Les Uns et les Autres

Directed by Claude Lelouch, Les Uns et les Autres is a 1981 French production, an epic musical drama spanning roughly five decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s. It traces the intertwined destinies of four families from different nations whose lives are shaped by the Second World War, with Maurice Ravel's Boléro serving as the film's recurring motif. Music and dance form a shared language connecting the characters across generations.

The picture was a major box-office success in France, ranking among the year's most-seen releases, and it won the Technical Grand Prize at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. In the United States it was released under the title Boléro, a nod to the Ravel composition featured in the score. Two years later a version nearly twice as long was broadcast as a six-part television film. Many critics regard it, together with Un Homme et une Femme, as the director's finest achievement. The ensemble cast includes Robert Hossein, Nicole Garcia, Geraldine Chaplin, Fanny Ardant, James Caan and Jacques Villeret.