Born on the French Riviera, Michel Ocelot spent his childhood in Guinea and grew up in the Loire valley before settling in Paris. He has devoted his entire career to film animation. From the beginning, all his works were based on his own scripts and graphics.

Among his short films, he directed The 3 Inventors (1980 Bafta for Best Animated Film, London), followed by The Legend of the Poor Hunchback (1983 César for >Best Animated Short, Paris).

In 1998, Michel Ocelot became known to the general public with the success of his first feature film Kirikou and the Sorceress. He went on to make Princes and Princesses, fairy tales in a shadow theatre, using cut-out animation, and Kirikou and the Wild Beasts, co-directed with Bénédicte Galup. Azur & Asmar (2007), his 4th feature film, is another fairy tale, set on both sides of the Mediterranean. It was selected for the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival

At the end of 2008, he released a compilation DVD of his short films, The Hidden Treasures of Michel Ocelot, his life and work before Kirikou…In July 2011, and for the first time in 3D, Tales of the Night, another silhouette film, was released. It was the only French feature film to be selected for the main competition at the 61st edition of the prestigious Berlin Film Festival. In 2012, Michel Ocelot finished filming new Kirikou adventures, Kirikou and the Men and Women.

"Dilili in Paris", set in the Belle Epoque, won the 2019 Cesar Award, France's highest film honour.

His last feature film, "The Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess", which consists of three very different stories, was released in October 2022.