After receiving his Certificat d'études upon completing his primary education, he quit school and went to work in Le Bon Marché, a major department store in Paris.

He had been working on the last scene of the animated movie Le Roi et l'Oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird) with his friend and collaborator Paul Grimault.

[2] He was also a member of the agitprop theater company Groupe Octobre where he helped craft a left-wing cinema in support of the causes of the Popular Front.

[5] Prévert's poems were collected and published in his books: Paroles (Words) (1946), Spectacle (1951), La Pluie et le beau temps (Rain and Good Weather) (1955), Histoires (Stories) (1963), Fatras (1971) and Choses et autres (Things and Others) (1973).

They have been sung by prominent French vocalists, including Marianne Oswald, Yves Montand, and Édith Piaf, as well as by the later American singers Joan Baez and Nat King Cole.

In 1961, French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg paid tribute to "Les feuilles mortes" in his own song "La chanson de Prévert".

Another German version has been published and covered by Didier Caesar (alias Dieter Kaiser), which he named "Das welke Laub".

Prévert adapted several Hans Christian Andersen tales into animated or mixed live-action/animated movies, often in versions loosely connected to the original.

These include compilations of his poetry but also collaborations with Marc Chagall and Humanist photographers on patriotic and poignant albums of imagery of post-war Paris.