Midnight in Paris is a 2011 romantic comedy fantasy film written and directed by Woody Allen. Taking place in Paris, Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, and Carla Bruni star in Woody Allen's romantic comedy about a family on a business trip in the City of Light. As a young couple engaged to be married experiences a profound transformation during their visit to Paris, an idealistic man with a romanticized view of the city finds that there's plenty of truth to that old adage about the grass being greener on the other side. Michael Sheen, Mimi Kennedy, and Kurt Fuller co-star. The movie explores themes of nostalgia and modernism.

 

Produced by Spanish group Mediapro and Allen's Gravier Productions. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and was released in North America in May 2011.

 

Midnight in Paris received an enthusiastic critical response; Rotten Tomatoes reports that 93% of critics surveyed have given the film a positive review; based on a sample of 196 American reviews, with an average score of 7.8/10. It summarises the consensus, "It may not boast the depth of his classic films, but the sweetly sentimental Midnight in Paris is funny and charming enough to satisfy Woody Allen fans." The film has received Allen's best reviews and score on the site since 1994's Bullets Over Broadway. The website Metacritic, which assigns normalized scores to film reviews, gave the film 81 out of 100, based on 40 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

 

The film received some generally positive reviews after its premiere at the 64th Cannes Film Festival. Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter praised Darius Khondji's cinematography and claimed the film "has the concision and snappy pace of Allen's best work".

 

In 2012, the film won both the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe Awards for Best Screenplay; and was nominated for three other Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Art Direction.