The Intouchables

Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano's The Intouchables (French: Intouchables) opened in France in November 2011 and became the second-highest-grossing French-language film ever made at the time, with over €425 million worldwide and over nineteen million admissions in France alone. Omar Sy won the César Award for Best Actor at the 2012 ceremony, the first Black actor to win in the category, beating Jean Dujardin in the same year Dujardin would win the Academy Award for The Artist. The film also won the Silver Bear (German: Lola) and the Marius Award (San Sebastián) at the 2012 Berlinale.

The film is loosely based on the real story of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo (the wealthy quadriplegic) and Abdel Sellou (his caregiver), who had documented their relationship in di Borgo's 2001 memoir Le second souffle. Pozzo di Borgo, a member of an aristocratic Corsican-Mauritanian family, served as on-set consultant; Sellou (Algerian-French rather than Senegalese as in the film) has continued to publish memoirs of his own. Pozzo di Borgo died in 2023.

The cast pairs François Cluzet (one of France's most consistent post-2000s leading men) with Sy, then breaking through to mainstream success. Cinematography is by Mathieu Vadepied (later the director of Father & Soldier) and the score is by Ludovico Einaudi. The film led directly to a 2017 American remake (The Upside with Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart) and Indian, Korean and Spanish versions in subsequent years. Nakache and Toledano followed the success with Samba (2014), C'est la vie! (2017) and The Specials (2019), all starring Sy.