Motion Picture Director. He was a leader of the "New Wave", a group of young filmakers who helped revitalize French Cinema in the 1960s. Chabrol was a great admirer of Alfred Hitchcock and his most characteristic films are mysteries and psychological thrillers, often examining the impact of crime on personal relationships, with understated yet incisive social commentary. He wrote or co-wrote most of his scripts. His credits include "Les Cousins" (1959), "Les Bonnes Femmes" (1960), "The Champagne Murders" (1967), "La femme infidèle" (1968), "Les Biches" (1968), "Le Boucher" (1970), "Noces rouges" (1973), "Violette Noziere" (1978), "Cop au Vin" (1985), "Le cri du hibou" (1987), "Une affaire de femmes" (1988), "Madame Bovary" (1991), "L'Enfer" (from a script by Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1994), "La Cérémonie" (1995), and "Merci pour le chocolat" (2000). Chabrol was born in Paris, into an urban middle class background that would become the favorite setting for his work. During the 1950s he was a critic for the journal "Cahiers du Cinema", along with Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and other future "New Wave" artists; he and Rohmer produced an influential book-length study of Hitchcock (1957). He was the first of the "Cahiers" group to break through with a commercial feature, "Le Beau Serge" (1958), for which he won the Prix Jean Vigo, and through his independent production company AJYM he helped the careers of Rohmer, Rivette, and Philippe de Broca. Many of his films feature performances by his second wife, actress Stephane Audran (they were married from 1964 to 1980), and were scored by his son, composer Matthieu Chabrol. Although he was considered the least adventurous of the "New Wave" directors, he enjoyed the most durable career, turning out roughly one feature a year (plus TV movies and series episodes) until his last, 2009's "Bellamy". In contrast to the darkness of much of his output, Chabrol was known as a jovial, pleasure-loving man and a dedicated gourmet who often chose filming locations based on the number of fine restaurants in the area. He also took on the Hitchcock habit of mugging for the camera in publicity photos. In 2007 and 2008 the Torino Film Festival programmed a complete Chabrol retrospective.