A mad genius is incapable of dreaming, causing him to age prematurely. He devises a scheme to have his henchmen—six clones, a brain, and a dwarf—kidnap children and extract their dreams to feed into his own brain. A circus strongman called One sees his adopted little brother taken by the henchmen. He joins an orphaned girl and sets off on an adventure to rescue his brother. Having worked in comic books, music videos, and advertising, longtime collaborators Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet create a phantasmagorical world filled with steampunk machinery and characters from a post-apocalyptic carnival. Thirty years after its initial release, The City of Lost Children continues to boast exceptional special effects and a uniquely impressive style.

Marc Caro (b. 1956, France) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (b. 1953, France) directed animated shorts together before their first live-action feature film Delicatessen (1991). The success of this dark comedy allowed them to revisit the unrealised project The City of Lost Children (1995), which became a critics’ favourite. They ended their partnership when Jeunet directed Alien Resurrection (1997) in Hollywood and Caro chose to work on projects that gave him more creative control. Jeunet then returned to France and directed Amélie (2001).