The Pink Panther is a 1963 American comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, who wrote the screenplay alongside Maurice Richlin. Produced by The Mirisch Company and released through United Artists, it is the film that launched the franchise. The cast includes David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, and Claudia Cardinale.

The story follows Inspector Jacques Clouseau, played by Sellers, as he travels from Paris to Cortina d’Ampezzo in pursuit of a celebrated jewel thief known as The Phantom, played by Niven, who has set his sights on a priceless diamond called The Pink Panther.

The project was originally conceived as a sophisticated comedy centered on a charming and worldly jewel thief, Sir Charles Lytton. Peter Ustinov was the first choice to play Clouseau, with Ava Gardner attached as his wife. Janet Leigh passed on the female lead because the production would have kept her away from the United States for too long. Audrey Hepburn, Nancy Kwan, and Cyd Charisse were all considered for the role of Princess Dala before Claudia Cardinale was brought on board.

Filming was scheduled to start at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios on November 5, 1962, but Gardner withdrew in October after The Mirisch Company declined to meet her demands regarding personal staff. Ustinov followed her out the door, causing a delay of several weeks. Edwards encountered Sellers during a weekend trip to Rome and cast him in the role, while Capucine was hired to replace Gardner. Most of the remaining cast was replaced to better match the interpretations Sellers and Capucine were developing for their characters. The Mirisch Company later pursued Ustinov for $175,000 in damages over his departure.

Production finally got underway on November 19, 1962, moving to Cortina d’Ampezzo in January 1963. Principal photography concluded in March 1963, with additional work completed on location in Paris and Los Angeles. In his DVD commentary, Edwards noted that the piazza chase sequence, filmed at Piazza della Repubblica in Rocca di Papa, was intended as a tribute to a comparable scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent from 1940.

The film had been designed as a showcase for Niven, who received top billing. As Edwards encouraged improvisation across multiple takes, however, Sellers gradually took over the picture despite starting in a supporting capacity. His scene-stealing performance set the course for everything that followed, and he went on to anchor every sequel. Years later, at an Academy Awards ceremony, Niven requested that his entrance music be changed from the Pink Panther theme, noting that the film had not really been his.

The animated Pink Panther character was created exclusively for the opening title sequence, conceived as a stylish and self-assured figure rather than as a recurring feature. Audiences responded so warmly to the animation that their enthusiasm was audible over the beginning of the actual film, which prompted the studio to develop the character into a series of theatrical cartoon shorts. The first of those, The Pink Phink, won an Academy Award. The silent, composed cartoon character eventually became more recognizable than the movie that introduced him, which is why the name Pink Panther today calls to mind the animated cat for most people rather than the diamond at the center of the plot.

Within the film itself, The Pink Panther is not an animal at all but an enormous and extraordinarily valuable diamond whose internal flaw creates the visual impression of a leaping panther.

The film had its premiere in Italy on December 18, 1963, and opened in the United States on March 18, 1964. It earned $10.9 million domestically and ranked as the ninth-highest-grossing film of the year. Initial critical reception was mixed, but opinions improved considerably over time.

In 2010, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, recognizing it as culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant.