In his films he addresses various themes related to morality and the development of modern society, such as homosexuality, divorce, adultery, family breakdown, prostitution, crime, drug addiction or AIDS.

[1] He failed the entrance examination at France's most prominent film school Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC),[1][3] but started to write reviews for Cahiers du cinéma, where he worked for four years (1964–1967).

Influenced by Roland Barthes, Bertolt Brecht, Ingmar Bergman, William Faulkner and the cinematic French New Wave, Téchiné's style lies in his exploration of sexuality and national identity, as he challenges expectations in his depictions of gay relations, the North African dimensions of contemporary French culture, or the center-periphery relationship between Paris and his native Southwest.

[7] Fear of flying prevents him from attending most film openings or festivals more than a train ride from his Paris apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Garden.

After working in television and theater,[8] Téchiné first came to prominence with his second film, Souvenirs d'en France (French Provincial) (1974), a mix of black comedy, romantic drama and nostalgia with a distinct tone.

Hôtel des Amériques (1981), set in Biarritz, explores the strained relationship between a successful middle-aged woman and an unfulfilled and emotionally unbalanced man in a story of hopelessly ill-matched love.

After making the television production La Matiouette ou l'arrière-pays (1983), Téchiné returned to critical attention with Rendez-vous (1985), a noir melodrama replete with the seductive surface of the era.

[9] In the film a would-be actress, Nina, fleeing her provincial home for Paris, enters a turbulent love relationship with a sadistic, self-destructive young actor who caused the death of his former girlfriend.

When the actor himself is killed in an accident, or possible suicide, his former mentor/director, and father of the dead girlfriend, determines to cast the inexperienced Nina as the female lead in 'Romeo and Juliet', a role his deceased daughter played.

By now considered by some to be a major director of the post-New Wave, Téchiné won the Cannes Festival Best Direction Award while helping launch the career of Juliette Binoche.

In Téchiné's next film, Les Innocents (1987), a young woman, born and raised in Northern France, is visiting the Mediterranean city of Toulon for the first time.

J'embrasse pas (I Don't Kiss) (1991) is a bleak, melancholic portrait of a young man searching and failing to find meaning in his life.

My Favorite Season (Ma saison préférée) (1993) is a dark and somber story of middle-aged estranged siblings, a provincial lawyer (sister) and a surgeon (brother).

Wild Reeds is his most autobiographical movie; like the teen-age Téchiné, the main character, François, attends an all-male boarding school.

[2] While part of the story revolves around François' discovery that he is gay, Téchiné said his principal interest was to evoke how the Algerian war of independence was felt in a rural corner of France.

[2] Wild Reeds was a hit at the 1994 César award ceremony, winning four out of eight nominations (best film, best director, best script, and best newcomer for Élodie Bouchez).

It postulates a fatalistic world bound by family origins and romantic longings in which every character is trapped into becoming a thief of one kind or another, emotionally as well as existentially.

After two less successful ventures, André Téchiné received acclaim with Strayed (Les égarés) (2003), an adaptation of the novel Le Garçon aux yeux gris, by Gilles Perrault.

In 1940, an attractive widow flees Nazi-occupied Paris for the South with her small daughter and teenage son; they are soon joined by a mysterious young man.

Changing Times (Les temps qui changent) (2004) is an exploration of cultural collision in contemporary Morocco, oscillating between two worlds and two ideas about the meaning of experience and the enduring power of love.

Téchiné weaves together a half dozen subplots, creating a set of variations on the theme of divided sensibilities tugging one another into states of perpetual unrest and possible happiness.

Mehdi, a French-Arab vice cop, is in an open marriage with Sarah, a writer of children's books who finds herself unable to bond with her newborn child.

Sarah's best friend, Adrien, a middle-aged doctor, is infatuated with Manu, a narcissistic young man, who has recently arrived in Paris from the South.

The director worked, in part, from Jean Marie Besset's play about the scandal, RER, as well as from news reports and court records.

While suffering from writer's block, he hires his wife's ex-lesbian lover to investigate the disappearance of his adult daughter from a previous marriage who had eloped while visiting Venice.

The film, based on the memoir Une femme face à la Mafia written by Agnès Le Roux's mother and brother, marked the 7th collaboration between André Téchiné and Catherine Deneuve.