Marcel Ophuls, the Oscar-winning director of the 1969 documentary The Sorrow and the Pity, which questioned the idea of widespread French resistance during WWII, has died.
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He passed away on May 24 from natural causes at his home in the South of France, according to the Associated Press.
“He had been feeling unwell about three days before,” his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert told Deadline on May 26. “My father spent the last day with him, and they watched Ernst Lubitsch’sTo Be or Not to Be, then he retired to bed. The next day, they were going to watch his favorite Lubitsch, Heaven Can Wait. Unfortunately, it didn’t come to that.”
Seyfert added that his grandfather died peacefully in his sleep. Ophuls was 97.
French documentarian Marcel Ophuls (1927-2025) by Rick McGinnis, 1995. pic.twitter.com/ynQYYdwR58
— MUBI US (@mubiusa) May 26, 2025
Born on November 1, 1927, in Frankfurt, Germany, Ophuls was the son of film director Max Ophüls and actress Hildegard Wall. At age 11, he and his parents fled to France when the Nazis invaded. The family later moved to Hollywood but returned to France in 1950.
After returning to France, Ophuls joined the local film industry, working with his director father and contributing to John Huston’s Moulin Rouge (1952). In the 1960s, he expanded his career with notable projects like the comedy-detective film Banana Peel (1964), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau.
Marcel Ophuls Helms His Signature Film
In 1967, Ophuls began work on a two-part, four-hour film that would become his most notable project. The Sorrow and the Pity was originally made for television but was banned after conservative politicians criticized its portrayal of France’s Vichy regime collaborating with Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Released in theaters in 1969, the film challenged the widely accepted view of France as a nation largely defined by resistance.
After The Sorrow and the Pity, Ophuls went on to direct the Oscar-winning 1988 documentary Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie. While the film received critical acclaim, it didn’t surpass The Sorrow and the Pity as Ophuls’ most well-known work.
At the time of his death, Ophuls was reportedly working on a documentary about Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Ophuls leaves behind three daughters and three grandchildren.