# The Story of Louis Pasteur
**The Story of Louis Pasteur** is a 1936 American black-and-white biographical film directed by William Dieterle, with [Paul Muni](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-muni) as the French chemist and microbiologist [Louis Pasteur](https://www.edgepedia.org/louis-pasteur) (1822–1895). Produced by Warner Bros. (through First National Productions), it dramatizes Pasteur's advocacy of germ theory, his anthrax vaccine trial, and his rabies treatment, and it won three Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Muni.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR) • [2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028313/awards/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writers | William Dieterle; story and screenplay by Sheridan Gibney and Pierre Collings[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR) |
| Lead cast | Paul Muni (Louis Pasteur), Josephine Hutchinson (Marie Pasteur), Anita Louise (Annette Pasteur), Donald Woods (Dr. Jean Martel), Fritz Leiber (Dr. Charbonnet)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR) |
| Release | 22 February 1936 (AFI); Rotten Tomatoes lists a theatrical date of 23 November 1935; runtime about 85–87 minutes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur) |
| Academy Awards | Best Actor (Muni), Best Writing Original Story and Best Writing Screenplay (Gibney and Collings); nominated for Best Picture[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028313/awards/) |
| Other honors | National Board of Review Top Ten Films (1936); Volpi Cup for Best Actor, Venice 1936 (Muni)[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028313/awards/) |
| Critical scores | 90% Tomatometer (10 reviews) and 76% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes; Metascore 82 on Metacritic[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur) • [4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-story-of-louis-pasteur/critic-reviews/) |
| Production cost | Under $400,000, with sets recycled from Warner musicals and horror films[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and historical scope
The film opens in 1860, when chemist Louis Pasteur is scorned by most doctors for his theory that germs cause disease. After a doctor is killed by the husband of a patient who died of puerperal fever, because the husband had read Pasteur's pamphlet advocating sterilization of instruments, Pasteur is ordered to stop publishing. Ten years later an anthrax epidemic decimates French livestock, and a controlled test shows that all inoculated sheep survive while uninoculated sheep die. After watching a villager die of rabies, Pasteur works on a treatment, realizing that the virus loses virulence over time and that resistance can be built by injecting increasing amounts; he experiments on a small boy bitten by a rabid dog.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR)
The screenplay concentrates on three episodes rather than Pasteur's whole career: his sterilization crusade, the anthrax inoculation, and the rabies cure. Much of his earlier scientific work is left out, and there is little reference to pasteurization.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur) The cast includes Henry O'Neill as Dr. Emile Roux, Halliwell Hobbes as Dr. [Joseph Lister](https://www.edgepedia.org/joseph-lister), Akim Tamiroff as Dr. Zaronoff, Walter Kingsford as [Napoleon III](https://www.edgepedia.org/napoleon-iii), and Dickie Moore as Joseph Meister; the antagonist Dr. Charbonnet is a fictionalized opponent of Pasteur.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur)
## Production
The film went through several titles before release, including *Enemy of Man*, *The Fighter*, and *Death Fighter*. According to modern sources cited by the AFI catalog, co-writer Pierre Collings was too ill to write much of the screenplay, which Sheridan Gibney worked on almost alone; producer Hal B. Wallis disliked the material and wanted Gibney replaced by Laird Doyle, but Muni insisted on keeping him. As a measure against Muni, the film was budgeted at under $400,000 and shot partly on converted musical-film sets: a [Busby Berkeley](https://www.edgepedia.org/busby-berkeley) set became the palace of Napoleon III, and the laboratory set came from *The Mystery of the Wax Museum*.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR)
The key creative team, associate producer Henry Blanke, director William Dieterle, cinematographer Tony Gaudio, and editor Ralph Dawson, established the narrative formula for Warner's prestige biopics of the late 1930s, in which a farsighted central figure battles narrow-minded defenders of the status quo; in this film the opposition is personified by the [French Academy of Sciences](https://www.edgepedia.org/french-academy-of-sciences) and its president.[5](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/production-trends) Dieterle, Muni, and Blanke followed it with *[The Life of Emile Zola](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-life-of-emile-zola)* (1937), which won the Best Picture Oscar.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur)
## Awards and reception
At the 9th Academy Awards, honoring films of 1936, Paul Muni won Best Actor, and Sheridan Gibney and Pierre Collings won both Best Writing, Original Story and Best Writing, Screenplay; the film was one of ten nominees for Outstanding Production, which went to *The Great Ziegfeld*.[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028313/awards/) • [6](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1937) The National Board of Review named it a Top Ten Film of 1936, and Muni won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at Venice; the film was also a top moneymaker of its year.[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028313/awards/) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR)
Contemporary and later critics praised Muni's performance and the film's craftsmanship. Frank S. Nugent of *The New York Times* called it an excellent biography, dignified in subject and brilliantly played; *Variety* singled out expert casting and Muni's top form, while noting some dull stretches of scientific discourse.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur) TV Guide Magazine described it as well told, with an intelligent script and careful attention to scientific accuracy.[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-story-of-louis-pasteur/critic-reviews/) A 1936 *Nature* review of the London gala screening admired Muni's portrayal of Pasteur's ardour, temper, and fits of despondency, but regretted that the film contained many historical errors.[7](https://www.nature.com/articles/1371064e0)
## Historical accuracy
The film takes substantial liberties. *Nature* noted that Napoleon III is shown forbidding Pasteur to continue his anthrax research and to recant his published views, whereas Pasteur's anthrax work did not begin until after the Emperor's death; in reality Napoleon III took a warm interest in Pasteur's investigations.[7](https://www.nature.com/articles/1371064e0) Audience and scholarly commentary likewise describe the film as a highly fictionalized, hagiographic account that steers away from Pasteur's controversies with rivals.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur)
A scholarly chapter by Bart K. Holland, a biostatistician at [Rutgers University](https://www.edgepedia.org/rutgers-university), examines internal Warner Bros. records showing conscious alterations made to improve the film's commercial potential, and argues that the film works simultaneously as a saint's life and as an anti-Nazi parable, depicting an idealized individual struggle against an ignorant mob, consistent with the studio's pride in spreading an anti-fascist message in the 1930s.[8](https://www.researchwithrutgers.org/en/publications/infectious-enthusiasm-the-story-of-louis-pasteur-1936/) The film's heroic image also reflects an older historiography: later analysis of Pasteur's laboratory notebooks showed differences between his public reports and his private science, with the historian Gerald Geison's book *The Private Science of Louis Pasteur* bringing greater realism to the story.[9](https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/louis-pasteur/) • [10](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pasteur-how-they-milked-a-legend-1602968.html)
## Legacy
The film is often credited as an origin point of the docudrama format, and it set the template for the Hollywood scientist biopic, including tropes such as the montage of failed experiments and the rousing speech on the value of science.[11](https://catalog.nwacc.edu/bib/32434) It remains available on home video and streaming, and it is still used in science education as an introduction to germ theory, vaccination, and the resistance new ideas met in nineteenth-century medicine.[12](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-story-of-louis-pasteur)
## References
1. [The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/6481-THE-STORY-OF-LOUIS-PASTEUR)
2. [The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028313/awards/)
3. [The Story of Louis Pasteur, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/story_of_louis_pasteur)
4. [The Story of Louis Pasteur critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-story-of-louis-pasteur/critic-reviews/)
5. [Production Trends, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/production-trends)
6. [The 9th Academy Awards (1937), Oscars.org](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1937)
7. [Louis Pasteur Film, Nature 137, 1064–1065 (1936)](https://www.nature.com/articles/1371064e0)
8. [Bart K. Holland, "Infectious Enthusiasm: The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)", Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media](https://www.researchwithrutgers.org/en/publications/infectious-enthusiasm-the-story-of-louis-pasteur-1936/)
9. [Louis Pasteur, Science History Institute biography](https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/louis-pasteur/)
10. [Pasteur: how they milked a legend, The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pasteur-how-they-milked-a-legend-1602968.html)
11. [Library catalog record, Pauline Whitaker Library, NWACC](https://catalog.nwacc.edu/bib/32434)
12. [The Story of Louis Pasteur streaming, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-story-of-louis-pasteur)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Individual documentary feature films › Nature, science, and environment documentaries*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license