Adapting works by writers such as Johan Daisne, Julien Gracq and Marguerite Yourcenar, he received international attention for directing magic realist films.

Delvaux received the Louis Delluc Prize for Rendezvous at Bray (1971) and the André Cavens Award for Woman Between Wolf and Dog (1979) and The Abyss (1988).

[4] Delvaux received international attention for his first feature film, The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (1965), which is based on Johan Daisne's novel with the same title.

[5] Rendezvous at Bray (1971), loosely based Julien Gracq's novella King Cophetua, is set during World War I and places great emphasis on atmosphere.

The film stars Mathieu Carrière, Roger Van Hool, Bulle Ogier and Anna Karina, and became a turning point in Delvaux's career, because its critical success allowed him to choose his subjects more freely.

[2] The painterly Benvenuta (1983), based on Suzanne Lilar's book La Confession anonyme, plays with reality and imagination through a story about a screenwriter who adapts a novel for film.

[7] Aligning himself with a tradition that involved painters such as Hieronymus Bosch, René Magritte and Paul Delvaux,[2] he proclaimed and expressed a "belgitude" connected to magic realism.

[8] Delvaux's assertion of a distinctive Belgian identity, separate from French cinema, gave him status as the founder of the country's national film industry.

[8] Two important collaborators were the cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet, who worked on Delvaux's first four feature films,[2] and the composer Frédéric Devreese, who provided original music throughout his career.