What Is the French New Wave? Background and Revolutionary Techniques

The French New Wave permanently changed the way films are made and influenced some of the greatest directors of our time. But what is the French New Wave? How did it begin, and why? This article gives you a definition, a brief historical background, and highlights some key characteristics of the earliest pioneers of the movement. As we’ll see, the influence of the French New Wave continues through modern filmmakers like Tarantino and Scorsese, to name just a couple.

Background and Style

For one of the most influential movements in film history, it’s not easy to define! Before we look at some of the movement’s stylistic contributions to filmmaking, let’s first understand a bit of background.

What Is the French New Wave?

The French New Wave was a film movement of the 1950s and 1960s and is one of the most influential in cinema history. Also known simply as the “New Wave,” it gave rise to a new kind of film that was highly self‑aware and revolutionary in how it subverted mainstream filmmaking. A group of French critics writing for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma believed that cinema had lost its original charm. They felt these films were disconnected from people’s real lives.

Many renowned French directors took part in the movement, including François Truffaut, Jean‑Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Louis Malle, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, and Jacques Demy. Their films were characterized by a rejection of cinematic tradition—but how did they do it?

Characteristics of the French New Wave:

• Little emphasis on plot and dialogue, often improvised
• Jump cuts instead of continuity editing
• Location shooting
• Handheld cameras
• Long takes
• Direct sound and available light (on‑location recording, often without relighting)

A Brief History of the French New Wave

The French New Wave was born in a postwar, hungry France. French critics and film lovers were ravenous for culture and, left only with mainstream media that felt stale and affected, began experimenting with different filmmaking techniques. Their influences included Italian Neorealism and American film noir of the 1940s and 1950s.

During World War II, films from outside France stopped being imported into the country. After the war, these embargoes were lifted, and these cinephiles and critics were suddenly flooded with a mass of “new” films. All these works by Hollywood giants such as Welles, Hitchcock, and Ford energized French critics, and the rest is history.

Revolutionary Techniques

For decades, mainstream filmmaking—especially Hollywood filmmaking—set the standards and “rules” for how to make movies. French filmmakers understood these rules… and then threw them out the window. Smaller, lighter cameras were often “liberated” from tripods and handheld rigs, giving films new life and dynamism.

Nonlinear and fragmented editing became another major and exciting contribution. For decades, every shot A logically led to shot B, leaving no gap in information that might confuse the audience. Now, in these French films, logic became secondary.

The video The Image You Missed highlights the radical choices made by French director Jean‑Luc Godard. His film Breathless became one of the most outstanding works of the movement and launched one of the most exciting and artistic careers in all of cinema.

Landmark New Wave Films

Band of Outsiders (Bande à part) (1964)

This film tells the story of three young people who plan a robbery together. Naturally, things don’t go according to plan, and chaos ensues. For modern audiences, there are few better entries into the French New Wave than Band of Outsiders. This isn’t to say it’s “better” than its contemporaries, but it is more restrained and perfectly balanced commercially.

In a sentence, Band of Outsiders is a fun heist movie that tends toward conservatism and is clearly not as daring as most of Godard’s films.

Pierrot le Fou (1965)

One of Jean‑Luc Godard’s boldest films, this surreal fugitive story stars French New Wave icons Anna Karina and Jean‑Paul Belmondo. The film may not quite match Godard’s absolute best work, but thanks to its outstanding cinematography it is undeniably stunning. It also showcases the unabashed fantasies about sex and romance that were just beginning to blossom in early French New Wave films.

Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianiste) (1960)

Shoot the Piano Player is perhaps most notable for its use of widescreen cinematography, but it’s also a great and daring story. Following his debut feature The 400 Blows, François Truffaut faced an almost impossible task in making a follow‑up, yet he achieved tremendous success with the technically innovative Shoot the Piano Player. The film is one of the French New Wave works that popularized many Hollywood genre elements—such as the cold, ruthless American gangster film.

The Cousins (Les cousins) (1959)

The Cousins is a gripping psychological drama about two opposing personalities at odds with each other. Charles is naive and hardworking, while Paul is an outgoing, naturally gifted showman. The only thing these characters have in common is that they are cousins. But when Charles falls in love with a woman with a promiscuous past, he threatens to destroy his fragile relationship with his cousin. It is one of famed director Claude Chabrol’s best French New Wave films.

Lola (1961)

Jacques Demy’s directorial debut Lola tells a twisting love story set on the French coast. The film stars Anouk Aimée as a cabaret performer longing to find the man who abandoned her seventeen years earlier.

Lola has largely been overshadowed by Demy’s later works The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, which is a shame, because it is one of the truly essential French New Wave films.

Adieu Philippine (1962)

Adieu Philippine perhaps more than any other film of the movement conveys the capricious, youthful spirit that has become synonymous with the French New Wave. The film centers on the impact of the Algerian conflict on French family life, a topic that recurs in many New Wave films.

Adieu Philippine is director Jacques Rozier’s masterpiece about the trials and pains of growing up, and one of the finest French New Wave films.

Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) (1962)

François Truffaut’s thrilling wartime love story Jules and Jim is a key film of the French New Wave. It tells the story of a love triangle between two young men (Jules and Jim) and their shared fascination with a beautiful young woman named Catherine. Jules and Jim is a film about everything and nothing at once—war, sex, and romance are explored so extensively that they almost obscure the simplicity at the heart of the story.

Last Year at Marienbad (L’année dernière à Marienbad) (1961)

Alain Resnais’s surreal film Last Year at Marienbad is one of the most visually unforgettable works of the period. The film follows three unnamed people (two men and one woman) struggling to assert their identities at a fashionable party.

But nothing in Last Year at Marienbad is what it seems; time and space warp in an instant, objectivity is forgotten, and relationships shift from moment to moment. Writer and critic Mark Polizzotti makes this point in his essay “Last Year at Marienbad: Which Year, Where?” The film is a foundational work that inspired stylistic decisions in The Shining and Memento.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

Although Hiroshima Mon Amour was made by Left Bank group member Alain Resnais, in many ways it launched the French New Wave. It marked a major leap in visual storytelling and film editing. It also showed that French cinema was moving in new directions both technically and narratively. With its explicit sexuality, unrestrained creativity, and novel filmmaking techniques, Hiroshima Mon Amour broke free from the stagnation of the French film industry.

Paris Belongs to Us (Paris nous appartient) (1961)

Paris Belongs to Us is a shocking nightmare in which the world stands at a moral and existential crossroads. The film follows a young woman named Anne who finds herself caught up in a series of absurd situations, all somehow linked to death. After nearly sixty years of debate, the meaning of Paris Belongs to Us remains open to interpretation. Some see the film as an allegory of Cold War tensions, while others compare it to a visual representation of a Kantian thought experiment.

Cléo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7) (1962)

Agnès Varda is one of the most important figures in French cinema, and Cléo from 5 to 7 is her signature work. The film follows two hours in the life of a beautiful and successful singer, Cléo. Despite having the world at her feet, Cléo is more miserable than ever, fearing bad news from a cancer test. Cléo from 5 to 7 employs many typical French New Wave techniques, such as jump cuts, montage sequences, and long takes. It is a deeply moving, optimistic portrait of life, love, and empowerment.

Vivre Sa Vie: Film in Twelve Chapters (Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux) (1962)

It’s hard to find a film more depressing than Vivre Sa Vie. Jean‑Luc Godard’s portrayal of a young woman who becomes a prostitute is as bleak as narrative cinema gets, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great film. In fact, the opposite is true: Vivre Sa Vie is one of the director’s greatest works and a bold step forward for the French New Wave. Anna Karina also steals the show here, playing a well‑meaning woman caught in the cruel, ever‑shifting dangers of society.

Contempt (Le mépris) (1963)

French New Wave filmmakers were deeply inspired by earlier film movements, including German Expressionism, Italian Neorealism, and Hollywood’s Golden Age. Contempt combines the best aspects of all three: it features Fritz Lang, a famous heir to the German Expressionist movement, was shot at Cinecittà, the famous Italian studio, and uses Hollywood archetypes in its story. This is one of Jean‑Luc Godard’s most personal works and a symbol of cinematic freedom and sexuality.

Breathless (À bout de souffle) (1960)

Breathless is widely considered the quintessential French New Wave film. Ironically, many directors from this era, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, did not receive broad recognition in the United States until the 1970s, with the arrival of the film‑school generation—the American “New Hollywood.” Breathless is the film that brings together the New Wave’s popular jump cuts, long takes, and “roughened” style into a single work.

The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) (1959)

What is left to say about The 400 Blows? It is astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking, despairing, hopeful, and liberating. The film completely transformed the landscape of French cinema, and its popularity helped spark the New Wave. François Truffaut tells the story of a rebellious boy out of step with a rapidly changing society—a story as relevant today as it was in 1959. The 400 Blows is not only the best French New Wave film; it is quite possibly the greatest French‑language film ever made. It is the first of four features about the fictional character Antoine Doinel, and is a semi‑autobiographical reflection of Truffaut himself.