Rubber-faced French actor Dominique Pinon is best known for his work in the films of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. His malleable, idiosyncratic features made him seem a natural feature of Caro and Jeunet's surreal landscape, something that was demonstrated in both Delicatessen (1991) and La Cité Des Enfants Perdus (The City of Lost Children, 1995). For his portrayal of a circus performer who comes to stay in a boarding house where the meat supply is of somewhat dubious origin, Pinon earned praise from a number of international critics and a measure of cult recognition.

Aside from his work with Caro and Jeunet, Pinon can be seen in numerous French films of widely varying quality. In films since 1980, he has appeared in such diverse offerings as Diva (1981), Le Retour de Martin Guerre (1982), and Roman Polanski's Frantic (1988). In 1997, he collaborated with Jeunet on a rare American outing, Alien Resurrection, in which he played a paralyzed mechanic on an ill-fated commercial freighter.