Narrated by Marabou the stork, this animated feature tells the story of how Babar became king. In the Great Forest, the young elephant plays happily with his friends Arthur and Celeste, until a hunter’s bullet takes his mother and he flees in terror, running until he reaches the city. There, a kind old lady known only as Madame takes him in. She buys him his green suit, red bow tie and bowler hat, and raises him as her own, teaching him to read, to drive and to mind his manners. Two years later, Arthur and Celeste track him down with news from home: the old king has died, and the elephants are at war with the rhinoceroses. Babar knows he must return.

Back in the forest, Babar’s cleverness ends the war without a drop of blood, and the elephants ask him to be their king, on one condition: that Celeste becomes his queen. Together, with Madame’s help, they set about building a city for their people, which Babar names Celesteville. Drawn in the clean, gentle lines of de Brunhoff’s classic picture books and told with songs, slapstick and real tenderness, ‘Babar: King of the Elephants’ is a story of loss, growing up and learning to lead, made for the youngest filmgoers and the grown-ups who remember the books.