Among his best-known films was Cinema Paradiso, in which he played the role of a village projectionist and other memorable parts included the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in Il Postino (The Postman) and a middle-aged glutton in La Grande Bouffe (Blow Out).
Philippe Noiret had made the transition from stage to screen and had helped to shape the French cinema of the 1960s.
His performance as an unhappy uncle in Zazie dans le Metro (Zazie on the Metro) established his name.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said that the worlds of both theatre and film had been suddenly orphaned by Philippe Noiret's death.
