cornerstone of 1960s European cinema. (L’Eclisse is also being released individually for the first time on 9th July 2007) Thereafter Delon struck up perhaps the most profitable director relationship of his career, working with Jean-Pierre Melville on a number of pictures including Le Samouraï, Le Cercle Rouge, and Melville’s final work, Un Flic (included here), perhaps the director’s most perfect synthesis of style and suspense. All hugely popular with European audiences, these films honed Delon’s existentialist loner persona. Delon’s work was also typified by his complex portrayals of the troubled cops exemplified by Flic Story, and the killers and sexual deviants typified by Alain Jessua’s disturbing and audacious Traitement de Choc.