Paris Seen By... 20 Years After

Paris Seen By... 20 Years After gathers six short episodes that paint small scenes from life across different Paris neighborhoods. Each vignette focuses on ordinary people at particular moments, from two young runaways to older characters drifting through familiar streets. The stories switch tone from light to somber, and the shifts between comedy and drama make the city itself the connecting character. You won't get a single through-line or a neat resolution; instead the film offers brief, uneven windows onto relationships, routine, desire, and how place shapes daily choices, all without revealing any major plot surprises.

Released in 1984, the film is an anthology directed by a group including Philippe Garrel, Frédéric Mitterrand, Chantal Akerman, Philippe Venault, Bernard Dubois, and Vincent Nordon, featuring actors like Maria de Medeiros and Jean-Pierre Léaud.

It had a limited festival and art house run, with modest commercial exposure, so it never broke into wider box office attention and stayed mostly on the margins of mainstream release circuits.

Cinephiles have kept some interest in the film because of its roster of notable directors and the way it stitches together varied cinematic approaches to Paris. It doesn't have a single iconic scene that entered pop culture, but film scholars sometimes point to it when discussing 1980s French anthology projects and portrayals of the city by multiple auteurs.

Critical response has been mixed, reflected in a low user average of 4.222 out of 10 from nine votes. Viewers and reviewers tend to note uneven quality between segments, praising moments of atmosphere and performance while criticizing the lack of cohesion. Thematically the film centers on urban solitude, fleeting connections, youth and aging, and the everyday textures of Paris life, switching between gentle humor and quieter, more reflective passages.