At first, Resnais wanted to become a comedian actor, but he ended up making short films. Most of these films were produced in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Many are documentaries. The best known are probably Van Gogh (1949), Guernica (1950) and Night and Fog (1955). His longer films include "Hiroshima mon amour" (1959), "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961), and "Muriel" (1963). All of the films are important for the history of cinema.