Although Leconte attended IDHEC, France's most distinguished film school, he went to work as a writer, cartoonist and draftsman for the French humor magazine PILOTE. Leconte had made a few short films, but it was his work with comics that inspired his first motion picture, "Les Veces etaient fermes d' l'interieur" (1975). He honed his craft helming TV productions and commercials for a few years before being asked by the comedy troupe "Le Splendid" to direct a film which would star its members. The result, "Les Bronzes/ Sun Tan" (1978), was a sleeper hit and marked his initial collaboration with French comic actor and writer Michel Blanc. The inevitable sequel, "Les Bronzes font du ski" (1979) followed. In 1980, Leconte directed Blanc in "Viens chez moi, habite chez une copine/Come to My Place, I'm Living at My Girlfriends", which Blanc also wrote. Leconte and Blanc co-wrote the screenplay for "Les Specialistes" (1984).
Blanc played the title role in "Monsieur Hire" (1989), Leconte's first film to receive distribution in the USA which focused on an older man framed for murder by a younger woman. The director followed with the idiosyncratic "The Hairdresser's Husband" (1990), which featured a strong central performance by Anna Galiena. "Tango" (1993) remained in Leconte's familiar territory of exploring romance by focusing on an elegant womanizer who plots the murder of his long-suffering wife when she begins to philander as well. That same year, Leconte also wrote and directed "Yvonne's Perfume", about a man haunted by a 1958 romance. The prolific filmmaker also completed "Les Grands ducs" (1996), a comedy about a two-bit theater troupe traveling the French provinces.