The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
French theatrical release poster
FrenchLes Parapluies de Cherbourg
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Directed byJacques Demy
Written byJacques Demy
Produced byMag Bodard
Starring
CinematographyJean Rabier
Edited by
  • Anne-Marie Cotret
  • Monique Teisseire
Music byMichel Legrand
Production
companies
  • Parc Film
  • Madeleine Films
  • Beta Film GmbH
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • 19 February 1964 (1964-02-19) (France)
  • 12 November 1965 (1965-11-12) (West Germany)
Running time
91 minutes
Countries
  • France
  • West Germany
LanguageFrench
Budget$0.2 million
Box office$7.6 million

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. The film's dialogue is entirely sung as recitative, including casual conversation, and is sung-through like some operas and stage musicals. It has been seen as the second of an informal tetralogy of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall atmosphere of romantic melancholy, coming after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Model Shop (1969). The French-language film was a co-production between France and West Germany.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Palme d'Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. In the United States, it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 37th Academy Awards and four more at the 38th ceremony including Best Original Screenplay (Demy), Best Original Score (Demy and Legrand), and Best Original Song for the film's main theme, "I Will Wait for You". It was later adapted into an English-language stage musical.

In 2018, a BBC Culture critics' poll ranked the film at number 51 in the Top 100 Greatest Non-English Films of All Time.