Le Samourai

Name: Le Samourai
Genre: Crime
Released: 2026-07-22
Duration: 1 h 45 min
Cast: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon

<span style="color: rgb(36, 36, 36); font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; white-space: pre-wrap;">Presented by Alliance Française de Charlottesville as part of our "French Cinema: Origins & Echoes" series. It’s 1967 and French society is changing fast. University students are becoming radicalized. The political status quo is being challenged by leftist University students and their leaders. Protests over university rules and opposition to the war in Vietnam push activists toward even broader reforms.This youthful fire is also felt in transformative collaborations within cultural institutions. Theatre and the avant‑garde arts scenes come together in Paris with experimental companies staging politically engaged performances. France becomes the epicenter of the new wave in film and the youth (yé-yé) movement in music.Into this “youthquake” moment comes Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai. This seminal gangster-noir film highlights the aesthetics of a cool and precise style bringing the traditional archetype of the Japanese Samourai ronin into the modern world. Alain Delon at the height of his youthful allure plays Jef. – a professional killer for hire who nonetheless maintains his own inner principles of craft, loyalty and honor.Le Samourai engages us at the crossroads of multiple film and social currents – New Wave influence, American noir, samurai ethos, existential alienation, and modern Parisian style – resulting in a minimalist, sleek crime film that became highly influential in both French and international cinema.Director Jean-Pierre Melville was explicitly influenced by Akira Kurosawa – a giant of Japanese cinema – and his samurai genre, transforming iconic samurai discipline into Western urban criminal codes. Alain Delon, through his minimal speech, controlled routine and inward moral compass, thoroughly embodies the archetype of the emotionally detached, professionally disciplined loner as Le Samourai's protagonist Jef Costello.Praised as masterful, stylish and intelligent, over the years the film inspired and influenced films such as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Walter Hill’s The Driver and Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Ghost Dog starring Forrest Whitaker, John Torme, and Cliff Gorman will be presented on July 29 at the Violet Crown as part of French Cinema: Origin and Echoes collaboration with the Alliance Française de Charlottesville.CrimePT1H45MPG2026-07-22FRfr

Alain Delon

François Périer

Nathalie Delon

Jean-Pierre Melville

Georges Pellegrin

Raymond Borderie

Eugène Lépicier

Le Samourai"Le Samourai"

Showtimes

July 22, 7:00 pm