Operation Leopard

Operation Leopard

1980 · 96 min · ★ 5.6 · War

In May 1978, the mining town of Kolwezi in Katanga, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Belgian Congo) is under attack from a group of communist guerillas coming from nearby Angola. The Europeans who work for the Belgian mining company and the Blacks who live in the town are taken as hostages by the invaders, who start a blood bath, shooting Europeans as well as Africans. Many of the Europeans being French, the French decide to organize a counter-attack, and to send a Regiment of Paratroopers from the Foreign Legion. The movie follows the stories of Delbart, a former non-commissioned officer, who was about to go back to France with his African wife and his child, Damrémont, who was Delbart's replacement, Bia, a Zairian doctor, and Annie, an American married to a Belgian engineer as well as Non com Legion officer Federico and the French Ambassador and the Military Attaché.

Directed by Raoul Coutard · Written by André G. Brunelin

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Rent or Buy

Cast

Bruno Cremer Pierre Delbart
Mimsy Farmer Annie
Jacques Perrin L'ambassadeur Berthier
Giuliano Gemma Adjudant-chef Federico
Laurent Malet Damrémont
Pierre Vaneck Colonel Grasser
Jean-Claude Bouillon Maurois
Gérard Essomba Bia Kombo
Robert Etcheverry Le colonel Dubourg
Pierre Rousseau Debruyn
Henri Marteau Chamfort
Laure Moutoussamy Elodie

Make it a double feature

3h 38m together

Operation Leopard

Z

Both from Raoul Coutard.

More from Raoul CoutardSee all →

MovieThrillerCrime

A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth, but a tenacious magistrate is determined not to let them get away with it.

Vivre Sa Vie

Vivre Sa Vie · 1962

Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.

Breathless

Breathless · 1960

MovieDramaCrime

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

Jules and Jim

Jules and Jim · 1962

MovieDramaRomance

In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.

Band of Outsiders

Band of Outsiders · 1964

Band of Outsiders

MovieCrimeDrama

Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.

A Woman Is a Woman

A Woman Is a Woman · 1961

A Woman Is a Woman

MovieComedyDrama

Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.

Pierrot le Fou

Pierrot le Fou · 1965

MovieDramaRomance

Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.

Shoot the Piano Player

Shoot the Piano Player · 1960

Shoot the Piano Player

MovieDramaThriller

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

Chronicle of a Summer

Chronicle of a Summer · 1961

Chronicle of a Summer

MovieDocumentary

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Morin wander through the crowded streets asking passersby how they cope with life's misfortunes.

Antoine and Colette

Antoine and Colette · 1962

Antoine and Colette

MovieRomanceDrama

Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).

The Soft Skin

The Soft Skin · 1964

MovieDramaRomance

Pierre Lachenay is a well-known publisher and lecturer, married to Franca and father of Sabine. He starts a love affair with air hostess Nicole, which Pierre is hiding, but he cannot stay away from her.

The Bride Wore Black

The Bride Wore Black · 1968

The Bride Wore Black

MovieCrimeDrama

Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves home with the intent to track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?

Lola

MovieDramaRomance

A bored young man meets with his former girlfriend, now a cabaret dancer and single mother, and soon finds himself falling back in love with her.

Contempt

Contempt · 1963

MovieDramaRomance

Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.

La Chinoise

La Chinoise · 1967

MovieDramaComedy

A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.

A Pain in the Ass

A Pain in the Ass · 1973

A Pain in the Ass

MovieComedyDrama

Ralf Milan, a hitman, arrives in Montpellier to kill an important witness. He checks in a hotel without knowing that his neighbour has become neurotic after his wife left him.

More Like This

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket · 1987

Full Metal Jacket

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

The Last Samurai

The Last Samurai · 2003

The Last Samurai

MovieDramaAction

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

The African Queen

The African Queen · 1952

The African Queen

MovieAdventureRomance

At the start of the First World War, in the middle of Africa’s nowhere, a gin soaked riverboat captain is persuaded by a strong-willed missionary to go down river and face-off a German warship.

Sunflower

Sunflower · 1970

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor · 2001

The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Black Hawk Down

Black Hawk Down · 2001

Black Hawk Down

When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground.

Shanghai Express

Shanghai Express · 1932

Shanghai Express

MovieDramaRomance

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion · 1937

MovieDramaHistory

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

Platoon

Platoon · 1986

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia · 1962

Lawrence of Arabia

MovieAdventureHistory

During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.

Rambo: First Blood Part II

Rambo: First Blood Part II · 1985

Rambo: First Blood Part II

MovieActionAdventure

John Rambo is released from prison by the government for a top-secret covert mission to the last place on Earth he'd want to return - the jungles of Vietnam.

The Big Parade

The Big Parade · 1925

MovieRomanceWar

The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.

Savior

MovieHistoryDrama

A hardened mercenary in the Foreign Legion begins to find his own humanity when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in Bosnia.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter