Biography
Abel Gance was a French film director, producer, writer and actor. A pioneer in the theory and practice of montage, he is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse (1919), La Roue (1923), and Napoléon (1927). He was born in Paris in 1889. In 1909, he acted in his first film. He also wrote scenarios, and often sold them to Gaumont. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, fatal at the time, but he recovered. In 1911, with some friends he established a production company, L...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Abel Gance et son Napoléon
1984
as Self (archival footage)
This documentary focuses on the making of the 235-minute, silent epic Napoleon, the masterpiece of French director/writer/actor Abel Gance. Napoleon s...

Bonaparte et la révolution
1972
as St. Just (archive footage)
Abel Gance's 1971 sound edition of his epic 1927 'Napoleon', which contains much of the silent original, with new material shot and added in both 1965...

Bonaparte et la révolution
1972
Writer, Director
Abel Gance's 1971 sound edition of his epic 1927 'Napoleon', which contains much of the silent original, with new material shot and added in both 1965...

Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite
1968
as Self - Interviewee
BBC documentary on the long and flamboyant career of French filmmaker Abel Gance.

Cyrano and d'Artagnan
1964
Director, Screenplay
Duelist and poet Cyrano de Bergerac and musketeer d'Artagnan meet and team up to stop the conspiracy against King Louis XIII of France.

Abel Gance, Yesterday and Tomorrow
1963
as Self
The life and work of Abel Gance as told by himself. Includes extracts from many of his films and considers his contribution to the cinema.

The Battle of Austerlitz
1960
Director, Writer
Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.

Magirama
1958
Director
A portmanteau work in four segments,designed to illustrate the expressive possibilities of director Abel Gance,s creation, Polyvision, which preceded ...
![I Accuse! [Magirama]](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/2y24WeSm8cHVYy8hrW5tIvmmCKo.jpg)
I Accuse! [Magirama]
1956
Director
Magirama version, which is one of the four segments of the Magirama program, designed to illustrate the expressive possibilities of director Abel Ganc...

Tower of Lust
1955
Director, Screenplay
France, the beginning of the XIV century. Every night, Queen Margaret of Burgundy and her two sisters arrange orgies, to which beautiful nobles are in...

Queen Margot
1954
Writer
Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Catherine de Médicis, celebrates her wedding with Henri de Navarre. Officially, it's a rapprochement between the Lea...

14 juillet 1953
1954
Director, Editor
A color test film of the Proterama process created by Abel Gance.

Captain Fracasse
1943
Director, Writer
Out of love for an actress, Isabelle, the Baron de Sigognac joins a traveling troop en route to Paris. When an actor dies, he takes over his role: tha...

Blind Venus
1941
Director, Writer
Vénus aveugle (Blind Venus) is a 1941 French film melodrama, directed by Abel Gance, and one of the first films to be undertaken in France during the ...

Four Flights to Love
1939
Director, Screenplay
In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for des...

Louise
1939
Director
What was it about opera diva Grace Moore that attracted the attention of filmdom's top directors? Moore's 1937 American movie vehicle When You're in L...

The Woman Thief
1938
Director
The woman thief evades a young lady who is onto his game, but then tries his wiles elsewhere on a married woman by attempting to compromise and ruin t...

I Accuse
1938
Director, Writer
After serving in the trenches of World War I, Jean Diaz recoils with such horror that he renounces love and personal pleasure to immerse himself in sc...

The Life and Loves of Beethoven
1937
Director, Writer
Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.

Lucrezia Borgia
1935
Director, Writer
French silent film pioneer Abel Gance directs this 1935 classic about Lucrezia Borgia, her brother, Cesare. and her father, Pope Alexander VI -- one o...

The Queen and the Cardinal
1935
Director, Writer
A hero of the Paris streets is recruited for a conspiracy against Mazarin in the court of the King, but he reveals the subversive plot to Anne of Aust...

Napoléon Bonaparte
1935
as Saint-Just
A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.

Napoléon Bonaparte
1935
Director, Screenplay, Editor
A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.

Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre
1935
Director, Screenplay
Maxime de Champcey, a bankrupt marquis, is hired by the wealthy Laroque and falls for his daughter Marguerite. She loves him too but rejects him under...

La Dame aux camélias
1934
Director, Producer
Alexandre Dumas' romantic novel Lady of the Camelias (more popularly known as Camille) was filmed twice in 1953, first in Argentina, then in France. T...

Poliche
1934
Director
Didier Méreuil, affectionately called Poliche, is in love with Rosine, a beautiful girl, so he does everything to please her. She does not love him, a...

The Ironmaster
1933
Screenplay
A young noblewoman is unhappy about needing to marry the village ironmaster for financial reasons, but later comes to appreciate her husband.

Mater Dolorosa
1933
Writer, Director
One of the most popular melodrama films directed by Abel Gance. A paranoide, fanatical and obsessively jealous husband obducts his own son to bully hi...

The End of the World
1931
as Jean Novalic
The plot concerns a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster.

The End of the World
1931
Screenplay, Director
The plot concerns a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster.

Around the End of the World
1930
as Self
A short silent documentary on the making of the 1931 Abel Gance directed film, "La Fin du Monde".
Napoleon at St. Helena
1929
Story
Napoleon at Saint Helena (German: Napoleon auf Sankt Helena) is a 1929 German silent historical film directed by Lupu Pick and starring Werner Krauss,...

The Fall of the House of Usher
1928
as Bar Customer
A stranger called Allan goes to the House of Usher. He is the sole friend of Roderick Usher, who lives in the eerie house with his sick wife Madeleine...
Marines et cristeaux
1928
Director
Marines et cristeaux is a silent film from 1928

Napoleon
1927
as Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just
A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his f...

Napoleon
1927
Director, Writer, Editor
A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his f...

Au secours !
1924
Director, Writer, Producer
Max accepts a wager that he cannot remain in a haunted castle for one hour (11 PM to midnight) without crying for help. As soon as he arrives he encou...

Around The Wheel
1923
as Self
Blaise Cendrars' AUTOUR DE LA ROUE (1923), a behind-the-scenes short documenting the production.

La Roue
1923
as Self
Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becom...

La Roue
1923
Director, Writer, Editor
Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becom...
Tillers of the Soil
1923
Producer
One of two peasant brothers in love with the same woman escapes his grim country life and pursues a career as a Parisian sculptor.

J'accuse
1919
Director, Screenplay, Editor
The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale become...

The Tenth Symphony
1918
Director, Writer
Composer Enrid Damor knows nothing of the past life of his new wife Eve Dinant : she lived as a debauchee with an adventurer, Fred Ryce. Fred Ryce mee...

The Zone of Death
1917
Director, Writer
French silent film by Abel Gance. Considered lost.

Barberousse
1917
Director, Writer
A journalist attempt to stop a mysterious criminal : "Barbe rousse".

The Torture of Silence
1917
Director, Writer
Hardly one of French filmmaker Abel Gance's masterpieces, The Torture of Silence nevertheless has more dramatic and psychological value than your aver...

The Right to Life
1917
Director, Writer
A young girl marries a financier knowing he has only a short time to live, so she can inherit his money.Her lover, who has made a fortune away in Amer...

Deadly Gas
1916
Director, Writer
Hopson, a prestigious scientist, studies the effect of snake venom to cure many diseases of mankind. His son enlists in the army when the Great War br...
Le périscope
1916
Director, Writer
Le périscope is a 1928 film
Le fou de la falaise
1916
Director, Writer
Le fou de la falaise is a 1916 silent film
Un drame au château d'Acre
1915
Director, Writer
Un drame au château d'Acre is a 1915 silent short
L'héroïsme de Paddy
1915
Director, Writer
L'héroïsme de Paddy is a 1915 silent film
L'énigme de dix heures
1915
Director, Writer
Guards are posted to protect various important figures who are threatened with a phone call, that by 10 p.m. the following night they will be dead.Som...

The Madness of Dr. Tube
1915
Director, Writer
A scientist develops a powder that he believes will have the effect of distorting reality for those who take it. To test its effect tries it out on hi...
L'infirmière
1914
Writer
L'infirmière is a 1914 silent film.

The Mask of Horror
1912
Director, Screenplay
A mad sculptor, searching for the perfect realization of "the mask of horror", places himself in front of a mirror after smearing blood over himself w...

A Tragic Love of Mona Lisa
1912
Writer

La Digue
1911
Director, Writer
La digue is a 1911 silent film
Le Portrait de Mireille
1910
Writer
A talented painter spends his vacation in Arles, where he paints a portrait of a beautiful Arlesian woman with whom he falls in love. The young girl i...

Molière
1910
as Molière jeune
A film about the life of Molière (1622-1673).

Molière
1910
Writer
A film about the life of Molière (1622-1673).
Jephté's Daughter
1910
Writer

The Death of the Duke of Enghien in 1804
1909
Writer
Directed by Albert Capellani.

Abel Gance's Magnum Opus
N/A
as Self (archive footage)
Abel Gance's Magnum Opus was a documentary project put together by jdtspring. This project started at the beginning of 2024 and is a multiple volume s...