{ "id": "ep47vyb1wr", "slug": "un-flic", "title": "Un Flic", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1970s-films", "label": "1970s films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1970s-films" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1970s-films", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000: 1970s films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1970s-films", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1970s-films", "label": "1970s films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1970s-films" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Un Flic (A Cop) is Jean-Pierre Melville's 1972 French-Italian crime film, his 13th and final feature, starring Alain Delon as commissaire Coleman, with Richard Crenna and Catherine Deneuve; distinct from the 2007 French TV series of the same name.", "snippet": "Un Flic (A Cop) is Jean-Pierre Melville's 1972 French-Italian crime film, his 13th and final feature, starring Alain Delon as commissaire Coleman, with Richard Crenna and Catherine Deneuve; distinct from the 2007 French TV series of the same name.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1970s-films", "markdown": "# Un Flic\n\n**Un Flic** (French for \"A Cop\") is a 1972 French-Italian crime film written and directed by [Jean-Pierre Melville](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-pierre-melville), his thirteenth and final feature. [Alain Delon](https://www.edgepedia.org/alain-delon) plays police commissaire Édouard Coleman, who investigates a bank robbery and discovers that his friend Simon, a nightclub owner played by [Richard Crenna](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-crenna), organized the job; Catherine Deneuve plays Cathy, the woman shared between them. The film closes Melville's trilogy of Delon-starring gangster films after *Le Samouraï* (1967) and *Le Cercle rouge* (1970), and it was the last film Melville finished before his death.[1](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/un-flic/) • [2](https://www.timeout.com/movies/un-flic)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director and writer | Jean-Pierre Melville (1917–1973); his 13th and last film[2](https://www.timeout.com/movies/un-flic) |\n| Release | France, 25 October 1972; France/Italy production[3](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb17093157z) |\n| Cast | Alain Delon (Édouard Coleman), Richard Crenna (Simon), Catherine Deneuve (Cathy)[4](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100001913/) |\n| Key crew | Cinematography Walter Wottitz; music Michel Colombier; producer Robert Dorfmann[5](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/57739.html) |\n| French box office | 2.8 million tickets, higher than *Le Samouraï*[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/10/20/flic/) |\n| US release | 1975, as *Dirty Money*[7](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-un-flic-melville-review-20130628-story.html) |\n| Restoration | Studiocanal 4K restoration from the original camera negative, released on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on 16 November[8](https://frompage2screen.com/2026/10/19/studiocanal-announce-new-4k-restoration-of-jean-pierre-melvilles-final-film-the-1972-french-crime-thriller-un-flic/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot and structure\n\nThe film opens with a bank robbery in a seaside town, carried out by four men dressed like bank managers, and with a quotation from François-Eugène Vidocq (1775–1857), the escaped convict who became Chief of Police: \"The only feelings man could ever inspire in the policeman are ambiguity and derision.\"[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/10/20/flic/) Commissaire Édouard Coleman is assigned the investigation and finds that the loot is meant to buy drugs; the organizer of both operations is Simon, a longtime friend who runs a Paris nightclub.[9](https://cinefiches.edouardneveu.fr/film/1006) • [4](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100001913/) Cathy, the woman with whom Coleman has just begun a liaison, is also Simon's mistress.[10](https://boutique.arte.tv/detail/un-flic)\n\nTwo set-piece heists anchor the film: the opening bank robbery and a climactic robbery of a drug shipment from a night train, in which Simon rappels from a helicopter onto the moving train. The helicopter-and-train sequence was executed with miniature models, which critics at the time singled out as unconvincing.[11](https://www.tcm.com/articles/636709/un-flic) • [6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/10/20/flic/) Deneuve's Cathy also poses as a nurse to murder a wounded robber in his hospital bed.[11](https://www.tcm.com/articles/636709/un-flic)\n\n## Production and casting\n\nDelon had played professional criminals in Melville's *Le Samouraï* and *Le Cercle rouge*; in *Un Flic* he reversed that image to play the police officer. According to the BFI program notes, Melville offered Delon either part, and the star chose the cop partly to break with his gangster image.[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/10/20/flic/) The supporting cast included Riccardo Cucciolla as Paul Weber, Paul Crauchet as Morand, Jean Desailly, Simone Valère, André Pousse, and the American character actor [Michael Conrad](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-conrad) as Louis Costa.[5](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/57739.html) Richard Crenna, known for Hollywood work, played the thief and drug trafficker Simon.[8](https://frompage2screen.com/2026/10/19/studiocanal-announce-new-4k-restoration-of-jean-pierre-melvilles-final-film-the-1972-french-crime-thriller-un-flic/)\n\nWalter Wottitz, who had shot *The Longest Day* and *Army of Shadows*, was the cinematographer, and Michel Colombier composed the score; Yves Saint-Laurent designed [Catherine Deneuve](https://www.edgepedia.org/catherine-deneuve)'s costumes.[5](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/57739.html) The film was produced by Robert Dorfmann for Les Films Corona with Oceanic Films and the Italian company Euro International Film.[5](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/57739.html)\n\n## Reception\n\nThe film earned 2.8 million tickets in France, a total higher than *Le Samouraï* had reached, even as overall French cinema attendance had fallen by about 30 million moviegoers a year in the intervening five years. Its reputation as a failure came instead from the [French press](https://www.edgepedia.org/french-press), which published review after review citing boredom, emptiness, excessive mannerism, and incoherence; Louis Chauvet in *Le Figaro* reproduced the press book's summary as evidence that the film was incomprehensible, and Melville's longtime supporters Baroncelli, Chapier, and Beylie turned against him.[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/10/20/flic/) Only Claude Mauriac in *L'Express* wrote a fully enthusiastic review, and even favorable responses, such as Albert Cervoni's, were lukewarm.[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/10/20/flic/) On AlloCiné, the film holds a viewer average of 2.8 out of 5 from 956 ratings, with most individual reviews clustered at 2 stars.[12](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-4338/critiques/spectateurs/recentes/)\n\nAnglophone critics have been more divided in a different direction. Time Out called it Melville's most pared-down film, with a storyline that disregards place, time, and plot but keeps total coherence of mood, \"more blue than noir.\"[2](https://www.timeout.com/movies/un-flic) The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan praised the opening robbery sequence as one of Melville's best, while noting the film is not the typical Melville work.[7](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-un-flic-melville-review-20130628-story.html) Michael Atkinson, writing for TCM, described the film as in some ways Melville's most American, verging on self-parody in the train sequence, and called it both Melville's and the noir genre's swan song.[11](https://www.tcm.com/articles/636709/un-flic)\n\n## Melville's last film\n\nMelville died of a heart attack at age 55 one year after the film's release, and *Un Flic* was the last feature he finished.[7](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-un-flic-melville-review-20130628-story.html) It was also his third and final collaboration with Delon; in a 2018 interview, Delon said the two had a fourth project, an *Arsène Lupin* film, in the pipeline that was never made.[13](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2024/08/19/alain-delon-everything-i-did-in-films-i-truly-lived_6718205_30.html) The film's reputation has since been partly reassessed: the Cinémathèque française's program notes call it \"perhaps his most unloved\" film and yet \"a masterpiece on solitude and morality,\" and the director Bertrand Bonello has said it contains probably the most beautiful close-up of Alain Delon.[5](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/57739.html)\n\nA new 4K restoration, scanned from the 35mm original camera negative, was announced by Studiocanal for release on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on 16 November, with supplementary features including an introduction by Jean-Baptiste Thoret and a featurette on the film's two cuts.[8](https://frompage2screen.com/2026/10/19/studiocanal-announce-new-4k-restoration-of-jean-pierre-melvilles-final-film-the-1972-french-crime-thriller-un-flic/)\n\n## The television series of the same name\n\nThe title *Un flic* also belongs to a French crime television series created by Frédéric Tellier, first released in 2007, about the investigations of Schneider, a tormented police officer of unwavering integrity. The series ran for six seasons and stars Alex Descas as Schneider, with Cyril Lecomte as Campana; in France it streams on TF1+ and free with advertisements on TF1+ and Rakuten TV.[14](https://www.justwatch.com/fr/serie/un-flic) • [15](https://web.playpilot.com/ca/show/un-flic-ppti14V3l/) It is unrelated to Melville's film.\n\n## References\n\n1. [Review: Un Flic, Slant Magazine (Tina Hassannia, 2013)](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/un-flic/)\n2. [Un Flic, Time Out review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/un-flic)\n3. [Notice de titre conventionnel \"Un flic (1972 ; film)\", Bibliothèque nationale de France](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb17093157z)\n4. [UN FLIC, AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100001913/)\n5. [Un flic (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1971), La Cinémathèque française](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/57739.html)\n6. [Un flic, BFI Southbank Programme Notes](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/10/20/flic/)\n7. [Revisit Jean-Pierre Melville's world of crime in 'Un Flic', Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan, 2013)](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-un-flic-melville-review-20130628-story.html)\n8. [Studiocanal announce new 4K restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville's final film UN FLIC, From Page to Screen (2026)](https://frompage2screen.com/2026/10/19/studiocanal-announce-new-4k-restoration-of-jean-pierre-melvilles-final-film-the-1972-french-crime-thriller-un-flic/)\n9. [Fiche Film - UN FLIC, Cinéfiches](https://cinefiches.edouardneveu.fr/film/1006)\n10. [Un flic, ARTE Boutique](https://boutique.arte.tv/detail/un-flic)\n11. [Un Flic, TCM article by Michael Atkinson](https://www.tcm.com/articles/636709/un-flic)\n12. [Dernières critiques du film Un Flic, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-4338/critiques/spectateurs/recentes/)\n13. [Alain Delon: 'Everything I did in films, I truly lived', Le Monde (2018 interview)](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2024/08/19/alain-delon-everything-i-did-in-films-i-truly-lived_6718205_30.html)\n14. [Un flic (série) en streaming, JustWatch France](https://www.justwatch.com/fr/serie/un-flic)\n15. [Un flic Show (2007): Where to watch and stream online, PlayPilot](https://web.playpilot.com/ca/show/un-flic-ppti14V3l/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1970s films*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/un-flic", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/un-flic.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Un Flic\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/un-flic. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Un Flic](https://www.edgepedia.org/un-flic)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/un-flic](https://www.edgepedia.org/un-flic). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Un Flic\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/un-flic. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Un Flic is Jean-Pierre Melville's 1972 French-Italian crime film, his 13th and final feature, starring Alain Delon as commissaire Coleman, with Richard Crenna and Catherine Deneuve; distinct from the 2007 French TV series of the same name." }