After attending the School of Political Science at the University of Paris, he was a critic and public relations man for Twentieth Century-Fox's French office. Le Beau Serge (1958; “Handsome Serge”; Bitter Reunion), written and produced by Chabrol, was an important film of the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague), a term applied in the late 1950s to a widely diversified experimental movement in French films. That same year he wrote, directed, and produced Les Cousins (1958; The Cousins) and later directed such pictures as Les Bonnes Femmes (1960; “The Good Women”), Landru (1962; Bluebeard), Les Biches (1968; The Does), and Le Boucher (1969; The Butcher).

As the New Wave receded, Chabrol maintained a prodigious output, creating such works as Violette Nozière (1978; Violette), Le Cheval d'orgueil (1979; The Horse of Pride), Blood Relatives (1981), Poulet au vinaigre (1985; “Chicken in Vinegar”), Une Affaire de femmes (1988; Story of Women), and an adaptation (1991) of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. His critical successes at the turn of the century include La Cérémonie (1995; A Judgement in Stone), Merci pour le chocolat (2000; Nightcap), and La Fleur de mal (2003; The Flower of Evil).

Chabrol's fascination with the grotesque, his use of the irony of situation, and his commingling of tragedy and comedy reflect the strong stylistic influence of the English director Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock, Sir Alfred). He was coauthor of a biography of Hitchcock in 1957.