Amélie was released theatrically in France on 25 April 2001 byUGC-Fox Distribution and in Germany on 16 August 2001 by Prokino Filmverleih. The film received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for Tautou's performance, the cinematography, visuals, production design, sound design, editing, musical score, writing and Jeunet's direction.Amélie wonBest Film at theEuropean Film Awards, fourCésar Awards, includingBest Film andBest Director, and twoBritish Academy Film Awards, includingBest Original Screenplay. It was nominated for fiveAcademy Awards, includingBest Foreign Language Film andBest Original Screenplay. The film was an enormous commercial success, grossing $174.2 million worldwide against a budget of $10 million, and is one of the biggest international successes for a French film.
Amélie Poulain is born in 1974 and brought up by eccentric parents who – incorrectly believing that she has a heart defect – decide tohomeschool her. To cope with her loneliness, Amélie develops an active imagination and a mischievous personality. When Amélie is six, her mother, Amandine, is killed when a suicidal Canadian tourist jumps from the roof ofNotre-Dame de Paris and lands on her. As a result, her father, Raphaël, withdraws more and more from society. Amélie leaves home at the age of 18 and becomes a waitress at theCafé des 2 Moulins inMontmartre, which is staffed and frequented by a collection of eccentrics. She is single and lets her imagination roam freely, finding contentment in simple pleasures like dipping her hand into grain sacks, crackingcrème brûlée with a spoon, andskipping stones along theCanal Saint-Martin.[5]
On 31 August 1997, startled by the news of thedeath of Diana, Princess of Wales, Amélie drops a plastic perfume-stopper, which dislodges a wall tile and accidentally reveals an old metal box which contains childhood memorabilia hidden by a boy who lived in her apartment decades earlier. Amélie resolves to track down the boy and return the box to him. She promises herself that if it makes him happy, she will devote her life to bringing happiness to others.
After asking the apartment's concierge and several old tenants about the boy's identity, Amélie meets her reclusive neighbour, Raymond Dufayel, an artist withbrittle bone disease who replicatesPierre-Auguste Renoir's 1881 paintingLuncheon of the Boating Party every year. He recalls the boy's name as "Bretodeau". Amélie finds the man, Dominique Bretodeau, and surreptitiously gives him the box. Moved to tears by the discovery and the memories it holds, Bretodeau resolves to reconcile with his estranged daughter and the grandson he has never met. Amélie happily embarks on her new mission.
Amélie secretly executes complex schemes that positively affect the lives of those around her. She escorts a blind man to the Métro station while giving him a rich description of the street scenes he passes. She persuades her father to follow his dream of touring the world by stealing hisgarden gnome and having a flight attendant friend mail pictures of itposing with landmarks from all over the world. She starts a romance between herhypochondriacal co-worker Georgette and Joseph, a patron of the café. She convinces Madeleine Wallace, the concierge of her block of flats, that the husband who abandoned her had sent her a final conciliatory love letter just before his accidental death years before. She playspractical jokes on Collignon, the nasty greengrocer. Mentally exhausted, Collignon no longer abuses his meek, good-natured assistant Lucien. A delighted Lucien subsequently takes charge at the grocery stand.
Dufayel, having observed Amélie, begins a conversation with her about his painting. Although he has copied the same Renoir painting 20 times, he has never quite captured the look of the girl drinking a glass of water. They discuss the meaning of this character, and over several conversations, Amélie begins projecting her loneliness onto the image. Dufayel recognizes this and uses the girl in the painting to push Amélie to examine her attraction to a quirky young man, Nino Quincampoix, who collects the discarded photographs of strangers from passport photo booths. When Amélie bumps into Nino a second time, she realizes she is falling in love with him. He accidentally drops a photo album in the street. Amélie retrieves it.
Amélie plays acat-and-mouse game with Nino around Paris before returning his treasured album anonymously. After arranging a meeting at the 2 Moulins, Amélie panics and tries to deny her identity. Her co-worker, Gina, concerned for Amélie's well-being, screens Nino for her; Joseph's comment about this misleads Amélie to believe she has lost Nino to Gina. It takes Dufayel's insight to give her the courage to pursue Nino, resulting in a romantic night together and the beginning of a relationship. The film ends as Amélie experiences a moment of happiness she has found for herself.
Au Marché de la Butte, Rue des Trois Frères, Paris, used as the location of Maison Collignon
In hisDVD commentary, Jeunet explains that he originally wrote the role of Amélie for the English actressEmily Watson. In that first draft, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Watson's French was not strong, and when she became unavailable to shoot the film, owing to a conflict with the filming ofGosford Park (2001), Jeunet rewrote the screenplay for a French actress.Audrey Tautou was the first actress he auditioned having seen her on the poster for the 1999 filmVenus Beauty Institute.
Filming took place mainly in Paris. TheCafé des 2 Moulins (15 Rue Lepic, Montmartre, Paris) where Amélie works is a real place.[6] Principal photography took place from 2 March 2000 to 7 July 2000.[7]
Props of the childhood souvenirs of Dominique Bretodeau that Amélie finds in the metal box in her apartment wall, and a photograph of Amélie holding the box.
The film was released in France, Belgium, andFrench-speaking western Switzerland in April 2001, with subsequent screenings at various film festivals followed by releases around the world. It receivedlimited releases in North America, the United Kingdom, andAustralasia later in 2001.
Cannes Film Festival selector Gilles Jacob describedAmélie as "uninteresting", and therefore it was not screened at the festival, although the version he viewed was an early cut without music. The absence ofAmélie at the festival caused something of a controversy because of the warm welcome by the French media and audience in contrast with the reaction of the selector.[13] David Martin-Jones, in an article inSenses of Cinema, stated that the film "[wears] its national [French] identity on its sleeve" and that this attracted both audiences of mainstream films and those ofarthouse ones.[14]
In 2021, Newen Connect'sTF1 Studio signed a deal withUGC for international distribution and sales rights to its films, includingAmélie. The film was then re-released in multiple countries for its 20th anniversary, including on 11 May 2021 in Italy, by BIM Distribuzione.[4][15][16][17]
The film's U.S. distributorMiramax was sold to Qatari companybeIN Media Group in 2016. Then in 2020, beIN sold a 49% stake in Miramax toViacomCBS (now known asParamount Skydance), with this deal giving them the rights to Miramax's film catalog.[18][19] In 2021, Paramount went on to reissueAmélie on home media, along with many other Miramax titles they had acquired.[20]
In February 2022, while discussing the legacy ofAmélie in an interview withThe New York Times, Jeunet stated that U.S. distribution rights to the film, held by Miramax (and later Paramount), had been acquired bySony Pictures Classics, with the company planning a re-release in the future.[21] While the distributor did confirm this news, no further developments were reported until late December 2023, when Sony announced their acquisition of distribution rights to the film for North America excluding French Canada and scheduled the film for a theatrical re-release in 250 theatres in the United States on 14 February 2024.[22] Sony stated that they had acquired "all" North American rights to the film in a press release, although it is unclear whether Sony purchased these rights for a long-term period, or if they were purchased for a temporary period. Some sources report Miramax/Paramount as still controlling certain international rights toAmélie,[23] and on their official website, Miramax continue to list it as one of the films in their library.[24]
Tautou's performance was acclaimed and earned herCésar andBAFTA nominations for Best Actress.
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 90% approval rating based on 234 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The feel-goodAmélie is a lively, fanciful charmer, showcasing Audrey Tautou as its delightful heroine."[25]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 69 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[26]
Alan Morrison fromEmpire magazine gaveAmélie five stars and called it "one of the year's best, with crossover potential along the lines ofCyrano de Bergerac (1990) andIl Postino (1994). Given its quirky heart, it might well surpass them all".[27] Paul Tatara ofCNN praisedAmélie's playful nature. In his review, he wrote, "Its whimsical, free-ranging nature is often enchanting; the first hour, in particular, is brimming with amiable, sardonic laughs."[28]
The film was attacked by critic Serge Kaganski ofLes Inrockuptibles for an unrealistic and picturesque vision of a bygone French society with fewethnic minorities.[29] Jeunet dismissed the criticism by pointing out that the photo collection contains pictures of people from numerous ethnic backgrounds, and thatJamel Debbouze, who plays Lucien, is of Moroccan descent.[citation needed]
The film opened on 432 screens in France and grossed 43.2 million French Franc ($6.2 million) in its opening week, placing it at number one.[30] It stayed in the top 10 for 22 weeks.[31] It was the highest-grossing film in France for the year with a gross of $41 million.[32] The film also grossed $33 million in the United States and Canada theatrically,[4] making it the highest-grossingFrench-language film of all time in North America.[33][34]
Amélie was selected byThe New York Times as one of "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made".[37] The film placed No. 2 inEmpire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema".[38]Paste magazine ranked it second on its list of the 50 Best Movies of the Decade (2000–2009).[39] In August 2016,BBC Magazine conducted a poll on the 21st century's 100 greatest films so far, withAmélie ranking at number 87.[40]
Entertainment Weekly named the film poster one of the best on its list of the top 25 film posters in the past 25 years.[41] It also named Amélie setting up awild goose chase for her beloved Nino all through Paris as No. 9 on its list of top 25 Romantic Gestures.[42] In 2010, an online public poll by theAmerican Cinematographer – the house journal of theAmerican Society of Cinematographers – namedAmélie the best shot film of the decade.[43]
Amélie is rated 37 among the 50 Greatest Romantic Comedies of All Time byRolling Stone magazine.[44]
In 2025, the film ranked number 41 onThe New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and number 46 on the "Readers' Choice" edition of the list.[45][46]
On 23 August 2013, composer Dan Messe, one of the founders and members of the bandHem, confirmed speculation that he would be writing the score for a musical adaptation ofAmélie, collaborating withCraig Lucas andNathan Tysen.[48][49] Messe also confirmed he would be composing all original music for the show and not using theYann Tiersen score.[50] Themusical adaptation premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in August 2015.[51] It opened onBroadway in March 2017 and closed in May 2017.[52] The production started its pre-Broadway engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in December 2016, withPhillipa Soo in the title role.[53] A London production opened in 2020, with Australian, German, Dutch, and Finnish productions set to open or resume pending the cessation of restrictions due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.
Jeunet has distanced himself from the musical due to his distaste for the art form, saying he only sold the rights to raise funds for children's charity "Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque [fr]".[54]
The film has no overall worldwide distributor, butBlu-ray Discs have been released in Canada and Australia. The first release occurred in Canada in September 2008 by TVA Films. This version did not contain any English subtitles and received criticisms regarding picture quality.[55] In November 2009, an Australian release occurred. This time the version contained English subtitles and features no region coding.[56] Momentum Pictures released a Blu-ray in the UK on 17 October 2011.Lionsgate released a U.S. Blu-ray edition in 2011, after entering a temporary agreement to distribute Miramax's library on home video.[57]Sony Pictures issued a U.S. Blu-ray in asteelbook in 2024.[58] The film is also available in HD oniTunes and other digital download services.
In the United Kingdom, it was 2013's tenth best-selling foreign-language film on physicalhome video formats, and the year's third best-selling French film (belowThe Intouchables andRust and Bone).[59]
For the 2007 television showPushing Daisies, a "quirky fairy tale",American Broadcasting Company (ABC) sought anAmélie feel, with the same chords of "whimsy and spirit and magic".Pushing Daisies creatorBryan Fuller saidAmélie is his favorite film. "All the things I love are represented in that movie", he said. "It's a movie that will make me cry based on kindness as opposed to sadness".The New York Times' review ofPushing Daisies reported "theAmélie influence onPushing Daisies is everywhere".[60]
A species of frog was namedCochranella amelie. The scientist who named it said: "This new species ofglass frog is for Amélie, protagonist of the extraordinary movieLe Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain; a film where little details play an important role in the achievement ofjoie de vivre; like the important role that glass frogs and all amphibians and reptiles play in the health of our planet".[61] The species was described in the scientific journalZootaxa in an article entitled "An enigmatic new species of Glassfrog (Amphibia: Anura: Centrolenidae) from the Amazonian Andean slopes of Ecuador".[61] The film is also the inspiration behind a painting game called Été where players can paint Montreal into life.[62]
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