Jean-Pierre Jeunet (born 3 September 1953) is a French film director.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet was born in Roanne, Loire, 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 Jeunet's longtime collaborator and co-director.
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 and Caro's first feature film was Delicatessen (1991), a black comedy set in a famine-plagued post-apocalyptic world, in which a block of flats above a delicatessen is ruled by a butcher who kills people in order to feed his tenants.
Next came The City of Lost Children (1995), a dark, multi-layered fantasy film with a twisting plot about a doctor who kidnaps children in order to steal their dreams.
The success of The City of Lost Children led to an invitation to direct the fourth movie in the Alien series - Alien: Resurrection (1997). Like his subsequent films, this one is credited only to Jeunet, although Caro did some work on the art design. Though not well received by critics, Alien: Resurrection turned a profit at the box office.
Jeunet returned to France. The clout of having a Hollywood film under his belt gave him free rein on his next project, Amélie, starring Audrey Tautou. Amélie is lighter and more romantic than his previous films, a fact sometimes attributed to Caro's minimal participation. This story, about a girl who takes pleasure in doing good deeds but cannot find love herself, was a huge commercial and box office success worldwide, and was nominated for several Academy Awards. For this film he also got an European Film Award for Best Director.
In 2004, Jeunet released A Very Long Engagement, an adaptation of the novel by Sébastien Japrisot set after World War I, during which a woman (played by Audrey Tautou) searches for her missing lover.
In 2007, Jeunet pulled out of directing Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi due to budget reasons. Jeunet has now gone on to direct his own film Micmacs a tire-larigot
Jeunet likes to work with the same team of filmmakers and repeatedly casts similar actors. His usual 'team' includes the following:
