Children of Paradise (1945)
Tricolore | Release Date: March 9, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
96
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Orlando SentinelJay BoyarApr 16, 2020
This lush classic is funny, dramatic, thought-provoking and always, always, always romantic. [20 Sep 1991, p.43]
100
Boston GlobeJay CarrApr 16, 2020
Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise isn't just one of France's great love stories - it's one of film's. [23 Feb 1992, p.B35]
100
Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonApr 16, 2020
The screen's most magical tale of the world of theater is this lush, intoxicating period epic: the summit of the collaboration of writer Jacques Prevert and director Carne. [12 Jan 2007, p.C3]
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 16, 2020
The writing is utterly involving; with lines like tiny, imagist poems. A rich and delicious movie treat. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 16, 2020
As a piece of romantic/dramatic cinema, its peers are few, its superiors simply nonexistent. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasApr 16, 2020
The film remains an exemplary piece of popular entertainment, full of vibrancy and wit, with unforgettable characters and a delicate, bittersweet tone that considers their emotions in balance. Read full review
100
CineVueDaniel GreenApr 16, 2020
An unmitigated masterpiece from start to finish, Carné’s epic love story through Parisian theatreland feels as fresh and effervescent today as it must have done on its initial release, brimming with perfectly-sculpted heroes, villains and wildly imaginative set-pieces. Read full review
100
The New YorkerPauline KaelApr 16, 2020
This lushly romantic creation, directed by Marcel Carne and written by Jacques Prevert, is a one-of-a-kind film, a sumptuous epic about the relations between theatre and life.
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)Apr 16, 2020
Deliberately theatrical but nevertheless greatly indebted to French poetic realism, Children of Paradise is lovingly handled by director Carne. The entire film is crammed with incident and an intoxicating eye for detail. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderDon DrukerApr 16, 2020
A breathtaking study of the relationships between life and theater, mime and tragedy, the real and the imagined, sound and silence. It runs 187 minutes, and it's worth every one of them. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 16, 2020
Few achievements in the world of cinema can equal it. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 17, 2012
Seydoux says that when the film was completed and released shortly after the end of the war, it became a symbol of freedom. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 6, 2012
Carné's film has never looked more lush. Read full review
90
The Observer (UK)Philip FrenchApr 16, 2020
The movie's final parting sequence, where Arletty rides away in a coach and Barrault is inexorably swept in the opposite direction by a swirling crowd, is among the peaks of romantic cinema. Read full review
90
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonMar 6, 2012
What's left to be said about Marcel Carné'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 full review
88
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezApr 16, 2020
Carné’s France, unlike the fiddle-dee-dee of Victor Fleming’s cotton pickin’ South, is a poetic realist’s wonderland, a gateway to a dreamworld where human laws are mere judicial errors and love is so painful to hold onto it can only be savored in the moment. Read full review
80
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)Apr 16, 2020
Carné’s camera records rather than amplifies the emotions: you can’t help but wonder what magic a René Clair, a Max Ophüls or a Jean Renoir would have found in this material. Its clamorous closing shot – which suggests, but doesn’t show, tragedy – is one of the greatest in all cinema. Read full review
75
Washington PostDesson ThomsonApr 16, 2020
To TV-raised minds, Paradise spends more time than it needs to get where it's going. But in its own terms, the movie has flashes of oldtime magic. It's a precious piece of time past -- and time kept. Read full review
70
The New York TimesBosley CrowtherApr 16, 2020
M. Carne has created a frequently captivating film which has moments of great beauty in it and some performances of exquisite note. Read full review
60
VarietyApr 16, 2020
This ambitious French film turns out to be a strange mixture of the beautiful, the esoteric and the downright dull. Some startling flashes of inspired mimicry and fresh Gallic humor are wedded to the not un-Hollywoodian concept of the femme fatale who, willy-nilly in this instance, leads men to their ruin in an uneven performance of writing and direction. Read full review
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