Resnais was born in 1922 at Vannes in Brittany, where his father was a pharmacist. An only child, he was often ill with asthma in childhood, which led to his being withdrawn from school and educated at home. He was

Resnais was often linked with the group of French filmmakers who made their breakthrough as the New Wave or nouvelle vague in the late 1950s, but by then he had already established a significant reputation through his ten years of work on documentary short

• Academy Award: 1950 (22nd Oscar ceremony) for "Van Gogh" (1948): Best Short Subject (two-reel), awarded to producers Gaston Diehl and Robert Haessens.

1946–1958: short films
After beginning with a series of short documentary films showing artists at work in their studios, as well as a few commercial commissions, Resnais was invited in 1948 to make a film about the paintings of

In 1969 Resnais married Florence Malraux (daughter of the French statesman and writer André Malraux). She was a regular member of his production

• Alain Resnais at IMDb
• Resnais biography in the New Wave Film Encyclopedia.
• Alain Resnais in Filmmaker magazine.