Sami Bouajila’s Typical Vibe
Signature vibe

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Sami Bouajila has 15 titles in the CriticCrunch catalog across a career spanning the 1990s through the 2020s.
Recurring themes

Franck is a firefighter in Paris. He saves people. He lives at the station with his wife, who is about to have twins. He’s happy. During a call out to a fire, he puts himself in danger, to save his men. He’s going to have to learn to live again and accept to be the one being saved, this time.
Dir. Frédéric Tellier · With Pierre Niney, Anaïs Demoustier, Vincent Rottiers

After losing their family home in Algeria in the 1920s, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle.
Dir. Rachid Bouchareb · With Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila

A tough nightclub bouncer struggling to raise his 8-year-old daughter is forced to go undercover after an unfortunate event.
Dir. Julien Leclercq · With Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sami Bouajila, Sveva Alviti

In the summer of 1991 an elderly woman Ghislaine Marchal is found murdered in the basement of her home with the message "Omar M'a Tuer" (Omar has kill me) written beside in her own blood. Despite a lack of forensic or DNA evidence, her Moroccan gardener Omar Raddad is found guilty and sentenced to 18 years in a French prison. Shocked by the case, and convinced of his innocence, journalist Pierre-Emmanuel Vaugrenard moves to Nice to investigate, and uncover the truth...
Dir. Roschdy Zem · With Sami Bouajila, Maurice Bénichou, Denis Podalydès

1943. They have never stepped foot on French soil but because France was at war, Said, Abdelkader, Messaoud and Yassir enlist in the French Army, along with 130,000 other “indigenous” soldiers, to liberate the “fatherland” from the Nazi enemy. Heroes that history has forgotten…
Dir. Rachid Bouchareb · With Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem

A sawmill owner and his teenage daughter become tangled in a deadly feud when a drug dealer stashes stolen cocaine on their remote property.
Dir. Julien Leclercq · With Sami Bouajila, Ériq Ebouaney, Samy Seghir
11 years ago, inspector Malik couldn’t solve a kidnapping case and a little girl died. Now with only a few days before the crime gets classified, he decides to reopen the case. Malik owes it to the mother and to himself. As he digs into the past, a child is kidnapped again. The pattern is the same one as a decade ago, it’s no coincidence. Malik knows he has a few days to make things right and to bring justice.
Dir. Juan Carlos Medina · With Sami Bouajila, Julie Gayet, Anne Azoulay

A hairdresser forwards a passionate love letter to her widowed mother.
Dir. Pierre Salvadori · With Audrey Tautou, Sami Bouajila, Nathalie Baye

Mehdi, a qualified robber, and Liana, an apprentice thief, get involved in a turf war between drug dealers, and have to collaborate in order to save their loved ones.
Dir. Julien Leclercq, Hamid Hlioua · With Sami Bouajila, Tracy Gotoas, Salim Kéchiouche

Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.
Dir. Thomas Kruithof · With François Cluzet, Denis Podalydès, Sami Bouajila

Soulmates Eric and Shelly are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.
Dir. Rupert Sanders · With Bill Skarsgård, FKA twigs, Danny Huston
One of the members of a gang of thieves commits a serious mistake that force them to work for a ruthless gang of drug dealers, endangering the future of the team, their lives and those of their families.
Dir. Julien Leclercq · With Sami Bouajila, Guillaume Gouix, Youssef Hajdi

The secret US abduction of a suspected terrorist from his Middle East homeland leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York. An FBI senior agent and his team attempt to locate and decommission the enemy cells, but must also deal with an Army General gone rogue and a female CIA agent of uncertain loyalties.
Dir. Edward Zwick · With Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, Bruce Willis
The Malakian clan, a family of ruthless gangsters, controls the underworld of Southern France. At its head, the violent godfather Milo Malakian rules his world with an iron fist. His son and heir, Anton, dreams of breaking free and making his own choices. But the gang's inner circle is engraved in blood. To escape, not only does Anton have to counter his own destiny, but also the man who has sworn to bring his father down.
Dir. Laurent Tuel · With Jean Reno, Gaspard Ulliel, Vahina Giocante
A team of former robbers arrived at Paradise: Phuket, southern Thailand. Now traders, they are happy days. Until the day when the devil arrives: Mehdi, sentenced to 15 years in prison during the robbery, comes to recover his share of the cake.
Dir. Xavier Durringer · With Sami Bouajila, Tewfik Jallab, Mélanie Doutey
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Directors with 2+ shared titles, ranked by frequency