What Is the French New Wave? Background and Revolutionary Techniques

The French New Wave permanently changed the way films were made and influenced some of the greatest directors of our time. But what is the French New Wave? How did it start, and why? This article will give you a definition, brief historical background, and highlight some key characteristics of the earliest pioneering movement. As we’ll see, the influence of the French New Wave continues through modern filmmakers such as Tarantino and Scorsese, to name just a few.

Background and Style

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

What Is the French New Wave?

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

Many famous French directors were involved in this 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 this?

Characteristics of the French New Wave:

• Little emphasis on plot and dialogue, which were often improvised
• Jump cuts instead of continuity editing
• Location shooting
• Handheld cameras
• Long takes
• Direct sound and available light (location recording with little or no light adjustment)

A Brief History of the French New Wave

The French New Wave was born in postwar, hungry France. French critics and film lovers, starving for culture and left with only mainstream media that felt stale and contrived, 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 torrent of “new” films. The works of Hollywood giants like Welles, Hitchcock, and Ford energized the French critics, and the rest is history.

Revolutionary Techniques

For decades, mainstream filmmaking—especially in Hollywood—had set the standards and “rules” for how movies should be made. French filmmakers understood these rules…and then threw them out the window. Smaller, lighter cameras were often “liberated” from tripods and shot handheld, bringing new life and energy to films.

Nonlinear and fragmented editing became another important and exciting contribution. For decades, shot A would logically lead to shot B, leaving no gaps 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 (À bout de souffle) became one of the most prominent films of the movement and launched one of the most exciting and artistically significant directing careers in cinema.

Representative New Wave Works

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 French New Wave films better than Bande à part. This is not to say it’s better than its contemporaries, only that it’s more restrained and strikes a perfectly judged commercial balance.

In a nutshell, Bande à part is a fun heist movie, but comparatively conservative, clearly less daring than most of Godard’s work.

Pierrot le fou (1965)

One of Jean‑Luc Godard’s boldest films, this surreal road‑movie‑on‑the‑run stars French New Wave icons Anna Karina and Jean‑Paul Belmondo. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of Godard’s very best work, but thanks to its remarkable cinematography, it is undeniably stunning. It also showcases the unapologetic imagination about sex and romance that was just beginning to emerge in early French New Wave films.

Tirez sur le pianiste (1960)

Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) is perhaps most notable for its use of widescreen photography, but it is also a great and daring story. Following his debut The 400 Blows, François Truffaut faced an almost impossible task, yet he achieved something extraordinary with the technically innovative Shoot the Piano Player. The film is one of the French New Wave works that popularized many Hollywood genre conventions—such as the cold‑blooded American gangster film.

Les cousins (1959)

Les cousins is a gripping psychological drama about two opposing personalities who clash. Charles is naïve and hard‑working, while Paul is an outgoing performer with a natural flair. The only thing they 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. This is one of renowned director Claude Chabrol’s finest 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 who yearns to find the man who abandoned her seventeen years earlier.

Lola has been largely 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 better than any other film of the movement conveys the capricious spirit of youth that has become synonymous with the French New Wave. The film revolves around the impact of the Algerian War on French family life, a theme common to many New Wave films.

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

Jules et Jim (1962)

François Truffaut’s exhilarating wartime love story Jules et Jim is a key film of the French New Wave. Jules and Jim follows a love triangle between two young men (Jules and Jim) and their obsession with a beautiful young woman named Catherine. Jules et Jim is a film about everything and nothing at once—war, sex, and romance in such abundance that they almost overwhelm the simplicity at the film’s core.

L’année dernière à Marienbad (1961)

Alain Resnais’s surreal L’année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad) is one of the most visually unforgettable films of the period. It tells the story of three nameless people (two men and one woman) at a fashionable party, each struggling to assert their own version of recognition.

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

Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

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

Paris nous appartient (1961)

Paris nous appartient (Paris Belongs to Us) is a startling 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 of which are connected to death. After nearly sixty years of debate, the meaning of Paris Belongs to Us remains open to interpretation. Some see it as an allegory for Cold War tensions, while others compare it to a visualization of a Kantian thought experiment.

Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962)

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

Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962)

Few films are more harrowing than Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live). Jean‑Luc Godard’s portrayal of a young woman who becomes a prostitute is as bleak as narrative cinema gets, but that does not mean it isn’t a great film. On the contrary, 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 as a well‑meaning woman trapped in the cruel, ever‑shifting dangers of society.

Le mépris (1963)

French New Wave filmmakers were deeply inspired by earlier movements, including German Expressionism, Italian Neorealism, and the Hollywood Golden Age. Le Mépris (Contempt) combines the best aspects of all three: it features Fritz Lang, one of German Expressionism’s most famous heirs; it was shot at Cinecittà, Italy’s legendary studio; and it uses Hollywood archetypes in its story. It is one of Jean‑Luc Godard’s most personal works and a symbol of freewheeling, sensual cinema.

À bout de souffle (1960)

À bout de souffle (Breathless) is widely regarded as the quintessential French New Wave film. Ironically, many of the era’s directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, were not widely appreciated in the United States until the 1970s with the arrival of the film‑school generation—the Hollywood New Wave. Breathless brings together all the key elements popularized by the French New Wave: jump cuts, long takes, and a deliberately “rough” style.

Les quatre cents coups (1959)

What is left to say about Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows)? It is astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking, despairing, hopeful, and liberating. The 400 Blows is the film that completely changed the landscape of French cinema, and its success helped trigger the New Wave. François Truffaut tells the story of a rebellious boy at odds with a rapidly changing society, a story as relevant today as it was in 1959. The 400 Blows is not only the finest film of the French New Wave, but quite possibly the greatest French‑language film ever made. It is the first of four features about the fictional Antoine Doinel and is a semi‑autobiographical reflection of Truffaut himself.