The Chorus

Christophe Barratier's The Chorus (French: Les Choristes) was the surprise commercial phenomenon of 2004 in France. It grossed over €77 million and sold over 8.6 million tickets at home, making it the second-highest-grossing French film of the year and one of the biggest French theatrical successes of the decade. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, and again for Best Original Song (Bruno Coulais's Vois sur ton chemin).

The film is a loose remake of La Cage aux rossignols (1945), Jean Dréville's wartime French feature about a music teacher at a school for difficult children. Barratier, who first saw La Cage aux rossignols on television as a child, adapted the story with Philippe Lopes-Curval and moved the period to 1949; his uncle, the actor and producer Jacques Perrin, co-produced. Gérard Jugnot, François Berléand and Kad Merad, all established names in the French popular comedy tradition, share the screen with twelve-year-old Jean-Baptiste Maunier, making his screen debut as the choir's solo voice.

Bruno Coulais's choral score, performed by Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc and arranged around the film's vocal solos, became a hit in its own right: the soundtrack album sold over a million copies in France and over four million worldwide. Maunier's singing career, which included a deal with Mercury Records while he was still a teenager, began with this production. French film schools now teach it as a textbook case of the sleeper hit, carried by sentimental melody and word of mouth.