In 1996, it was made into a film of the same name by Anthony Minghella, starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Colin Firth and Naveen Andrews.

Three years later Binoche gained further acclaim in Anthony Minghella's The English Patient ( 1996 ), for which she was awarded an Academy Award and a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in addition to the Best Actress Award at the 1997 Berlin Film Festival.

For her performance in Lasse Hallström's romantic comedy Chocolat ( 2000 ) Binoche was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Throughout her career Binoche has intermittently appeared on stage, most notably in a 1998 London production of Luigi Pirandello's Naked and in a 2000 production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal on Broadway for which she was nominated for a Tony Award.

Binoche was born in Paris, the daughter of Jean-Marie Binoche, a director, actor, and sculptor, and Monique Stalens, a teacher, director, and actress.

Her role required just two days on set, but was enough to inspire Binoche to pursue a career in film.

Further supporting roles followed in a variety of French films: Annick Lanoë's Les Nanas was to give Binoche her most noteworthy role to date, playing opposite established stars Marie-France Pisier and Macha Meril, in a mainstream comedy.

It was to be later in 1985 that Binoche would fully emerge as a leading actress with her role in André Téchiné's Rendez-vous.

The film was a sensation and Binoche became the darling of the festival.

In 1986, Binoche was nominated for her first César for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in the film.

Binoche has stated that at the time her English was very limited and that she relied on a French translation to fully grasp her role.

Yet, from a professional and personal point-of-view, both films were significant challenges for Binoche ; her casting opposite Ralph Fiennes's Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, in favour of English actresses Helena Bonham Carter and Kate Beckinsale, was immediately contentious and drew derision from the British press, unimpressed that a uniquely English role had gone to a French actress.

Based on the novel by Josephine Hart and directed by veteran French director Louis Malle, Damage seemed to be the ideal international vehicle for Binoche ; however the production was wrought with difficulties and dogged by rumours of serious conflict.

In an on-set interview, Louis Malle stated that it was the " most difficult " film he had ever made, while Binoche commented that " the first day was one big argument ".

The film was a box-office success around the world and Binoche was again nominated for a César for Best Actress.

In 1996, Binoche appeared in her first comedic role since My Brother-in-Law Killed My Sister a decade before ; A Couch in New York was directed by Chantal Akerman and co-starred William Hurt.

Binoche has said that the shoot on location in Tuscany and at the famed Cinecittà in Rome was among the happiest professional experiences of her career.

Next Juliette Binoche was reunited with director André Téchiné for Alice et Martin ( 1998 ), the story of a relationship between an emotionally damaged Parisian musician and her younger lover who hides a dark family secret.

La Veuve de Saint-Pierre ( 2000 ) by Patrice Leconte, for which she was nominated for a César for Best Actress, was a period drama which saw Binoche appear opposite Daniel Auteuil in the role of a woman who attempts to save a condemned man from the guillotine.

Later that year, Binoche made her Broadway debut in an adaptation of Harold Pinter's Betrayal for which she was nominated for a Tony Award.

In 1988, an American-made film adaptation of the novel was released starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Lena Olin, and Juliette Binoche.

In fact Binoche has nicknamed her characters from this period as her " sorrowful sisters ".

Both Binoche and director Peter Kosminsky distanced themselves from the film, with Binoche refusing to do any promotion for the film or to redub it into French.

Back on screen, Binoche was the heroine of the Lasse Hallström film Chocolat from the best selling novel by Joanne Harris.

In the opening scene in the courthouse, Juliette Binoche, playing Julie from Blue, briefly enters the courtroom by accident, as she had been seen doing in the earlier film.

Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film Hate ( La Haine ) received critical praise and made Vincent Cassel a star, and in 1997, Juliette Binoche won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The English Patient.

* L ' Heure d ' été ( Summer Hours ), a French film starring Juliette Binoche

Following this Binoche secured her first feature film appearance with a minor role in Pascal Kané's Liberty Belle ( 1983 ).

Binoche has commented that Rouffio's film is very significant to her career as it taught her to judge roles based on the quality of the screenplay and her connection with a director, not on the reputation of other cast members.

Binoche has stated that she, " discovered the camera ", while shooting this film.

In the film Binoche portrays an artist who lives rough on the famous Parisian bridge where she meets another young vagrant ( Denis Lavant ).

Produced by Saul Zaentz, producer of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the film reunited Juliette Binoche with Ralph Fiennes, Heathcliff to her Cathy four years previously.

The film, which tells the story of a badly burned, mysterious man found in the wreckage of a plane during World War II, won nine Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Juliette Binoche.

She was the only French cinema actress to receive an Oscar until Juliette Binoche in 1997 ( Supporting Actress ) and Marion Cotillard in 2008 ( Best Actress ), and the first woman to win the award appearing in a foreign film.

Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights opposite Juliette Binoche, for which he received substantial acclaim and praise throughout Europe.

In 2007, she appeared in the film Disengagement by Amos Gitai and starring Juliette Binoche.

The station was seen in the film Alice et Martin when Juliette Binoche as Alice looks out the window of a train as it passes through.

In 1987, Day-Lewis assumed leading-man status by starring in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, co-starring Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche, as a Czech surgeon whose hyperactive and purely physical sex life is thrown into disarray when he allows himself to become emotionally involved with a woman.

It was published in 1951, and made into a film by Jean-Paul Rappeneau starring Juliette Binoche in 1995.

Following the long shoot of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, Binoche relocated to London for the 1992 productions of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Damage, both of which considerably enhanced her international reputation.

Three Colors: Blue, The Horseman on the Roof and A Couch in New York all gave Binoche the opportunity to work with prestigious directors she had turned down during the prolonged shoot of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.