Pialat was born in Cunlhat, Puy-de-Dôme, France. He originally intended to become a painter, but met with little success. Having acquired a camera at age 16, he tried his hand at documentary films before making his first notable short, L'amour existe, in 1960.
Pialat came to filmmaking late. He directed his feature-length debut, 1969's L'enfance nue (The Naked Childhood) at age 43. The film, which was co-produced by French New Wave director François Truffaut, won the Prix Jean Vigo.
During his 35-year career, Pialat completed ten major features, many of which—most notably Loulou—have been interpreted as autobiographical. He directed Gérard Depardieu in four films: Loulou, Police, Sous le soleil de Satan (Under the Sun of Satan), for which Pialat won the Palme d'Or at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, and Le Garçu (1995).
In a posthumous tribute written for the French film magazine Positif, critic Noël Herpe called Pialat's style "a naturalism that was born of formalism". In English-language film criticism, he is often compared to his American contemporary John Cassavetes.
Summarizing Pialat's stance as a filmmaker in a profile for Film Comment, critic Kent Jones wrote: "To say that Pialat marched to the beat of a different drummer is to put it mildly. In fact, he didn't really march at all. He ambled, and fuck anybody who got it into their head that they'd like to amble along with him. Or behind him. Or ahead of him."
