Jean-François Richet is a French film director, screenwriter, producer and editor. Winner of the 2009 César Award for directing the two-part film series "Mesrine" and "Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1". Jean-François Richet grew up in Meaux, near Paris. For several years he worked in a factory. Jean-François Richet came to cinema inspired by the films of Soviet directors such as Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein. Richet's directorial debut, the 1995 film "État des lieux", was nominated for awards at a number of film festivals and for the César Award for Best Debut Film. In 1997, Jean-François Richet directed the film "Ma 6-T va crack-er" about the lives of street gangs in the Paris suburbs. After making three films in France, Jean-François Richet went to the United States, where John Carpenter gave him permission to remake his 1976 film "Assault on Precinct 13". Richet's film "Assault on Precinct 13" was released in 2005.

In 2008, Jean-François Richet made a biographical film about Jacques Mesrine, declared "public enemy number 1" in 1970s France. The lead role in the two-part film ("Mesrine" and "Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1"), released in 2008, was played by Vincent Cassel, who in 2009 received a César for Best Actor, while Jean-François Richet was awarded the prize for Best Director. In 2015, Jean-François Richet's comedy "One Wild Moment" was released, a remake of the 1977 film of the same name directed by Claude Berri. The lead roles in the film were played by French cinema stars Vincent Cassel and François Cluzet and young actresses Lola Le Lann and Alice Isaaz. In 2018, Richet again made a biographical film about a man with a criminal past - Eugène François Vidocq, "Vidocq: Ghost Hunter", in which the lead role was again played by Vincent Cassel. One of the roles in the film was played by actress Olga Kurylenko.