Born in a Toshavim Jewish family in Oran, then-French Algeria, he settled in France with his family in 1963. He first wanted to be a comic book artist, then shifted to radio. He worked his way up on the RMC radio channel from stringer jobs to broadcasting host, and from there the founder of TV channel Canal+, Pierre Lescure, noticed him and hired him.
At Canal+, he gained fame after founding the comedy group "Les Nuls" (The Dummies) with Bruno Carette, Chantal Lauby and Dominique Farrugia in the late 1980s. His parodic and nonsensical comedy writing has been largely inspired by the group he's a huge fan of — Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and went on to become a key component of "L'esprit Canal" (the "Canal Spirit"), Canal+'s irreverent brand of humor. Les Nuls disbanded in 1992, but still ended up reunited with great success on the big screen with La Cité de la peur in 1994, which is still considered as one of the best French absurd comedies ever made.
Along with his acting and voice acting career (he is the French voice of Shrek, among others), he went on to become a commercially successful director, most famously with Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra. He also kept working for Canal+, such as when he hosted the comedic Game Show Burger Quiz in the early 2000s, or Le Late avec Alain Chabat since 2022.
Works he has appeared in include:
- La classe américaine - Le Grand Détournement (1993) as Gorge Profonde (Deep Throat)
- La Cité de la peur (1994) as Serge Karamazov / the hammer & sickle killer / Jacques (also co-written by him)
- French Twist (1995) as Laurent
- Didier (1997) as Didier
- Quest for Camelot (1998) as Devon & Cornwall (French dub)
- The Taste of Others (2000) as Bruno Deschamps
- Asterix
- Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002) as Julius Caesar
- Asterix: The Mansions of the Gods (2014) as Senator Prospectus (voice)
- Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight (2025) as Asterix (voice)
- Shrek (2001 - 2010) as Shrek (French dub)
- RRRrrrr!!! (2004) as Pierre the medicine man
- Avez-vous déjà vu... ? (2006) as the Narrator
- Kaamelott as the Duke of Aquitania
- Kaamelott (2007)
- Kaamelott: First Installment (2021)
- Kaamelott: Second Installment - Part I (2025)
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) as the living Napoléon Bonaparte wax figure
- A Thousand Words (2012) as Christian Léger de la Touffe
- HOUBA! On the Trail of the Marsupilami (2012) as Dan Geraldo
- Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) as Silas (French dub)
- Mood Indigo (2013) as Jules Gouffé
- Reality (2014) as Jason Tantra
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) as Bob the pirate
- Incredible But True (2022) as Alain
- Smoking Causes Coughing (2022) as Chief Didier
- Beating Hearts (2024) as Jackie's father
- Evil Dead Burn (2026) as Alice's father
Directed works:
- Didier
- Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
- RRRrrrr!!!
- HOUBA! On the Trail of the Marsupilami
- Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight
Tropes about his works:
- Descended Creator: He very frequently stars in the films that he directs.
- He Also Did:
- Along with his Les Nuls buddy Dominique Farrugia, he wrote the French dub of Wayne's World, which has received particular praise.
- Les Nuls also wrote the French dialogues in the dub of Police Squad!.
- He wrote a Parody Commercial that was directed by none other than James Cameron in the early 1990s. A few years later, Chabat attended the French premiere of Titanic, and unexpectedly, Cameron recognized him and even mentioned Les Nuls by name.
- Parody: The bread and butter of Les Nuls, and beyond in some of the things he wrote and/or directed. Les Nuls, much like Les Inconnus, parodied plenty of films, television shows and ads of the late 1980s and early 1990s, but with way more absurd and less slapstick.
- Parody Commercial: He did a lot of them while with the comedy group Les Nuls. One of the more famous ones is "Royal Rabbin", a parody of the 1980s dog food brand ad "Royal Canin" with the theme "Chi Mai" by Ennio Morricone playing, with himself as a rabbi running in the grass in slow motion like a happy dog.