His career started with small roles in
Frou-Frou (1955) and
Un drôle de dimanche (1958), followed by playing
Roger Hanin's son in
Mon pote le gitan (1959). His first leading role came by playing the lover of
Brigitte Bardot's character in
La Bride sur le Cou (1961). The year before he had completed Subor's most important early role as Bruno Forestier, a French deserter in Geneva in
Jean-Luc Godard's
Le Petit Soldat (1960), set against terrorist acts in France and Switzerland during the
guerre sans nom of the
Algerian War. The film starred
Anna Karina in her debut. Due to its politically sensitive content, the French government banned its release until 1963, after the end of the war. A new print was released in 2012. The critic Roger Ebert wrote that "Godard, in 1960, making a film about the Algerian War, was portraying the sort of intellectual and moral confusion that good men have when they confront senseless events." In 2005
Jacques Mandelbaum described Subor in
Le Monde as one of the greatest actors in French cinema, but said that his roles in the 1960s and 1970s were not "as favorable, ambiguous, fascinating as the Little Soldier." Subor worked with the director
Paul Gégauff, in
The Reflux (1965), adapted from a novel by
Robert Louis Stevenson. But the producer had not acquired the rights and the film was left unfinished in 1965. The next year he was in
Wild Innocence (2000) directed by
Philippe Garrel. She said of him: "Michel Subor is not a celebrity in ''L'Intrus''; he is the intruder." ("Sur le plateau de L'Intrus, il a captivé tout le monde, mais personne n'a voulu percer son mystère. Michel Sobor n'est pas le personnage de L'Intrus, il est L'Intrus.") He also had a major role in her
White Material in 2009, which was set in an unnamed country in Africa. ==Personal life and death==