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La Jetée

Turkish title: Dalgakıran

“A man's obsession with an image of his past”

1962 · 28 min
Directed by Chris Marker

Cast

Davos Hanich Hélène Chatelain Jacques Ledoux

Credits

Music: Trevor Duncan

Plot

After a nuclear war has destroyed Paris, a prisoner in an underground camp is chosen for time-travel experiments because of a vivid memory from his childhood: a woman's face on the pier at Orly and a man's death. Sent back in time, he meets the woman again. Chris Marker's 1962 film is told almost entirely in still photographs, and inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.

Sinekatalog’s take

Chris Marker's 28-minute time-travel story is told almost entirely in still photographs. Haunting and economical, it inspired 12 Monkeys and shows how little cinema needs to move us.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 8.2 / 10 (40,332 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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