One of France's best-known film directors, Claude Chabrol, has died at the age of 80.
Best known for films such as The Unfaithful Wife, The Butcher and This Man Must Die, Chabrol was part of the French Nouvelle Vague or New Wave movement, along with contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer.
He made more than 50 films during his career, the BBC reports. His final film, Bellamy, starring Gerard Depardieu, was released in 2009.
"With the death of Claude Chabrol, French cinema has lost one of its maestros," says French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has hailed him as "the inventor of inspired, rich and profoundly human movies".
The cause of the director's death is not yet known.
