A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later (Un homme et une femme : Vingt ans déjà)

Claude Lelouch returned in 1986 to his great 1966 box-office hit Un homme et une femme with this French sequel, titled Un homme et une femme : Vingt ans déjà, which literally means “A Man and a Woman, Twenty Years Already”. Known in English as A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later, it is a drama in the melodramatic, romantic register. Shot in French, it runs 112 minutes and was released in Brazil as Um Homem e Uma Mulher: 20 Anos Depois.

The leads are the two stars of the first film, Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The story rests on Anne and Jean-Louis meeting again after the long years between and on memories of their first encounter. Évelyne Bouix and Jean-Claude Brialy appear alongside them, as do Richard Berry, Philippe Leroy, Charles Gérard, Gérard Oury, Jacques Weber, Michèle Morgan, Nicole Garcia and Robert Hossein. Lelouch shares the screenplay credit with Pierre Uytterhoeven, Monique Lange and Jérôme Tonnerre.

The film was shown out of competition at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. Lelouch carried the story of both films forward in 2019 with Les plus belles années d'une vie (The Best Years of a Life), again starring Trintignant and Aimée.