
Simon Abkarian
Actor · b. 1962 · Gonesse, Val d'Oise, France
Simon Abkarian (born 5 March 1962) is a French-Armenian actor. Born in Gonesse, Val d'Oise, of Armenian descent, Abkarian spent his childhood in Lebanon. He moved to Los Angeles, where he joined an Armenian theater company managed by Gerald Papazian. He returned to France in 1985, settling in Paris. He took classes at the Acting International school, then he joined Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil. Abkarian left the Théâtre du Soleil in 1993 and played in 2001 "Beast on the Moon" by Richard Kalinoski, directed by Irina Brook, a play about the life of a survivor of the Genocide of the Armenians, a role which won him critical acclaims and the Molière of the best comedian. His first roles in cinema were proposed by French filmaker Cédric Klapisch, who asked him to play in several of his movies, notably in "Chacun cherche son chat" ("When the Cat is Away" (1996) and in "Ni pour, ni contre (bien au contraire)" en 2003. He was featured in Sally Potter's Yes (2004), in which he played the lead role. Abkarian then played Mehdi Ben Barka in the thriller "J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka" by Serge Le Péron, about the kidnapping and the murder of the leader of the Moroccan opposition. He then played in "Prendre Femme" by Ronit Elkabetz which won him several interpretation prizes. Playing different roles and in different genres, he was featured in the adventure "Zaïna, cavalière de l'Atlas" by Bourlem Guerdjou, in the comedy "Le Démon de midi" by Marie-Pascale Osterriet. He has also appeared in Atom Egoyan's Ararat (2002), he was Albert in Almost Peaceful (2004) by French Director Michel Deville a film about Holocaust survivors, he was featured in "Your Dreams" (2005) by Denis Thybaud. He played the role of villain Alex Dimitrios in the James Bond film, Casino Royale. The character is a Government contractor and arms dealer working against Bond. He was featured as Sahak in the thriller "Les Mauvais Joueurs" ("The Gamblers") (2007) by Frédéric Balekdjian. He has also been the voice of Ebi in the French version of the animated feature "Persepolis". Abkarian played the role of the eminent Armenian poet Missak Manouchianin in "Army of Crime" (2010) by Robert Guédiguian, a French filmaker based in Marseilles, who is also of Armenian parentage. He has also played Dariush Bakhshi, the Iranian Special Consul, in the BBC drama Spooks MI-5. Abkarian is known for his intensity in acting and for his ecclectism in the roles he choses. Description above from the Wikipedia article Simon Abkarian, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia .
Movies24
Movie7.6AdventureActionLe Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his winnings to establish his financial grip on the terrorist market. M sends Bond—on his maiden mission as a 00 Agent—to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. With the help of Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter, Bond enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career.
Casino Royale
2006 · 12K votes
Movie7.0ThrillerDramaA chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.
Zero Dark Thirty
2012 · 5K votes
Movie7.8HistoryDramaJune, 1940. France collapses and signs the armistice. In the midst of the chaos, one man refuses to give up. Alone against the odds, this unknown general flees to London to save what remains of freedom.
Movie6.1ThrillerActionMaster car thieves square off against French gangsters in the South of France with money, women and lives all on the line.
Overdrive
2017 · 1K votes
Movie6.4DramaThrillerWhen an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.
Rendition
2007 · 764 votes
Movie7.8HistoryDramaPart two of a two-part biopic following French army officer Charles De Gaulle's life and political commitment between 1940 and 1945, and trace his development towards a political career.
Movie6.1ActionThrillerAfter going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.
Movie4.9ThrillerMysteryRegina meets charming Joshua while vacationing in Martinique, as she contemplates ending her whirlwind marriage to enigmatic Charlie. Upon her return to Paris, she finds that both her apartment and her bank account have been emptied, and her husband has been murdered. Stuck in ever-increasing danger and with four men pursuing her, another stranger offers assistance - but who can she trust?
The Truth About Charlie
2002 · 199 votes
Movie6.4DramaRomanceRémy and Mélanie live next door to each other in Paris but have never met. The two thirty-year-old Parisians search for connections online, but never have much success. Falling deeper into loneliness and depression, both decide to start attending regular therapy. With the help of their therapists, they uncover the real roots of their issues, and find that the connection they were both searching for is much closer than they thought.
Movie5.9DramaRomanceShe is a scientist. He is a Lebanese doctor. They meet at a banquet and fall into a carefree, passionate relationship. But difficulties abound because of his heritage and her loveless marriage. She flies to Havana to sort things out on the beach and in the cabarets. She sends him a ticket, but harbors no illusions that He will join her in this Caribbean melting pot.
Yes
2005 · 38 votes
Movie7.9AnimationDramaIn 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.
Persepolis
2007 · 2.2K votes
Movie7.5ComedyHistoryParis, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two children, desperate and penniless, he persuades the great actor Constant Coquelin to perform the main role in his new play. But there is a problem: Coquelin wants to premiere it at Christmas and Edmond has not written a single word.
Movie6.1DramaWarInterrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.
Ararat
2002 · 100 votes
Movie6.0ActionA lonely teenage girl joins a school for promising killers and trains hard to become an professional assassin as she uncovers the mysteries of her parents' death.
Playground
2026 · 1 votes
Movie6.5AdventureRomanceThe incredible destiny of Angélique: a beautiful girl who found in her love for Joffrey Peyrac the strength to fight injustice and submission in a century plagued by power struggles, inequality and the oppression.
Angélique
2013 · 129 votes
Movie5.9DramaViolin teacher Anna Bronsky detects remarkable talent in a student, Alexander. Anna becomes obsessed with mentoring him, neglecting her family and spiralling under mounting pressure. As her fixation overtakes her, all is staked on exam day.
Movie6.9FamilyAnimationInspired by the true story of the first giraffe to visit France, Zarafa is a sumptuously animated and stirring adventure, and a throwback to a bygone era of hand-drawn animation and epic storytelling set among sweeping CinemaScope vistas of parched desert, wind-swept mountains and open skies. Under the cover of darkness a small boy, Maki, loosens the shackles that bind him and escapes into the desert night. Pursued by slavers across the moon-lit savannah, Maki meets Zarafa, a baby giraffe – and an orphan, just like him – as well as the nomad Hassan, Prince of the Desert. Hassan takes them to Alexandria for an audience with the Pasha of Egypt, who orders him to deliver the exotic animal as a gift to King Charles of France.
Zarafa
2012 · 133 votes
Movie6.5ActionCaptain Sara Bellaiche, from Toulouse Judiciary Police branch, is investigating a go-fast linked to the murder of two teenagers, an investigation led by Richard Cross, from the Paris Criminal Brigade. Forced to collaborate in order to find the murderer and stop the bloody go-fast, Sara and Richard are both thrown in a breathless race against the clock on the roads of Spain and France.
Overdose
2022 · 196 votes
Movie5.8ThrillerIn France, terrorist groups and intelligence agencies battle in a merciless war everyday, in the name of radically opposed ideologies. Yet, terrorist and secret agents lead almost the same lives. Condemned to secrecy, these masters of manipulation follow the same methods. Alex and Al Barad are two of them. The former is the head of the D.G.S.E.'s (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the French equivalent of the CIA or the MI6) counter-terrorism unit while the latter reigns over a terrorist network, and both fight using the most ruthless of weapons: human beings.
Movie5.9HistoryAdventureIn 1915, a man survives the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, but loses his family, speech and faith. One night, he learns that his twin daughters may be alive, and goes on a quest to find them.
The Cut
2014 · 108 votes
MovieDrama"The choice of each period is intimate, as each period awakens a particular emotion in me. This emotion reflects what is around me, not everyone is able to recognise it -- that is the risk I take. I think that this is good enough reason to make a film that will make visible small yet revealing things in differeent ways. I believe in tropisms and that is what interests me in this film." -- Marie Vermillard [taken from London Film Festival 2006 catalogue]
Movie6.1ComedySandra, a young woman forced to leave the south of France to flee a violent husband. Without attachment, she returned to Boulogne-sur-Mer, the city of her childhood which she left almost 15 years ago. She finds her mother there and a world she left behind. Without money, she is hired in a fish cannery where she befriends two workers. But one day, one of her colleagues tackles her insistently, she defends herself and kills him accidentally.
Movie7.7AnimationDramaSummer 1998—Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future. One day, a foolish gesture causes life to take an irrevocable turn.
Movie4.8HorrorThrillerAfter a gifted musician inherits a mansion after her long lost father dies under mysterious circumstances, she discovers his last musical masterpiece riddled with cryptic symbols that unravels an evil secret, triggering dark forces that reach beyond her imagination.
The Sonata
2018 · 64 votes
Series11
TV7.7DramaAction & AdventureTense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.
Spooks
2002 · 147 votes
TV4.0Talk ShowEach day, Jean-Philippe Wauthier welcomes guests on the show in warm, friendly setting. His interviews focus on their newsworthy achievements but also, and most importantly, on their passions, interests and opinions.
Bonsoir bonsoir!
2019 · 1 votes
TV6.8DramaMysteryWhen a romantic getaway to Paris takes a dark turn with the sudden disappearance of her boyfriend Tom aboard a train to the south of France, Alice is plunged into a web of intrigue and danger, uncovering shocking secrets about the man she thought she knew.
Vanished
2026 · 75 votes
TV6.1ComedyKaboul Kitchen is a French comedy television series broadcast by Canal+. It was created by Marc Victor, Allan Mauduit and Jean-Patrick Benes. The series is based on the true story of Radio France Internationale journalist Marc Victor, who ran a restaurant for French expatriates in Kabul until 2008. The first series premiered on February 15, 2012 on Canal+ and ended on March 5, 2012. It set a ratings record for comedy series in the primetime slot on Canal+. A second series, which will have 12 episodes, has been commissioned. The series depicts the life of French expatriate Jacky who runs the popular restaurant Kaboul Kitchen in Kabul, Afghanistan. His daughter Sophie, who he has not seen in 20 years, arrives to do humanitarian work, while he is interested only in making money. The series won two Golden FIPA Awards at the 2012 Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels: one for Best TV Series and one for Best TV Screenplay. It was screened at MIPTV and named fourth on The Hollywood Reporter's list of "MIPTV A-List Projects" for the most promising series screened at the event.
Kaboul Kitchen
2012 · 15 votes
TV6.8War & PoliticsDramaThe intimate world of Saddam Hussein and his closest inner circle is in this gripping four-part drama that charts the rise and fall of one of the most significant political figures in recent history.
House of Saddam
2008 · 63 votes
TV7.1Action & AdventureA lonely teenage girl joins a school for promising killers and trains hard to become an professional assassin as she uncovers the mysteries of her parents' death.
Playground
2017 · 8 votes
TV6.9DramaSci-Fi & FantasyJeremy, 33, is a lonely Parisian. He's never felt like he belonged anywhere. One night, he discovers The Wonderland, a club with live music run by a charismatic manager called Tony. Jeremy starts bartending there, where dozens of photos cover the wall, telling the story of the club. One of them catch Jeremy's attention: the one of a woman on a beach, taken in Biarritz in 1960. After one night in the club, Jeremy finds himself in Biarritz, in the 1960s!
TV5.8DramaCrimeTony Roucas, a long-term convicted criminal, escapes from prison with Kenz, a small-town big shot. Their run reveals a generational conflict of a new genre. Tony’s quest for truth and desire for vengeance take you to the heart of great French organized crime, from the 50s to today.
TV5.8DramaAs the Paris firefighters try to stop the flames from spreading in the Cathedral, the show also follows characters being put through the wringer - they will have to fight each other, love each other, come across each other, hate each other, smile at or help each other - so that, in the end, they may have a chance to start all over again.
TV6.9MysteryCrimeMalaterra: for the residents, this village is a haven of peace, a refuge. Until the death of a child. A once united community, where everyone thought they could trust each other, falls apart. Who killed little Nathan? And why?
Malaterra
2015 · 5 votes
TV6.3DramaPigalle, la nuit
2009 · 7 votes