Lights, camera — read!

The 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library is set to get dramatic outdoor stage lights that will bathe the entire landmark building in a bright white glow next year — just in time for its 100th anniversary celebration.

“The goal is to make it look like the buildings in Paris that are illuminated,” NYPL President Paul LeClerc told The Post. “We want to make the building a destination stop in New York at night.”

The $3 million lighting scheme — paid for privately and approved by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission last week — is designed by Claude R. Engle, who illuminated the Vietnam Memorial in DC, the I.M. Pei pyramid in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin.

A total of 48 large floodlights, supported on 22-foot-high “light poles,” will surround the building.

It is the final stage of the library headquarters’ six-year, $50 million restoration, which also included a cleaning of the facade’s 20,000 marble blocks and reinforcement of the roof.

“It’s the biggest, most ambitious historic restoration project since Grand Central Terminal,” LeClerc said.

The Fifth Avenue facade is expected to be fully illuminated by May.