Serious cinema, or canny commercialism? Liese Spencer examines the current French vogue for in-your-visage film violence

The film star is a footballer for one night. By John Lichfield

The grandaddy of screen monsters is back in town. James Mottram talks to the actor Jean Reno about playing number two to a giant digitised lizard, while Joseph Gallivan asks whatever happened to good old rubber puppets

The Institut francais has scored a huge success in persuading film icon Catherine Deneuve to open its newly-named cinema, Cine Lumiere on 19 March. Fittingly, the occasion will also feature the UK premiere of Deneuve's most recent film Les Voleurs by Andre Techine and the launch of the cinema's Catherine Deneuve Season, which spans 32 years and 17 films (Je Vous Aime pictured below).

`La Maman et la Putain', a classic of 1973, is an essay on male emotional immaturity. Chris Darke looks back

Gerard Depardieu looks as if he has finally landed the role he was born to play. Goscinny and Uderzo's Asterix and Obelix has detailed the pugnacious Gauls' resistance of the Romans for nearly 40 years and is slated to make the big-screen next year.

In Gilles Mimouni's engrossing romantic thriller, Max (Vincent La Haine Cassel) risks losing his wife-to-be and career to pursue a woman he believes to be his lost love. You won't have seen a film so intricately structured since The Usual Suspects, but don't expect to have to wait until the death to have the narrative knots unravelled.

Likeable and versatile, with hidden depths - Daniel Auteuil is the perfect French actor. Robin Buss met him

A retrospective of Gaumont films suggests that French cinema's mix of high art and mass appeal has been the century's biggest antidote to Hollywood. By Chris Darke

Chris Darke celebrates the ambiguous on-screen persona of Alain Delon, French cinema's most impassive star

One dive into `The Big Blue' and Jean Reno was a star. But his rapid rise to success brought on a bad case of the bends. Now he's resurfaced and getting his life back on an even keel.

FILM

CANNES DIARY Norman Wisdom turned up, and the Hollywood stars stayed at home. But strong entries and the right decisions made this a Cannes Festival to remember. Sheila Johnston, our woman on the Croisette, took notes

THOMAS SUTCLIFFE