Cinémathèque Française

The Cinémathèque française is a French non-profit film organization based at 51 rue de Bercy in Paris's 12th arrondissement. Founded on 2 September 1936, it holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. It is the second oldest cinematheque in France, after the Cinémathèque de Saint-Étienne founded in 1922. The institution's core missions are the preservation, restoration, and dissemination of cinematic heritage. It functions as both an archive and a cultural center, offering daily screenings of films from around the world and operating a museum dedicated to cinema history.

The Cinémathèque française emerged from the efforts of Henri Langlois and Georges Franju, who had been privately rescuing old film copies since the early 1930s. In 1935 they established a film club, the Cercle du cinéma, which screened and promoted past cinematic works. With the moral and financial support of Paul-Auguste Harlé, the Cinémathèque française was formally created on 2 September 1936 under Langlois's direction. From its inception, it collected not only films but also cameras, posters, publications, costumes, and even film sets.

During the German occupation of France in World War II, Langlois and his associates smuggled large numbers of films and documents out of occupied territory to protect them from destruction, as the authorities had ordered the elimination of all films made before 1937. After the war, the French government provided a small screening room, staff, and subsidy, relocating the collection to the Avenue de Messine.

The collection became a crucible for future filmmakers. Significant directors of the 1940s and 1950s, including Robert Bresson, René Clément, Henri-Georges Clouzot, and Jacques Becker, attended screenings. The directors of the Nouvelle Vague, Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Roger Vadim, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Pierre Kast, received much of their film education there, earning the nickname "les enfants de la cinémathèque."

In 1963, with funds provided by Minister of Culture André Malraux, the Cinémathèque moved to the Palais de Chaillot and became subject to government oversight. The February 1968 dismissal of Langlois by Malraux, under pressure from the Ministry of Finance, provoked a major crisis. A defense committee formed, uniting French filmmakers including Alexandre Astruc, Claude Berri, Robert Bresson, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean Eustache, Georges Franju, Abel Gance, Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, Pierre Kast, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette, Éric Rohmer, Jean Rouch, and François Truffaut, along with actors Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, Jean Marais, and Françoise Rosay. Foreign filmmakers Charles Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick added their support. After protests beginning 12 February 1968, Langlois was reinstated on 22 April 1968, an event that preceded and merged into the broader May 1968 unrest.

Henri Langlois died on 13 January 1977. He received an honorary Oscar on 2 April 1974 and a César in the same year. The first major cinema museum opened on 14 June 1972 at place du Trocadéro. A devastating fire on 3 August 1980 at a warehouse in Villiers-Saint-Frédéric destroyed thousands of film reels, though copies and negatives stored elsewhere limited the damage to the heritage.

Costa-Gavras became president in 1981, followed by Jean Saint-Geours in 1991, who organized major retrospectives of Ingmar Bergman, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, and Robert Bresson. A 1997 fire at the Palais de Chaillot forced evacuation of the museum collection and closure for over a year. The Grands Boulevards screening room opened on 7 November 1997. In 2003, Serge Toubiana became general manager, with Claude Berri as president from 2003 to 2007. Costa-Gavras returned as president in June 2007 after Berri fell ill. Frédéric Bonnaud succeeded Toubiana as general manager in January 2016.

The Cinémathèque française holds more than 40,000 films and thousands of documents and objects related to cinema, constituting one of the world's largest databases on the seventh art. Its collections encompass cameras, projectors, posters, books, props, costumes, and film sets. The archive is equipped for projection in both analog formats, 70 mm, 35 mm, and 16 mm, and digital. The institution restores more than 200 films annually and screens approximately 1,300 films in its own theaters. The Musée de la Cinémathèque, formerly the Musée du cinéma Henri-Langlois, presents the living history of moving images and pre-cinema from their origins to the present day across all countries, with more than 5,000 movie-related objects including cameras, scripts, sets, photographic stills, and costumes worn by actors such as Rudolph Valentino and Marilyn Monroe.

The museum's collections include iconic costumes, optical instruments, magic lanterns, and production documents. Notable exhibitions have been dedicated to Pedro Almodóvar, Georges Méliès, and Dennis Hopper. The Cinémathèque has also organized retrospectives and exhibitions honoring major Italian filmmakers including Sergio Leone, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. In 2026, the institution marked its 90th anniversary with a program titled "90 Ans de Passion," involving restoration of 90 "lost" films from the Langlois era, and commemorated the centenary of Marilyn Monroe's birth with a major retrospective and exhibition, "Marilyn: Le Centenaire," running from April to July 2026.

Since 28 September 2005, the Cinémathèque française has been located at 51 rue de Bercy in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. The building was originally constructed in 1994 by American architect Frank Gehry as the American Center. The move followed the closure on 28 February 2005 of the Palais de Chaillot and Grands Boulevards sites. The postmodern structure in the Parc de Bercy houses the archive, screening rooms, and the Musée de la Cinémathèque across three levels. The Bibliothèque du film, created in 1992 to document the history of cinema, its production, impact, and artistic strength, merged with the Cinémathèque française in 2007 after having been announced in 2002.

The Cinémathèque française is located at 51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris. It is accessible by metro at stations Bercy on lines 6 and 14, and by bus lines 24, 64, and 87. For drivers, access is available via the A4 at exit Pont de Bercy, with parking at 77 rue de Bercy or 8 boulevard de Bercy. Opening hours are Monday to Saturday from 12:00 to 19:00, and Sunday from 10:00 to 20:00. The institution is closed on Tuesdays and on certain public holidays: 25 December, 1 January, and 1 May. The Cinémathèque is a private association under French law, primarily supported by state subsidies from the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, supplemented by patronage revenue and self-generated resources including subscriptions, ticketing, bookshop sales, and commercial rentals. It continues its essential missions of conservation, restoration, programming, exhibition, and public education, welcoming millions of visitors and maintaining cinema heritage for researchers, students, and the general public.