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Forbidden Games

Original title: Jeux interdits · Turkish title: Yasak Oyunlar

“War ... and how it affects the lives of our children”

1952 · 1 h 26 min
Directed by René Clément
DramaWar

Cast

Brigitte Fossey Georges Poujouly Lucien Hubert

Credits

Written by: François Boyer

Plot

In June 1940, as Parisians flee the German advance, a five-year-old girl, Paulette, loses her parents when their column is bombed. She is taken in by a peasant family in the countryside and becomes friends with their young son Michel. Together the children, trying to cope with death, build a secret cemetery for animals, and steal crosses to decorate it. René Clément's 1952 film, with its unsentimental view of childhood in wartime, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Sinekatalog’s take

René Clément's wartime drama of two children burying animals in a cemetery is tender and devastating. Brigitte Fossey's Paulette is unforgettable, and Narciso Yepes's guitar theme haunts this anti-war classic.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 8.0 / 10 (14,374 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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