Jules and Jim (French: Jules et Jim [ʒyl e dʒim]) is a 1962 French New Wave romantic drama film directed, produced and co-written by François Truffaut. Set before and after World War I, it describes a tragic love triangle involving French Bohemian Jim (Henri Serre), his shy Austrian friend Jules (Oskar Werner), and Jules's girlfriend and later wife Catherine (Jeanne Moreau).[2]
The film is based on Henri-Pierre Roché's 1953 semi-autobiographical novel describing his relationship with young writer Franz Hessel and Helen Grund, whom Hessel married.[3] Truffaut came across the book in the mid-1950s while browsing through some secondhand books at a shop along the Seine in Paris. He later befriended the elderly Roché, who had published his first novel at the age of 74. The author approved of the young director's interest in adapting his work to another medium.
The film won the 1962 Grand Prix of French film prizes, the Étoile de Cristal, and Jeanne Moreau won that year's prize for best actress. The film ranked 46 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[4]
