Almost ten years passed before Clément directed a feature but his French Resistance film, La Bataille du rail (1945), gained much critical and commercial success.

From there Clément became one of his country's most successful and respected directors, garnering numerous awards including two films that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the first in 1950 for The Walls of Malapaga (Au-delà des grilles) and the second time two years later for Forbidden Games (Jeux interdits).

Clément had international success with several films but his star-studded 1966 epic Is Paris Burning?, written by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Paul Graetz was a costly box office failure.

[3] Clément continued to make a few films until his retirement in 1975, including an international success with Rider on the Rain that starred Charles Bronson and Marlène Jobert.

[4] Clément died on 17 March 1996, a day before his 83rd birthday, and was buried in the local cemetery in Menton on the French Riviera where he had spent his years in retirement.