Day for Night

1973 ‘La Nuit américaine’ Directed by François Truffaut

A movie for people who love movies

A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

Jacqueline Bisset Jean-Pierre Léaud Jean-Pierre Aumont Valentina Cortese Dani Alexandra Stewart François Truffaut Jean Champion Niké Arrighi David Markham Bernard Ménez Jean-François Stévenin Walter Bal Gaston Joly Zénaïde Rossi Pierre Zucca Marc Boyle Marcel Berbert Xavier Saint-Macary Nathalie Baye Maurice Seveno Graham Greene

Alternative Titles

戏中戏, 幽灵王国, 日以继夜, 白天不懂夜的黑, 美国之夜, 사랑의 묵시록

drama comedy

116 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by brat pitt ★★★★ 6

“I’d dump a guy for a film but never a film for a guy!”
charming, genuine, and brave enough to tell the three essential truths about filmmaking:
- movies are more important than life
- everyone in the cast and crew is boning each other
- cats cannot act
Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★½ 6

I love movies about movies and I love being on a set so much. I miss the energy, and the busyness, and the hustling unpreparedness! I loved how unfocused this movie was– no singular plot, no central character to follow, just a series of dramas surrounding a single production. It feels like a Christopher Guest movie with the dial turned way down. Love it!
Review by Gabriel Gundacker 6

I absolutely did not by any means watch this movie! I was simply in the room while it was on! I was playing Fortnite with my friends on my switch and on Zoom!
I invented code phrases so I wouldn’t interrupt the viewers. If I said “great cinematography” that meant I needed a med kit. “Terrific performance”: I could use a weapon or direction towards one. “Who directed this movie?”, shield please!
We placed 9th, 2nd, 1st and 6th I think.
The movie was French and seemed to be about cinema and also women and men. Truffaut
was in it!
Review by Wesley R. Ball ★★★★★ 8

100/100
Sorry, Jean-Luc Godard. You've been topped for best movie about movies.
Francois Truffaut's Day for Night is a fantastically dazzling masterpiece of cinema. A glorious celebration and condemnation of the joys and faults of filmmaking. It's also a genius satire, taking all of the troubles and woes of filmmaking and making a somewhat sarcastic remark about them. Truffaut has made a big mark on satirical cinema with this piece, and honestly it's probably far too complex for me to properly dissect at this moment.
Being a film within a film, Day for Night doesn't try to take itself too seriously. It reminds the audience that, while cinema is a glorious form of art in itself, it's still simply fictionalized…
Review by truman ★★★★★ 5

I was kinda losing my interest and passion for cinema over the past couple weeks, but watching Day for Night for the first time yesterday really restored my love, and possibly invigorated it more than ever.
Watching it for the third time this weekend reaffirmed that this is what I want to do with my life (even though films like Meet Pamela aren't made anymore). This is what it's all leading up to, this is my passion, this is my love, this is cinema.
Thus, Day for Night is the film with the biggest impact on my life, which is actually kinda funny, since I only saw it yesterday.
Review by Evan Eaton ★★★★½

Day for Night, or, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Filmmaking *But Were Afraid To Ask, is a metaphysical satire like no other. There have been many masterpieces which focus on the process of filmmaking over the years, and although Truffaut’s screwball tale doesn’t quite live up to the bravado brilliance of 8 1/2, Peeping Tom, or The Player, his ability to detail the overwhelming pressures of the industry are what sets it apart from the rest. This really does have every possible stick in the works under the sun, from intruding shadows, focus issues, film-lab screw-ups, incompetent extras, unwilling screen-animals, behind-the-scenes infidelities, entitled actors, and dead ones.
Next to Godard’s ‘film-about-film’ Contempt, the photography and score aren’t nearly…
Review by ˗ˏˋ Liam ˊˎ˗ ★★★★ 4

"No one's private life runs smoothly. That only happens in the movies.”
making a movie looks like the most stressful thing in the world but somehow the most amazing thing in the world at the same and i think that’s pretty neat
Review by russman ★★★★½

That kitten was a horrible actor.
Review by <Todd> ★★½

“I’d dump a guy for a film but never a film for a guy!” -Julie,
Cats are cool.
So.... I don't tend to like films about the importance of the film-making process because for me they often come off as self-indulgent and masturbatory... unless they are made by Agnes Varda. This, for me, was no different. I understand why people like the flowy style and romantic approach but something about the script just didn't connect for me with the biggest barrier being my failure to identity with the characters. It's just not my thing at all.
It's rated a 4.1 though so people either enjoy it or lie about enjoying it so it may be worth your time.
Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★★

Passion is one among many things that fuels life. If François Truffaut's film Day for Night was about anything else, then there's a much more difficult task because it's a film that feels so in love with everything it presents but in the best way. François Truffaut, being one of the pioneers of the French New Wave with films like The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, pays his own tribute to films through Day for Night and to those who make movies - a real treat for those who love movies in general. But maybe there's a key to why Day for Night is anywhere near as powerful as it is. Films like Day for Night seem to make…
Review by Ethan ⛄️ ★★★★ 1

So after this film was released, Jean-Luc Goddard (everyone's favorite French new wave asshat) wrote a letter to Truffaut accusing him of selling out and saying that since the film had appeal to the masses it had no inherit value. And if that doesn't sound the pretentious guy in your film class who hasn't watched an English language feature in 4 years but has no actual talent then I don't know what is.
Review by Tylot Lantern ★★★★ 1

I got so immersed in this that I forgot I was actually watching a film. A perfect blend of realism and fantasy.

Recent reviews

Review by christian ★★★★½

cinema is king
Review by Hemanth ★★★★★

A true tribute to filmmaking ❤️❤️
Review by IslandUnto

Criterion
Review by Sascha ★★★★

a very great love letter to cinema, funny, insightful, dramatic, cats...
gotta rewatch this very soon.
Review by Giovanni Proietti Mancini ★★★

È un film sul cinema? Forse un po’ di più, è una dichiarazione d’amore per il cinema. Una personalissima dichiarazione dell’uomo Francois verso l’amore della sua vita.
Il senso profondo di questo amore lo esprime proprio l’alter ego e doppio di Truffaut, il regista Fernand, che parlando ad Alphonse spiega come “i film sono più armoniosi della vita”, come la vita personale zoppica per tutti, ma i film vanno avanti, vanno avanti come un treno e bisogna dedicare a loro la nostra priorità.
Non può esistere una dichiarazione d’amore più bella, di chi mette il cinema davanti ad ogni cosa della sua vita privata.
Truffaut mette in piedi un insieme di scatole cinesi che ci mostrano i meccanismi di finzione…
Review by Giovanni Saluotto

Truffôfo.
Eu tenho uma história engraçada com esse filme. Eu assisti 95% dele dublado em inglês, porque era o torrent que eu tinha, e achei que era uma decisão estética: Truffaut sendo engraçadinho com os códigos. MAS, nesse mesmo arquivo, por qualquer razão, os 3 últimos minutos não reproduziam por nada nesse mundo.
Fiz o streaming de qualquer outro torrent, só para assistir à esses 3 minutos. Qual não foi minha surpresa quando tava todo mundo falando francês normal, sem dublagem.
Em inglês ou francês, é uma graça.
Review by Jack ★★★★½

“Meet Pamela finally seems on the right track. Tye actors are in their roles, the crew has come together, personal problems have been resolved. Cinema is King.”
Along with 8 1/2, this is the best film about film I’ve seen. Truffaut put his love of the artform into this one, and reminds us he was a very fine actor to boot. Jacqueline Bisset brings a stoicism to Julie, a female character who brilliantly refutes both tropes and the aspertions of the other characters.
I’m very much looking forward to following Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Léaud through the 400 Blows films.
Review by jasmine 7997 ★★★½

Funniest movie a about making a movie. Period. 😂
Review by mef ★★★★

ai quero ser diretora
Review by kilianstev ★★★★

Great film letting us see what's going on behind the walls of the seventh art's production.
Review by nielsenex ★★★★½

the chaos and magic it takes to make a film while balancing your personal life without letting your work bleed into it and vice versa. Really beautiful camera work and attention to detail, Truffaut floats through the runtime, I could’ve used a lot more.
A movie that loves movies, amen.
Review by emi

i dont remember anything but i liked les vibes