Les enfants du paradis 1945

Bosley Crowther, New York Times: On the basis alone of performance and of its bold, picturesque mise en scene, Les Enfants du Paradis is worth your custom. What you get otherwise is to boot. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Before French cinema reinvented itself with jump cuts and cool bobs, Marcel Carne's 19th-century backstage drama was the epitome of good taste: a sumptuous spread of genteel sparring and epic heartache. Read more

Don Druker, Chicago Reader: It runs 187 minutes, and it's worth every one of them. Read more

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: What ultimately defines the film, though, what makes it unforgettable, is its tragic gravity. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: To luxuriate in the film's 3-hour, 10-minute length is to experience this masterpiece as it hasn't been experienced since the day it opened. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Shot in 1943 during World War II, Children of Paradise overcame so many seemingly impossible obstacles that today the film seems enchanted. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Poetry with a capital "P," sprinkled with fairy dust. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: All discussions of Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise begin with the miracle of its making. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: If you give this movie time to work on you, the elements that seem overly artificial or impossibly distant from our own time fade into insignificance, and you're left with a complicated and wonderful romantic drama that's full of surprises. Read more

Tom Milne, Time Out: A marvellously witty, ineffably graceful rondo of passions and perversities. Read more

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Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: Marcel Carne's towering intimate epic of early 19th-century love and the lives of performers, often heralded as the greatest French film of all time. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: The movie has flashes of oldtime magic. It's a precious piece of time past -- and time kept. Read more