Born in Smyrna (Izmir), Turkey. In Paris from childhood, he began collecting old films while still in high school. In 1935 he founded the Cercle du Cinéma, a small club devoted to viewing and discussing film classics. The following year he established, with Georges Franju, the Cinémathèque Française, a film archive, with only 10 feature films. With almost manic enthusiasm he began collecting further films from every available source, saving thousands of them from destruction or loss. A whole generation of cinéastes and filmmakers was brought up in the darkness of the Cinémathèque's screening rooms. Such New Wave directors as Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, and Demy proudly call themselves "Children of the Cinémathèque." Over the years, the Cinémathèque grew from a small private collection into a government-subsidized institution, with a collection of nearly 60,000 films, many of them rare, and three exhibition halls. Langlois' reputation spread worldwide. But his autocratic rule of the archives and his eccentric working methods irritated many influential Frenchmen, especially in government circles. In 1968, when French Minister of Culture André Malraux tried to replace him as head of the Cinémathèque, by canceling the government's subsidy to the archives, the city of Paris rallied to block the attempt, and police had to be called to quell street riots. Film directors in the US, the USSR, and many other countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain wired Langlois their support, and studios threatened to invoke their copyrights to restrain the archive from showing their films. The government of France finally gave in to the international pressure, and Langlois was reinstated. In 1970 he organized festive screening at New York's Metropolitan Museum of 70 films from his collection, and announced plans for a permanent American branch of the Cinémathèque Française. In the following years, he spent much of his time in New York, attempting to set up the American Cinémathèque in association with the City Center, but he died of a heart attack before his ambitious plan could be materialized. Jacques Richard explores Langlois' life and work for the Cinémathèque Française in his excellent 2004 documentary, LE PHANTÔME D'HENRI LANGLOIS.  Honorary and Other Awards 1973: "For his devotion to the art of film, his massive contributions in preserving its past and his unswerving faith in its future." Winner presented a Statuette. 1 Honorary Award