Cyrano de Bergerac

Directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, this 1990 French period comedy-drama adapts Edmond Rostand's 1897 stage play, with a screenplay by Rappeneau and Jean-Claude Carrière. The story unfolds in seventeenth-century France, where Gérard Depardieu plays Cyrano de Bergerac, a Gascon soldier who is as gifted with words as he is with a sword, yet believes his unusually large nose makes him unlovable. Unable to confess his love for the beautiful Roxane, he agrees to help Christian, a handsome young recruit who lacks any gift for language, writing passionate letters and verses in the younger man's name. Roxane falls in love with the soul behind those words without knowing who truly wrote them, and the deception ends in heartbreak for all three. The film drew over 4.7 million admissions in France and won ten César Awards in 1991, including Best Film, plus the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and an Oscar for costume design. Depardieu received the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez and Jacques Weber co-star.