Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis)

Directed by Marcel Carné from a screenplay by poet Jacques Prévert, the 1945 French film Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise) was shot in two parts under harsh wartime conditions during the German occupation of France, between 1943 and early 1945. Set in the theatrical world of 1830s Paris, around the street once nicknamed the Boulevard du Crime, it follows Garance, a beautiful and free-spirited courtesan loved in utterly different ways by four men: the mime Baptiste Debureau, the brash stage actor Frédérick Lemaître, the criminal Lacenaire, and an aristocrat, the Comte de Montray. The shy mime never manages to confess his feelings, while the actress Nathalie, who loves him, schemes against her rival. The four suitors were inspired by real French figures of the era. Running about three hours, the film is regarded as a masterpiece of poetic realism. François Truffaut famously said he would trade all his own films to have directed it, and in a 1995 poll of six hundred French critics and professionals it was voted the greatest French film ever made. It also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.