Le jour se lève

Le jour se lève
Film poster
Directed byMarcel Carné
Written byJacques Prévert
Jacques Viot
Produced byRobert and Raymond Hakim
StarringJean Gabin
Jules Berry
Arletty
Jacqueline Laurent
CinematographyPhilippe Agostini
André Bac
Albert Viguier
Curt Courant
Edited byRené Le Hénaff
Music byMaurice Jaubert
Distributed byAFE
Release date
  • 9 June 1939 (1939-06-09)
Running time
93 min.
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench

Le jour se lève ([ ʒuʁ lɛv], "The day rises"; also known as Daybreak) is a 1939 French film directed by Marcel Carné and written by Jacques Prévert, based on a story by Jacques Viot. It is considered one of the principal examples of the French film movement known as poetic realism.

An original feature of the film is its structure, a long flashback, a procedure that was rarely used at the time - and this two years before the release of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. The set for the bedroom, built by Alexandre Trauner, includes all four sides of the room (rather than the usual three) to allow circular shots and emphasise the sense of confinement.

In 1952, it was included in the first British Film Institute's Sight & Sound top ten Greatest Films of All Time list.