Impressions de France

Impressions de France 1982-Present

Some attractions get replaced. Impressions de France simply endures. The film that opened with EPCOT Center on October 1, 1982 is still showing in the Palais du Cinéma today — often described as the oldest film at Walt Disney World still running in its original version, more than four decades on.

For eighteen minutes, five screens spanning 200 degrees fill with France: mist over the châteaux of the Loire at dawn, skiers carving down the Alps, the markets and harbors of the coast, Versailles, Cannes, and Paris seen from the air and from the street. Director Rick Harper made it as a pure travelogue — no plot, no characters, just a country photographed beautifully — with narration by Claude Gobet tying the journey together.

The real star, though, is the soundtrack. Disney Legend Buddy Baker arranged and conducted a score woven from the French classical canon — Debussy’s “Clair de lune” and “Syrinx,” Saint-Saëns’ “Aquarium,” Ravel’s “Lever du jour,” Offenbach, Satie — interleaved with original cues of his own and recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. Baker, who was overseeing the musical development of the whole park, gave France the score many listeners still consider Epcot’s finest.

This post holds the film’s complete soundtrack. Since January 2020 the theater has alternated Impressions de France with the Beauty and the Beast Sing-Along, and the presentation has been upgraded to 4K — but the film itself is the same one guests fell for in 1982. And when the lights come up, the pavilion’s music continues outside, where the Les Chefs de France loop plays on.