Jean-Pierre Jeunet

His work with science fiction and horror led him to direct Alien Resurrection (1997), the fourth film in the Alien film series and his first and thus far only American film. In 2001, Jeunet achieved his biggest success with Amélie, which won him international acclaim; the film reached BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet studied at lycée Henri-Poincaré. The recorded working language is French. Places of work recorded in the authority are France. Works named in the authority record are Amélie and A Very Long Engagement. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the Legion of Honour, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, Edgar Awards and Special Award of the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire.

• Name — Jean-Pierre Jeunet • Born — 3 September 1953 • Birthplace — Roanne, Loire, France • Occupation — * Director • screenwriter • producer • Spouse — Liza Sullivan • Years Active — 1978–present • Notable Works — Delicatessen The City of Lost Children Amélie A Very Long Engagement

Jean-Pierre Jeunet was born in Roanne, France. He bought his first camera at the age of 17 and made short films while studying animation at Cinémation Studios. He befriended Marc Caro, a designer and comic book artist who became his longtime collaborator and co-director. They met at an animation festival in Annecy in the 1970s. Together, Jeunet and Caro directed award-winning animations. Their first live-action film was The Bunker of the Last Gunshots (1981), a short film about soldiers in a bleak futuristic world. Jeunet also directed numerous advertisements and music videos, such as Jean-Michel Jarre's Zoolook (together with Caro). Jeunet's films often resonate with the late twentieth-century French film movement cinéma du look and allude to themes and aesthetics involving German expressionism, French poetic realism, and the French New Wave. Jeunet and Caro's first feature film was Delicatessen (1991), a melancholy comedy set in a famine-plagued post-apocalyptic world, in which an apartment building above a delicatessen is ruled by a butcher who kills people in order to feed his tenants. They next made The City of Lost Children (1995), a dark, multi-layered fantasy film about a mad scientist who steals children's dreams so that he can live indefinitely. The success of The City of Lost Children led to an invitation to direct the fourth film in the Alien series, Alien Resurrection (1997). This is where Jeunet and Caro ended up going their separate ways, as Jeunet believed this to be an amazing opportunity whereas Caro was not interested in working on a big-budget Hollywood movie on which he would lack creative control. Caro ended up assisting for a few weeks with costumes and set design, but then he decided to start a solo career in illustration and computer graphics. Jeunet directed Amélie (2001), the story of a woman who takes pleasure in doing good deeds but has trouble finding love herself, which starred Audrey Tautou. Amélie was a huge critical and commercial success worldwide and was nominated for several Academy Awards. For his work on the film, Jeunet won a European Film Award for Best Director. In 2004, Jeunet released A Very Long Engagement, an adaptation of the novel by Sébastien Japrisot. The film, starring Audrey Tautou and Jodie Foster, chronicled a woman's search for her missing lover after World War I. In 2005 Jean-Pierre Jeunet was involved in the creation of a detailed history project about the life of French aviator Louis Blériot. After a year Jeunet felt the movie was too close in historic timeline to A Very Long Engagement and the project was abandoned. In 2009, he released Micmacs, which is about a man and his friends who come up with an intricate and original plan to destroy two big weapons manufacturers. Jeunet has also directed numerous commercials, including a 2'25" film for Chanel N° 5 featuring his frequent collaborator Audrey Tautou. In 2013, Jeunet released The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet, an adaptation of Reif Larsen's book The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet that starred Kyle Catlett. In 2016, Jeunet and Romain Segaud co-directed the three-minute stop-motion animation film Deux escargots s'en vont, based on a poem by Jacques Prévert. Since his last release, Jeunet has tried to get other projects funded but has found it impossible to find investors willing to take a risk on his quirky films. He stated in 2019 that he may go to Netflix "as a last resort", and indeed his next film, Bigbug, was released by the streaming video company in 2022.

• 1984: La Fille aux bas nylon by Julien Clerc • 1985: Zoolook by Jean-Michel Jarre, with Marc Caro • 1987: Tombé pour la France • 1987: Hélène by Julien Clerc • 1988: Souvenez-vous de nous by Claudia Phillips • 1989: Cache ta joie by Claudia Phillips • 1991: L'Autre Joue by Lio • 2017: Pourvu by Gauvain Sers

• 1981: Le Bunker de la dernière rafale • 1983: Pas de repos pour Billy Brakko • 2015: Institut Lumière remake, by Martin Scorsese (short film)

• Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (2016)

Jean-Pierre Jeunet is recorded as having received Knight of the Legion of Honour, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres and Edgar Awards.

• Year — English Title — Original Title — Director — Writer — Notes • 1991 — Delicatessen — Co-directed with Marc Caro • 1995 — The City of Lost Children — La Cité des enfants perdus • 1997 — Alien Resurrection • 2001 — Amélie — Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain — Story • 2004 — A Very Long Engagement — Un long dimanche de fiançailles — Also producer • 2009 — Micmacs — MicMacs à tire-larigot • 2013 — The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet • 2022 — Bigbug • 2026 — Violette — Changer l'eau des fleurs — Post-production

• Year — Title — Director — Writer — Producer — Notes • 1983 — No Rest for Billy Brakko (Pas de repos pour Billy Brakko) — Also editor • 1989 — Things I Like, Things I Don't Like (Foutaises) — Also editor • 2016 — Deux escargots s'en vont — Co-directed with Romain Segaud