His work has been strongly associated with a collection of films often described as
new extreme films. Highlighting their challenging sexual and violent bodily imagery,
Tim Palmer has described them as part of a
cinéma du corps (cinema of the body), and a cinema of 'brutal intimacy' because of its attenuated use of narrative, generally assaulting and often illegible cinematography, confrontational subject material, a treatment of sexual behavior as violent rather than mutually intimate, and a pervasive sense of social nihilism or despair. Noé often directly addresses the audience in confrontational ways, most notably in
I Stand Alone, when an intertitle warns the audience that they have 30 seconds to leave the cinema before the final violent climax. In a different way, this can be seen in
Irreversible, in which the 10-minute long single-take rape sequence has frequently been read as an assault on viewers, as well as a depiction of an assault on the female character.
Collaborations Gaspar Noé and
Lucile Hadžihalilović have repeatedly collaborated with each other on film projects since 1987. In the early 1990s, Noé co-founded the production company
Les Cinémas de la Zone with Hadžihalilović. Noé operated the camera and was the cinematographer for two short films directed by Hadžihalilović:
La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996) and
Good Boys Use Condoms (1998). Similarly, Hadžihalilović produced and edited
Carne (1991), edited
Seul contre tous (1998) and was credited as a writer on
Enter the Void (2009). The creative collaboration is made clear in the comparable stylistic choices across these early films, most clearly the credit sequences and the marketing designs. In 2025, Noé will appear in Hadžihalilović's fourth feature film,
The Ice Tower. Three of his films feature the character of a nameless butcher played by
Philippe Nahon:
Carne,
I Stand Alone and, in a cameo,
Irréversible. All of Noé's feature films are shot by cinematographer
Benoît Debie. The music for
Irréversible was composed by
Thomas Bangalter. The latter also sent Gaspar Noé an unreleased song he made circa 1995 for
Climax. The song was named
Sangria in reference to the movie. In collaboration with
Saint Laurent, he directed films
Lux Æterna and
Saint Laurent - Summer of ‘21. Style and influences Noé stated in the September 2012 edition of
Sight & Sound magazine that seeing
2001: A Space Odyssey at the age of seven changed his life, an experience without which he would never have become a director. A poster for the film features notably in a scene towards the end of
Irreversible. He also credits his mother for taking him to see other transgressive films as a child, including one by
Fassbinder, and cites the skeleton fight scene from
Jason and the Argonauts as a core memory from his youth. Since
Irréversible, he's kept working with French film poster designer Laurent Lufroy for all his feature films: Lufroy even appears in
Love (as a policeman),
Climax (as a dog-handler) and
Lux Æterna (using a torch). Additional influences cited by Noé include the French photographer
Pierre Molinier, the Japanese director
Koji Wakamatsu (particularly the film
The Embryo Hunts in Secret)
, Spanish-Mexican filmmaker
Luis Buñuel (particularly the films
Un Chien Andalou and
Los Olvidados),
David Lynch's
Eraserhead,
Le Professeur Choron (the founder of
Hara Kiri magazine), and Argentinian painter
Jorge De La Vega (who is also Noé's godfather). Many specific scenes and filmmaking decision from Noé's work were inspired by films. The warning in
I Stand Alone was influenced by the film
Homicidal (1961). The POV camera in
Enter the Void was inspired by
Lady in the Lake (1947). He has said
De Niro's performance in
Raging Bull was his "favorite male performance ever." ==Personal life==