Isabelle Adjani

Born in Paris in 1955, Adjani broke through at twenty with The Story of Adèle H., earning an Oscar nomination as the youngest Best Actress nominee at the time. She became the face of French intensity through the late seventies and eighties: possessed and feral in Possession, sculptor Camille Claudel in the biopic that brought her a second Oscar nod, making her the first French actress twice-nominated for foreign-language work. Five Césars followed across three decades - for Possession, One Deadly Summer, Camille Claudel, La Reine Margot, and La Journée de la jupe. She also took joint Best Actress at Cannes in 1981 for Possession and Quartet, the only performer to win for two films in a single competition. The work kept coming into the 2020s, and so did the Légion d'honneur.